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Well, friends, it’s quite safe to say that this week I have too many things to talk about. The dial has been turned up to 11/10 in terms of the heat on the subjects of today. Everywhere I look I see incredible, yet incredibly controversial subjects that would require more than just a few hours- worth of reading to really dig into the meat of the subject. Not to mention the proverbial minefield of trying to maintain a professional relationship with my peers while carefully detailing the nuance of such dark matters….
Being a bit of a history geek, I am of course eager to dive into the hot-bed topic of “The great-replacement theory, and how absolutely insane people sound when they explain this as if it’s some grand master plan to replace one group of people with another. Or how we easily conflate it with the very real problem of our votes having vastly growing numbers of outside influence year over year due to an ever-growing welfare state and open borders.
Yet the idea that one race of people is replacing another is some Goebbels-level delusion that I would honestly avoid outside of the casual conversation. While Buffalo NY was an absolute tragedy, I really feel it’s safe to say that kid was pretty quickly identified as delusional, and not welcome to the adult table to begin with. That is a road of thinking that does not end anywhere rational… ever.
So no, I will not likely be diving into that one anytime soon.
And attempting the pro-choice/pro-life conversation will also likely lead nowhere, given the fact that we are still trying to attempt to argue what a woman even is. Let alone where most of us believe life begins. Science tends to confuse us when we are able to label bacteria as a sign of life on Mars, yet not apply the same label of “life” to the heartbeat of a child growing within its mother… or… uhh…. father?
This world is getting rather strange…
Instead, I want to talk about something simple, yet unbelievably misunderstood, or quite frankly actively ignored. Because I have a belief, that most of the problems we face today, including the ones I mentioned above, are either completely motivated by, or obfuscated by…
Money
I think it’s safe to say, we have a very rudimentary understanding of money. Everyone knows that money makes the world go around. However, when you don’t have money, well your world doesn’t really go very far, does it? Your opportunities are quite limited when you have no money, and your base level of happiness tends to also be significantly harder to reach a sustainable level. Yet if someone has a lot of money, they seem to have the world at their fingertips. Or at least that is what we perceive.
But does anyone really have a firm grasp on what money is, or what it represents? I mean how could we when it represents so many necessities of life. Money is the thing we trade for food, shelter, entertainment, education, and the very structures we really upon to function as a society. Without money as a structure, it is commonly believed that we would likely be more animalistic and downright barbaric in our attempt to stay alive.
The very definition of money is a commodity that is accepted through general consent as a medium of economic exchange. The medium in which values of goods and services are expressed. Meant to circulate from person to person and country to country, facilitating trade. Designed to be the principal measure of wealth.
We simply understand it as a store of value that we use to trade for the things we need, or the things we want.
But where does the value come from? What gives money its desirability as a store of value. Most would argue complicated systems like the stock market, real estate, politics, banking, and art & culture.
Understandable of course because if any of these avenues receives some sort of large influx of cash, the entire value of our dollar seems to fluctuate in tandem with them. Or at least it used to when money had a value of scarcity.
Back before the 1930s, our dollar was tied to a “limited resource” such as gold or silver. This gave us a decent understanding of the value of our labor, or the commodities we exchanged and made it difficult for prices to increase as the value of the dollar didn’t fluctuate as heavily. I mean how could it? There was only so much gold to go around at the time.
When the stock market crashed in 1929, the public panicked and began hoarding gold. Shortly after taking office in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a banking moratorium to prevent everyone from making a run on the banks due to a complete loss of confidence in the market. He did this while also forbidding banks from paying out or exporting gold. The idea was that if they could inflate the money supply in the federal reserve, this would in turn give the dollar more value, which would be one of the key factors in pulling the American people out of the great depression.
A few months later, FRD would order all gold coins or certificates worth more than $100 to be turned in for other forms of payment. This would require all Americans to deliver all gold coins, billions, and certificates to the federal reserve for exchange at around $20 per ounce. The price would go up to $35 per once shortly after the federal reserve collected around 300 million dollars’ worth from the American people. This rubber band effect not only increased the value of the dollar back to a reasonable level and essentially pulled the nation out of the depression.
The $35 per ounce gold value would hold until 1971 when President Richard Nixon would remove the Gold Standard, in order to fight inflation. Introducing America to a fiat currency. Essentially a currency backed only by the government that issued it. A dollar that was based purely on confidence in the system. Removing the safety net that provided value to the dollar. Since the United States was the economic superpower of the world, this in turn forced the entire world to also float above nothing, the entire world depending on confidence in the system.
Like removing your training wheels… while riding a unicycle… over a ladder… across a canyon…
And they never went back…
I mean why would you? If you could solve all of the problems of the world, by just making more of the thing you need to survive in the world. Inequality had always been a recognized problem, but what if you could just give the poor more money? What if you could just make everyone rich?
Introducing…. THE MONEY PRINTER
“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.”
―
The money printer is a well-known meme at this point. As it should be. It was like a button the government could always fall back on to solve their problems. At first, they were rather conservative with the button. Only used to fix problems with inflation. The idea was simple. As long as there was enough industry to handle the amount of money in circulation, the dollar would not be over-supplied and still keep its same value. As long as jobs were being created at the same rate that the dollars were being printed, then everything would still balance out.
Basic supply and demand. The more of something that exists, the less it is worth. However, if something is in high demand, then it generally is valued. If the dollar starts to lose value, then just increase the number of facets it has to transfer through, by creating jobs or expanding out of your country. A great way to ensure that your money is always worth something is to always have a buyer. If you don’t have a buyer, just make one!
How do you make one?
Well, if you don’t have any of the things listed above, then the easiest answer…
Go to war.
“Endless money forms the sinews of war.”
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
Ah yes, war. What is it good for? Well, it turns out it’s SUPER good at circulating money.
Guns, bombs, tanks, and all the fancy stuff you see on TV, well those take A LOT of money to make. Wars are not cheap; you really have to spend a decent chunk of change to fight a war. You have to spend even more if you want to win a war. The good news is even if you start to lose the war, all you have to do is just print more money. And if you win the war, then you can take extra resources and sell them to other countries to make your money worth even more!
Remember how I said that inflating the federal reserve was on of the key factors that pulled America out of the Great Depression? Well World War Two was akin to injecting a steroid needle directly into the economy. From WW2 onward the American Dollar was essentially over-valued which led to an INCREDIBLE rise in industry.
Of course politicians and scholars took notice that having such high costs of labor for the manufacturing of weapons and ammunition was phenomenal in increasing the value of the dollar. However war was always something that most countries regarded as a last resort. I mean in this enlightened age, it was becoming increasingly harder to convince the nation to go to war.
I remember as a kid watching the events of 911 take place, and hearing all of the adults angry and upset wanting to go to war. I remember being very confused when I heard that instead of going into the “bad guys” country in Afghanistan, we ended up going to war in Iraq. I even remember being naive enough to think that it was all “the same area” and that there were probably alot of bad guys… and going back to play with my Bionicles.
And then, many years later, I distinctly remember the minute I learned that not only was the war in Iraq was based on a lie, but that millions of Americans were tricked because we needed to go war for “other reasons.”
No wonder everyone is ending up crazy
But the funny part is that a few years after that revelation, I can honestly say that I understand why they did it. Even with my monkey-brained level of economics, it all makes complete sense. People are greedy, and they want to be able to print out crazy large amounts of money, and then have that money become worth something.
And nobody loves going to war more than our government…
“It’s a big club, and you ain’t in it.”
– George Carlin
To end this, let us fast forward to now. It was declared just a few weeks ago by the smart-looking doctor guy on TV that we are past the “pandemic stage” of COVID-19. A lot of jobs were shut down and the economy almost ground to a halt. The money printer was running hotter than ever in order to keep people “afloat” which has in turn made our dollar incredibly devalued. Everywhere you look prices are higher than what most people are making as “essential employees.” Groceries break your paycheck, and everyone is tired as can be. The TV won’t shut up about how this is the fault of Russia or some other nonsense and that you should be angry at the previous administration for putting you in this predicament.
The people running the printer, also tend to be the exact same people telling you what you are supposed to believe. They all know you don’t have time to care. They know that people are frustrated, and they are tired. They know that if they brow-beat you enough with nonsense, eventually you will either collapse or just side with them in their delusions. They know that if they keep poking and prodding at something sensitive, you will eventually have had enough, and you will want someone to pay for the damage that has been caused to your life.
