Today, while walking through the grocery store parking lot, I noticed a penny on the ground. I picked it up, spun it in my fingers, observed the scratches in the dark copper, and pondered the value of a penny.
In olden days, our money was made out of metal that had an intrinsic value, and the value of the metal set the value of the money made of it.
Nowadays, the government has produced money in such quantities that it struggles to find metal sufficiently worthless that coins made from it will be at least as invaluable as the coin’s face value.
It parallels the first two Tales of Inflation written about by Les Jones. We are repeating the same monetary follies that corrupt administrations have committed many times before, and yet we refuse to believe that we will suffer the same consequenses they suffered: increasingly severe booms and busts, ballooning national debts, incredibly bloated government, endless war, and eventually, hyperinflation and the collapse of the society.
And to think, reversing the trend would only require trading in our worthless paper currency for gold and silver!
That’s because politicians are only interested in how things work/look while they are in office. Anything before or after that can be blamed on the other guys. There is no long range vision or even interest.