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Inflation 
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Last night, I finally met the son of my good friend who built the gym where I practiced gymnastics for many years. During all that time, I had never met that son, because he was in prison. He had been asleep on a couch at a friend's house when a very dangerous and unstable gang member from a South American drug cartel busted into the house with a gun in hand, intent on doing some harm. The son woke up, pulled his own gun, and shot him dead.

If I remember correctly, he was acquitted for that action, but he was targeted by both the justice system and the drug cartel after that. Why he ended up in prison escapes me at the moment, but I was very impressed with the example of humanity he presented me with. In a corrupt and undermined legal system, I found myself wondering how often good people end up behind bars.

He gave me a thick book to read, The Underground Empire by James Mills. Despite having two other books that I am concurrently reading, I've already started it. It starts out like this:

Quote:
The inhabitants of the earth spend more money on illegal drugs than they spend on food. More than they spend on housing, clothes, education, medical care, or any other product or service. The international narcotics industry is the largest growth industry in the world. Its annual revenues exceed half a trillion dollars -- three times the value of all United States currency in circulation, more than the gross national products of all but a half dozen of the major industrialized nations. To imagine the immensity of such wealth consider this: A million dollars in gold would weigh as much as a large man. A half-trillion dollars would weigh more than the entire population of Washington, D.C.

I think I'm going to like this book as much as I liked the son that lent it to me.

Note: James Mills based his calculations on data from the mid-1980s, when the book was published. Gold then was around $325 an ounce. Today, gold is at $1370 an ounce. So today, instead of a million dollars in gold weighing the same as a large man (192 pounds), it weighs the same as a young child (45 pounds). This should give you some idea of the hidden theft the money masters extract from all of our pockets via inflation. The Shadow Stats inflation calculator estimates that a half-trillion dollars in 1985 is actually equivalent to about 4 trillion today. That means the dollar in 1985 purchased 8 times more than it does today. It also means the price of gold is being suppressed, and it should really be twice what it is today, in terms of dollars.

Did you follow all that? Did you do the calculations to verify my conclusions? Very few people do either one. That is exactly why the ruling sociopaths have us so controlled. We have been trained not to think and not to question. We have been trained to silently obey.

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Thu Sep 19, 2013 5:36 pm
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I've often stated that in 1913, the year the Federal Reserve was created, 2 cents would buy what 100 cents buys today. Recently, I revisited that idea.

I read this blog.

I notice our former member dsimon3387 was the first to comment on the blog. I decided to comment as well, and wrote the comment below. Unfortunately, when I went to post, I learned comments were closed. What ever happened to free speech?


Chicodoodoo wrote:
Your arguments are so severely flawed that there is no reason to even check your premises, much less your math.

Everything is in flux over time -- the money supply, the population, the value of the dollar, the goods and services that can be purchased, the subjective "quality of life", the knowledge base humans have to work with, the corruption of government, etc. All of these things complicate any dollar value comparisons. Plus, U.S. government inflation figures are of questionable accuracy, especially after 1971, when they gradually became completely bogus.

In 1912, 1 cent would buy a quality newspaper, like the NY Times. In 2012, the equivalent NY Times newspaper cost 250 cents. Same basic item, very different price. Maybe Ron Paul is not exaggerating after all, but is instead unknowingly understating the devaluation of the dollar.

But if you really want to know about inflation, quit working with money. Instead, translate everything into time. Time stays relatively constant. An hour of work in 1912 is not very different from an hour of work in 2012. How long did one have to work to earn a penny in 1912 in order to buy the NY Times newspaper? How long did one have to work to earn $2.50 in 2012 in order to buy the same newspaper? Of course, for better accuracy, you might want to choose a type of work that hasn't changed much in the last 100 years. It also helps if that kind of work is available to the average person.

I did such a comparison for the period of 1955 to 2005 in the USA. I used the average wages and minimum wages current during each time period. I calculated how much time one had to work at those wages to buy the median automobile and the median home. That should more accurately indicate if there's any monetary inflation going on, wouldn't you say?

The result was pretty consistent for both types of wage earners across the decades. To buy basically the same sort of desirable things, you had to work twice as many hours in 2005 as you did in 1955.

Yes, we've been robbed. Ron Paul is more correct than you are, by my calculations, because that is basically what he's been saying.

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Mon Nov 11, 2013 6:36 am
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The United States of America is finally being recognized as a truly major player in the swindle of inflation (monetary devaluation). The king of inflation, the African country of Zimbabwe, will honor the new-found status of the American dollar by printing up their own version, probably in accelerating quantities if history is our guide.

Quote:
The governor of Zimbabwe’s central bank said it will begin issuing its own version of the US dollar bill. The cash-strapped country will start using the bond notes in October, and expects $75 million to be in circulation by the end of the year. -- source

Of course, with "too big to fail" bank bailouts and the deceptively named financial program of "quantitative easing" ( 1 2 3 ), the United States has had its own currency counterfeited since 1913, when the privately owned, for-profit Federal Reserve gained control of the national currency. Today, a dollar buys what two cents bought in 1913, which means the value of our money has essentially been cut in half nearly six times!

When Zimbabwe decides to print its own version of the U.S. dollar, you know the mother of all financial collapses is right around the corner.

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Sat Sep 17, 2016 7:29 am
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This Is One Of The Big Reasons Why So Many Families Are Feeling Extreme Financial Stress

By Michael Snyder, on February 15th, 2017

When the cost of living rises faster than paychecks do year after year, eventually that becomes a very big problem. For quite some time I have been writing about the shrinking middle class, and one of the biggest culprits is inflation. Every month, tens of millions of American families struggle to pay the bills, and most of them don’t even understand the economic forces that are putting so much pressure on them. The United States never had a persistent, ongoing problem with inflation until the debt-based Federal Reserve system was introduced in 1913. Since that time, we have had non-stop inflation and the U.S. dollar has lost more than 98 percent of its value. If our paychecks were increasing faster than inflation this wouldn’t be a problem, but in recent years this has definitely not been the case for most Americans.

This is one of the reasons why we consistently see families fall out of the middle class month after month. Even if you keep the same job year after year, your standard of living is going to steadily go down unless your pay goes up.

The things that we all spend money on month after month just keep going up in price. I am talking about food, housing, medical care and other essentials. If there is one thing that we can always count on, it is the fact that things are going to cost more tomorrow than they do today. -- source

My "waking up" started over ten years ago with a simple question -- where does our money come from, and who determines how much of it there is? At least, I thought it was a simple question, but looking for the answer made me realize it wasn't simple at all. My research back then was all about money, and especially inflation. We ordinary people were being robbed blind, which meant we were pretty much unaware we were being robbed. That's what inflation is, hidden theft, and I've watched it proceed for more than a decade now. I wrote a lot about inflation in the beginning, but now I tend to write a lot about the type of people who are behind the inflation scam. Inflation is a deliberate con-game, run by a small, secretive group of con-artists. Whereas I used to analyze the con-game, now I analyze the con-artists. It's quite the interesting personal progression, don't you think? But it's a logical one. First, study the immediate problem. Then find out where the problem comes from.

All roads lead to Rome. In other words, to sociopaths.

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Sat Feb 18, 2017 3:45 am
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Doug Casey: Inflation is one of the most misused words; few even think about its actual meaning. What is inflation? “Well, that’s prices going up.” No, it’s not. To say that is to confuse cause and effect. Inflation is an increase in the money supply. You inflate when the money supply is increased by more than real wealth increases.

Prices go up as a result. People have forgotten about that. Today, inflation seems to come from out of nowhere, like a freak storm. No cause. Unless it’s blamed on the butcher, or the baker, or an evil oil company. Nobody ever thinks it’s a central bank—the Fed in the US—that actually creates more money, and causes inflation.

You’ve heard that central banks are trying to create a little bit of inflation because, they say, “A little bit of inflation is good.” No, even a little bit of inflation is deadly poisonous. For two reasons: It creates the business cycle. And it destroys the value of savings. Saving is the basis of capital creation.

People who say that a little inflation is a good thing are dangerous fools. -- source

Perhaps more accurate than "dangerous fools" would be "Followers". Most people who say inflation is a good thing are just parroting what they've heard the "respected" authorities say, like the chairman of the Federal Reserve. But when the chairman of the Federal Reserve says it, he means inflation is good for the Federal Reserve and the ruling sociopaths! He does not mean it's good for the public. In fact, he knows it's bad for the public! But he also knows to give the impression that he and the banksters are working in the public interest so that the public won't catch on to the deception.

Yes, that's the double-speak sociopaths enjoy using. It's a fun little game for them, while the rest of us call it deception.

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Thu Jun 01, 2017 2:49 am
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The ‘almighty dollar’ is no different. One dollar today is worth one cent of a century ago. Although classically one primary purpose of a currency is to act as a store of value, modern currencies are no longer intended to do so. The dollar retains its coveted status only because other currencies are corrupting even faster. The only real check on inflation, every other country is also playing the printing-press game, competing over whose money is the more worthless. -- source

Ten years ago, I was writing a lot about inflation over at the now defunct MySpace, which was once the premiere blogging site on the Internet. At that time, I was providing evidence that a dollar in 2007 purchased what two cents did in 1913. And here we are, ten years later, and the dollar of today buys what one cent did in 1913. Ah, sweet vindication!

I was also expounding on the worthlessness of fiat currency backed by nothing. Bitcoin is a recent example, and before anyone makes the bogus claim that Bitcoin has real value, let me emphasize the most succinct part of the opening quote, which is that current forms of money are competing over which is the more worthless! Bitcoin was an insidious psy-op from the beginning ( 1 2 3 ) and is designed to steer us towards the one world digital fiat currency that the central bankers have planned for us, the perfect control structure for our economic slavery. It will be sold to us as our salvation, but that will be the typical double-speak of the sociopath. The only thing it will save us from is our freedom.

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Wed Jan 17, 2018 6:31 am
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The purposeful inflation of fiat currencies, the very measure of which is rigged to underestimate the degradation of a people’s savings (imagine, in Britain, that the statistic excludes the cost of housing), amounts to a steady, deliberate usurpation of a nation’s wealth, and constitutes the ultimate stealth tax. Deficit-dependent governments love inflation, because they can repay loans of more valuable money with crap money. -- source

Yes, that was basically my inflation message from ten years ago. Inflation is theft, yet the Federal Reserve does everything in its power to maintain an inflation rate above 2% per year in the United States. The Federal Reserve is a private, for-profit cabal of Jewish thieves intent on robbing us blind. And they have successfully done this for over 100 years, devaluing our money to the point where one dollar now buys what a penny bought in 1913. In the process, they have increased the wealth that they control to the point that they are the quiet masters of the entire United States government. Our elections are a sham, because the power behind the Federal Reserve effectively determines who our puppet leaders will be. That is how powerful a "low" 2% per year inflation rate is. It has enshackled the most bountiful nation on the planet and brought it to its knees.

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Wed Jan 17, 2018 8:55 pm
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Since 1913, the Federal Reserve has gone through 18 rate hiking cycles. In 18 out of 18 cases, those rate hiking cycles have ended in either a recession or a market crash.

Do you really think that the 19th time will be different?

10 years ago, virtually everyone thought that the “boom times” would last forever too. But they didn’t. Instead, we plunged into the greatest economic and financial crisis since the Great Depression, but at this point 2008 seems like ancient history to most people.

Yet again we have fooled ourselves into thinking that the good times will just continue to keep on rolling, and once again our society will be in for a very rude awakening when the inevitable crash finally arrives. -- source

Is the mother of all stock market crashes coming?

I have been predicting it for many years. Yet every year, I have been wrong. Why have I been wrong?

Inflation, for one. As the dollar is devalued, the price of everything having stable value has to rise. The price of a home is a prime example. In 1986, I bought my first new home for $69,990. Interestingly, a few years later, I could have bought a similar home down the street (in foreclosure) for half that amount during one of the economic crises of that era. Today, the very same home I bought in 1986 sells for $225,000. It's still basically the same house, but today's dollars are worth much less than 1986 dollars. So the price of the house has to increase to account for the devaluation of the dollar due to inflation.

The "price" of the stock market behaves in much the same way. So the market keeps going up, even though many astute financial observers say the bubble has to pop soon. But the big crash never seems to come. Why not?

ted41776 wrote:
i doubt it (that the big crash is coming). virtual printers don't need paper or ink. government will just make more fiat currency appear out of thin air to keep their pensions funded as they have done for decades. markets will not crash because there are no markets.

Did you catch that? There are no markets! I was always predicting the big crash because of the way I have been taught to think of "markets". But there are no markets! It's an illusion, theater for the masses.

We have been taught that capitalism functions due to free markets. But the stock market is not a free market. It is rigged. It is controlled. It is fake. So is capitalism, but I'll leave that subject for another day.

So now I'm no longer predicting that the market will crash. The market will zig zag up and down, like it always has, but the general trend will be ever upwards. With a steadily manipulated fiat currency like we have, that is constantly devalued due to the creation of ever more fiat currency, it is inevitable that prices will rise. Including the price of the stock market.



Image
-- source

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Sat Jul 21, 2018 4:02 am
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What is inflation? Rising prices? No, it is our money losing value.

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What we experience is goods and services going up in price, but inflation is actually the value of our money going down. -- source

The following chart shows how American price levels have changed dramatically ever since private bankers took control of our money (via the Federal Reserve).



Image



In 1933, the fleecing of the American public began. We have been robbed blind ever since then.

Quote:
Three characteristics about this chart leap off the page.

  1. Prices were relatively stable from 1774 to 1933
  2. Before 1933, disruptions in the price level coincided with major wars
  3. The parabolic move higher in price levels after 1933
-- source

So what changed?

Quote:
After 1933, price levels begin to rise, regardless of peace or war, and at an increasing rate. This happened for two reasons:

First, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) took the United States off the gold standard in June 1933, setting the stage for the government to increase the money supply and run perpetual deficits. FDR, through executive order 6102, forbade “the hoarding of gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates within the continental Unites States.” Further, this action ordered confiscation of all gold holdings by the public in exchange for $20.67 per ounce. Remarkably, one year later in a deliberately inflationary act, the government, via the Gold Reserve Act, increased the price of gold to $35 per ounce and effectively devalued the U.S. dollar. This move also had the effect of increasing the value of gold on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet by 69% and allowed a further increase in the money supply while meeting the required gold backing.

That series of events was followed 38 years later by President Nixon formally closing the “gold window”, which was enabled by the actions of FDR decades earlier. This act prevented foreign countries from exchanging U.S. dollars for gold and essentially eliminated the gold standard. Nixon’s action eradicated any remaining monetary restrictions on U.S. budget discipline. There would no longer be direct consequences for debauching the currency through expanded money supply. For more information on Nixon’s actions, please read our article The Fifteenth of August.

The second reason prices escalated rapidly is that, following World War II, the U.S. government elected not to dismantle or meaningfully reduce the war apparatus as had been done following all prior wars. With the military industrial complex as a permanent feature of the U.S. economy and no discipline on the budget process, the most inflationary form of government spending was set to rapidly expand. Excluding World War I, defense spending during the first 40 years of the 1900’s ran at approximately 1% of GDP. Since World War II it has averaged around 5% of GDP. -- source

Inflation is a insidious scheme of the ruling sociopaths to gain more and more control over the masses.

And it has really worked well for them (at our expense).

Note: The chart uses the inflation figures of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, which have been periodically redefined to understate the real inflation rate. This means the parabolic rise in American price levels is even worse than indicated by the chart.

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Mon Nov 05, 2018 7:40 am
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I started driving in 1973. I drove my father's 1964 VW bug. It would get 30 mpg on average, and I remember that gasoline cost 24.9 cents per gallon. The VW gas tank held 10 gallons, and I could fill up on empty for less than $2.50. The average cost per mile for fuel was a bit less than 1 cent per mile (0.83 cents per mile). 0.83 cents per mile.

Today it's 2018, 45 years later. My 1997 Toyota Tercel gets at least 35 mpg on average. Gasoline costs $2.80 per gallon (more than 10 times as much as 45 years ago). So now my cost for fuel is 8 cents per mile, or 9.6 times more than 45 years ago. But how does that really compare to 1973, since the dollar has been constantly devalued over time by the criminal Federal Reserve?

For that I turn to ShadowStats.com. According to the bogus Bureau of Labor Statistic (BLS) figures, $100 in 1973 is worth about $558 now. But using ShadowStats' figures, which don't underestimate inflation in a compounded fashion like the BLS does, $100 in 1973 is worth $3,165 now! Yes, clearly the U.S. government has been very effective at fooling us about inflation.

This means one cent in 1973 is worth the equivalent of 32 cents today (and not 6 cents as the U.S. government BLS figures claim). So by using the ShadowStats figures, if my 1964 VW bug were driving around today, it should cost 0.83 x 31.65 cents for fuel for each mile driven, or about 26 cents per mile. But my Tercel actually costs 8 cents per mile for fuel. So what does that mean?

It means the price of gasoline today is a lot cheaper than it should be, according to ShadowStats. Today's gasoline price should be 24.9 x 31.65 cents per gallon, or $7.88 a gallon. By comparison, the BLS figures would put it at 24.9 x 5.85 cents per gallon, or $1.45 a gallon (which shows how the BLS underestimates inflation).

But could it be that ShadowStats has overestimated inflation?

Possibly, but I doubt it. Keep in mind that we do not have a free market for oil and gasoline, or energy in general. Fuel prices are controlled to squeeze as much as possible out of the public without generating volatile discontent. And because the value of money is being constantly manipulated, that makes comparisons over time extremely difficult to calculate in terms of money. This makes the understanding of what is really going on almost incomprehensible for the general public. And that is by the deliberate design of the real controllers of this planet, the ruling sociopaths.



Image
Note: This chart uses the bogus BLS inflation figures, so the red line is not accurate. But it is interesting.

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Sat Nov 10, 2018 5:56 am
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