6-16-13 (2nd post) A FEW WORDS ON CURRENCY DEBASEMENT
June 17, 2013That's right.
It is 10 p.m.,
exactly,
and guess who is in the mood
to write about monetary inflation.
Moi?
Yes.
Perhaps many of you
are noticing that
the price of nearly everything you buy
is slowly but very steadily
creeping ever upward.
I have noticed that my costs
have accelerated by at least 30%
during the last year.
Most people have no idea why this is so,
and effectively believe
that it is just in the nature of things.
But, nothing could be further from the truth.
First, before explaining further,
I would like to share with you
some experiences of mine
in the last runaway inflation
during the 1970's,
complete with long gas lines
and many gas stations
with no gas whatsoever.
I was a student of economics
and economic history,
and knew exactly what was going on,
as did many others
who would take the trouble
to read the classical economists,
such as
Adam Smith,
David Ricardo,
Frederic Bastiat,
and John Stuart Mill,
not to mention the king of them all,
Ludwig von Mises,
and his teachers Eugene Bohm-Bawerk
and Carl Menger,
the fathers and founders
of the Austrian school of economics.
Now, the point I am leading to
is that all of the persons
who were responsible for the runaway inflation
denied any knowledge
even as to what monetary inflation is,
much less what it's pernicious
and pervasive influence
causes to happen to prices of all goods.
It was a shameful episode,
and one which I shall never forget.
I decided then that the next time
we have gas lines
that I will print handbills
to give to everyone in line,
explaining exactly
why it is that this is happening.
This pretended lack of knowledge
on the part of all academics
and politicians
was all the more disingenuous
and inexcusable
because this country was born
in a hyperinflation
from which came the phrase
"not worth a continental".
That was the currency which was in use
which was printed into worthlessness.
The French had also had a similar episode
during the French Revolution
in which you could have said
"not worth an assignat".
For they did the exact same thing
as the original thirteen colonies had done,
with the very same results.
I say this to remind
that there simply was no excuse.
One could have also looked
at the hyperinflation of Weimar Germany
as another example of the same process.
Yet, just when you most need
to know such things,
all of a sudden all of your pretended leaders
(and you wonder why I call the clowns?)
all of a sudden know nothing
and can only offer obfuscation
and various mythologies
and fairy tales
in place of known historical realities.
While I do not want to get more
into the specifics of these events,
at this time,
I am telling this to let you know
that when it happens
everyone who was responsible
will deny all knowledge or culpability.
Just like on 9-11
where it was ultimately claimed
by then President Bush
that everyone had screwed up,
and therefore no one had.
(I don't believe one single word
of that
and do not expect you to,
but am only using it
as an example of the kind of nonsense
you may be sure you will hear)
Everyone and no one are opposites.
They cannot both be happening simultaneously.
This is known in logic and rhetoric
as a "reductio absurdum"
if ever there was one.
Maybe even oxymoronic;
but I am not real sure about that one
without thinking more about it.
So, I shall begin your reality lesson
right here and now.
I like to use the following illustration
when trying to illuminate persons
regarding this matter.
We will begin with a thought experiment.
The entire economy of this country
will equal one ounce of gold.
First, our bankster friends
began by issuing gold receipts
against the gold which they held on deposit.
That would be this one ounce,
in this example.
The first receipts were for 1/10 of an ounce.
Then they got more bold,
and made receipts for 2/10 of an ounce.
Finally, after finding out just how easy this is
to get away with,
they made receipts worth
the entire one once of gold.
So, we now have one piece of paper,
which I shall call a "currency unit"
for this one ounce of gold.
The paper and the gold are now at parity
i.e. 1:1 ratio.
The gold is the money
(known as specie
at the time this country was founded).
The paper is not.
It is but a representation of the money.
Remember, it is a warehouse receipt
taking the place of the actual money.
Things are going so well for the banksters,
who are sitting on your gold deposit,
but using deposit receipts
in place of the gold
that they decide they cannot get enough
of a good thing,
such that they now print
an additional gold receipt
and begin using it
in place of the one ounce of gold,
in addition to the other receipt
which they already are using
while pretending that it is the money,
instead of the specie
which actually underlies the receipts.
So, there it is.
You did not need caculus
or even geometry
or algebra
to figure out what is going on here.
Those are merely obfuscations
with no necessity in real fact.
There was one piece of paper,
where there are now two pieces of paper.
So, now the gold is "valued"
first as one currency unit,
but then later,
as two currency units.
That is the increase in price
which you so often hear about.
That is what the current reflation
by doubling the amount currency
is all about.
Notice that I said currency,
and not money.
That is because the scraps of paper
are not money.
They are tokens
being used in place of real money.
They are the same thing as
scrip
or Chuck E. Cheese tokens,
or bus tokens,
or monopoly money.
I am not exaggerating.
They are literally the very same thing.
The specie is the money,
for reasons I will explain later,
while the currency unit
is only a representation of money.
Over time, the scrip is represented,
through knowing deceit,
as the money
and is then called such from then on
with the actual money
now being called a commodity,
like wheat or corn or soybeans,
which it most assuredly is not,
and never has been.
Before going on I must remind the dear reader
that gold and silver have been used as money
for over five thousand years of known history.
When you see the word money
in the New Testament,
written two thousand years ago,
you are actually reading a mistranslation
of the word "silver".
Because silver was the money.
When you read that
"the love of money is the root of all evil",
a closer look at the Greek text
will show that it actually says
"the love of silver is a root of all evil".
There is no definite article,
and the word translated money
is the word "silver".
That is to say,
the two had been considered one
and the same
for so long
that there was no word for money,
as we understand it today.
That is,
as something separate and apart
from the silver, itself
(scrip wasn't invented until the 1200's,
by the Chinese,
which brought on the first hyperinflation in history,
by the way).
So, first one currency unit.
And then two currency units.
Let's call the currency units "dollars".
(as an aside,
dollar comes from the word Thaller,
which was an Austrian silver coin
minted by the Hapsburgs
and used commonly in the colonies;
for larger transactions
they used Spanish gold coins)
So, we quickly went from the "value"
i.e price
of the one ounce of gold
as one dollar,
to two dollars.
So now, your food prices just doubled.
And the prices of everything else just doubled.
All of this at the whim
of a group of hucksters
who are simply counterfeiting.
That is the entire essence
of what is going on here.
Print one more currency unit
which we have labeled as a dollar,
and now the price of the one ounce of gold
is three dollars,
with your food prices
and prices of everything else
now tripling.
Notice that the purchasing power
of each individual dollar
has diminished proportionately
to the counterfeited units of currency.
Oh, but do not miss the other side of this equation,
as so many so often do.
If I am the guy printing the counterfeit currency
I have just gotten something for nothing.
It's not really a free lunch,
because it is costing everyone else
who is using the pieces of scrip.
But for the maker of this,
he is getting to pretend
as if he has first two times as much gold specie
as he in fact does,
and then he gets to use
three times as much.
You can only imagine
how much governments
and other free lunchers
would like to get ahold of
such an alchemical formula
for instant wealth.
Yes, I have just transmuted
one ounce of gold
into three ounces of gold,
with me having all of that purchasing power
by essentially defrauding everyone around me.
You can see that this is likely
to put a systemic strain
upon the social contract
upon which social cooperation relies.
It is corrosive,
by it's very nature.
While on this subject
I want you to be very circumspect
as you realize that the "value"
has not changed at all.
Only the price has.
The one ounce is now said to be "worth"
three currency units.
In fact,
it is worth no such thing.
Any more than anything else
can change value
by virtue of counterfeiting.
It is by confusing "money" with scrip,
and "value" with price
that our genius obfuscators
can get away with a great deal of mischief.
The terms which they use
are purposely confusing and ambiguous.
As the father of Austrian economics,
Carl Menger,
a contemporary of Adam Smith,
was quick to explain,
"value" is subjective.
It is as changeable as your perceptions,
and can change just as quickly.
There are times when a loaf of bread
can exceed the value of a lump of metal.
So, what is the true value of the lump of metal?
Whatever you want it to be.
This is the great insight of Menger
which caused Ludwig von Mises
to explain that value
cannot be precisely measured.
It cannot be measured at all,
much less with calculus
and higher mathematics.
In fact, it is arithmetical,
if anything,
requiring only your ten fingers
to figure out
what it is that is going on here.
So, now to apply this to your current situation.
The price of food is said to be going up
while the value of stocks and other assets
is said to be also going up.
In fact, the value is doing nothing
and can change drastically and dramatically
from one moment to the next.
One only need to look at the wild gyrations
in the stock markets
to easily see that this is the case.
The assets are not increasing in value.
They are increasing in price.
Increase in price is the result of ineffeciency.
Increase in value is purely subjective.
So, why do we speak of the value of the stocks going up,
but we do not speak of the value of the food going up.
For both are doing the same things
for the same reasons.
This is because the lie is so easily exposed
once you realize that the value of the food
has not changed at all.
Only the price has.
And the price is nothing more
than a reflection of the amount of scrip
(counterfeiting)
which has been added into circulation.
The currency is pretended to be the money,
which is just one more layer of obfuscation,
along with all of the ridiculous mathematical jargon
which is thrown in to confuse you even more,
so that you will just shut up
and accept this permanent state of theft
by a group of persons
pretending to be a government.
In fact,
they are anarchists.
The end result of currency debauchment
is total social disintegration,
after all.
Don't believe this?
Then go take a hard look at Weimar Germany,
and how Hitler came to power.
Or look at modern Zimbabwe
(once the very wealthy colony of Rhodesia),
that is if you can get past the fences
which are meant to keep prying eyes out.
I must take a break for now.
It is 11:00 p.m., and I am tired.
I hope I have given some food for thought here.
You are being systematically ripped off.
And that in an institutionalized form.
It was my great, great, great grandaddy,
the infamous river boat gambler
(and a very successful one at that),
John Law,
who showed the French government
how to take this process
to such an extreme
as to bring on the French Revolution.
Maybe we should get into that next.
I will consider the matter further.
A goodnight to all of you.
And may God bless.
And remember,
knowledge is power.
And a lack thereof
is not a good thing.
w/ love to all of you
vw
6-16-13
Sunday
11:04 p.m.
Ventura, California, USA
p.s.
while I am thinking about it,
I have been choosing the photos
which I promised to post.
May take a couple of more days.
Hope to get them posted soon.
Posted by Vincente E. Woodward.
