Friday, January 9, 2009

Time to look up Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Out of curiosity, I looked up the definition of "counterfeiting". According to Merriam-Webster:

counterfeit - to imitate or feign especially with intent to deceive ; also : to make a fraudulent replica of.

The Federal Reserve Bank and US Treasury are printing dollars out of thin air, at an alarming rate. They've done so repeatedly. How is this any different from counterfeiting?

In fact, since the Federal Reserved Bank was formed in 1913, the dollar has declined 97% in value. In other words, today's $1 bill is equivalent to $0.03 almost 100 years ago.

Meanwhile, an ounce of gold 5,000 years ago got you some nice threads. Today, it still enables you to get a nice suit. The US Dollar? Not sure you can get a brand new Calvin Klein suit for $15 these days.

Deficit spending is essentially government-sanctioned counterfeiting. And as Milton Friedman correctly surmised, "Inflation is taxation without legislation."

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