Undoubtedly, though, inflation aggravated every evil, ruined every chance of national revival or individual success, and eventually produced precisely the conditions in which extremists of Right and Left could raise the mob against the State, set class against class, race against race, family against family, husband against wife, trade against trade, town against country.
— Adam Fergusson, When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse, pg. 2
One thing is certain, the future is unknowable.
There is no method, infallible or otherwise, that can accurately predict events. Spoiled by the results of technology, the credulous assume our so-called experts, with their incorruptible integrity and luminous titles, can somehow navigate us through reality like a fool-hearty sailor commanding the sea through dictate. All the while the educated class point to sophisticated models and analyses, not recognizing the extensive and meticulous validation necessary from prior events that describe possible events using similar conditions, not a knowable and certain future.
And because of unpredictable and “impossible” events, the world changed forever. Many of us lost our livelihoods, ended relationships, and saw the true and ugly face of society, usually well hidden by fake smiles and pretend lives.
I personally bid farewell to a career, many so-called friends and family members.
Reality loves to shatter false beliefs.
A few years ago I discovered something.
At the time I had savings I wanted to invest, but from my personal experience, prudence means extensive research, study and preparation before sinking any time or money into a subject, and I spent a lot of time accumulating those savings. Aside from the job market, I was affected by the 2008 financial crisis in a limited way, but I knew many were not so fortunate. The irrationality of home prices was (and still is) evident, and I wanted to make more sense of why this was happening, especially since conditions were more or less flat for the greater part of the last century.
So here was my simple line of thought.
What’s a dollar?
We spend our lives working for dollars, saving them, “pinching” them, cigar burning them, but what is it? Like seconds represent a unit of time, what does the dollar unit represent? Prior to 1935, the United States used a bank note and a Silver Dollar containing 0.77 toz of silver as the unit for 1 dollar. In this instance, a dollar represented a physical material of fixed mass.
This is closer to the answer I wanted.
Prior to 1935, the United States and virtually every other country, used fixed metal weights to define a dollar, because the economic value of the underlying metal was relatively consistent. However, political convenience ended the anchor of bank notes to physical metal, and 1 dollar was no longer 0.77 toz of silver, it may have been 0.71 toz, or more, or less, all depending on the market rate.
Fast forward to 2023, 1 dollar can purchase 0.046 toz of silver.
Let’s quickly look at some prices.1
Wisconsin 1963 chicken was $0.29/lb, but November 2023 chicken is estimated around $2.49/lb. 1 dollar in 1963 purchases 3.45 lbs of chicken, 1 dollar in 2023 purchases 0.40 lbs of chicken, and a Silver Dollar at spot in 2023 purchases 6.72 lbs of chicken.
However, using the 2 star Walmart chicken price at $5.84/lb, 1 dollar purchases 0.17 lbs of chicken and a Silver Dollar purchases 2.87 lbs. Quite a bit less.
Let’s look at income, since “wages keep pace with inflation.”
Median income in 1963 $4,500.00 = 3,465 toz of silver.
Median income in 2023 $69,243.76 = 3,185 toz of silver.
Let’s look at house prices.
Median house price in 1963 $20,012.18 = 15,409 toz of silver.
Median house price in 2023 $430,300 = 19,794 toz of silver.
So people are paid less in terms of silver, 2 star Walmart chicken costs more, and houses cost more. Funny how the “official” chicken price is different than the 2 star Walmart price. I guess look for the 2.5 star $2.78/lb Walmart chicken if you can…
No hormones.
Why are dollars that no longer use the fixed metal reference worth so much less?
Calculations always make more sense when performed relative to a fixed point.
How could a dollar be worth less and purchase less over a period of time? If more dollars are needed to purchase goods, and the value of one good is relatively consistent with the value of another good, this implies more dollars are chasing the same goods, which is caused by fractional reserve banking. Fractional reserve banking uses reserves (e.g., deposits) to back loans, which introduces more currency units into circulation. With this scheme, wealth is transferred to entities closest to credit creation from entities holding dollars as reserves (e.g., savings).
Fractional reserve banking rewards debtors and punishes savers.
This is completely backwards from what I was taught, but evident in the cost comparison from 1963. Apparently, saving dollars long term makes no sense, but saving physical assets, real estate, or having the ability to produce goods like chicken, does. This is the ultimate consequence of inflation, which uses earnings saved in dollars to fuel the economic and political system by growing the currency supply.
This is a world fuelled by theft and deceit.
While we pretend this theft is a necessity, activist cults, who squabble with demands to resolve the symptoms caused by this contagion, become evermore incentivized to destroy. Through taxation, inflation and extremism, a ruling body now has the potential to implement a frightening new reality and consolidate power.
As an individual, this discovery required extensive thought and action.
I assumed the majority knew enough history to avoid repeating its worst outcomes (yes, niave), and so, I focused on making myself recession and depression proof by getting rid of debt, learning traditional skills and developing preparedness plans for what I thought were reasonable scenarios.
Political ramifications and activist extremism were not on my radar.
I thought we were smarter than that.
2019 rolled around, and I had made a habit of watching the financial markets daily to anticipate potential problems. On September 17th, 2019, overnight interest rates jumped from 2.43% to 5.25% to a high of 10%. While the cause was a “mystery,” I recognized that this event signified serious instability in the US credit market, which is the basis for economic activity and a lot of savings. Not a good sign.
Months later at the beginning of 2020, things took a turn I never expected.
I did not expect a pandemic declaration, nor the government’s mad response to shutter businesses, but what shook me the most was the public’s response. Market liquidity was most certainly provided after a brief deflationary period in March, but I did not anticipate so many to line up and twerk to the government’s song and dance.
I had no interest in the matter, because the events did not look like a circumstantial accident to me, and the rhetoric broke every rule and heuristic I followed. My preparations, while fruitful because it gave me the ability to resist coercion, was not enough to stop a rabid public and their rites that betrayed common sense.
How do you research, study and prepare for that?
2021 was an abomination.
Many failed to follow their own principles.
The Hypocritic Oath.
However, I swore to never violate my professional ethics, which in my line of work includes pursuing adversarial relationships with authority when something is demonstrably wrong or unsafe, and despite the social pressure and perceived threats, I could not violate my principles. The perceived threats became real when I refused to disclose my medical status and provide invasive test results, which included showing myself with the test on camera to a supervisor. An insane thought in itself.
Shortly after, I was forced to resign (i.e., constructive discharge) and the union I belonged to, the one which was legally required to represent my interests and protect my rights, tried to convince me to give in.
“How are you going to get by without this job?” my representative asked. I have never been more disgusted with an organization or human being in my life.
Those of us fired or forced to resign were now an easily identifiable group.
Madness was spreading throughout the world.
Governments began the next rounds of punitive measures as Quebec began to suggest a tax, and if implemented other provinces would likely follow suit. What would happen if this punitive tax went unpaid?
With madness widespread, the mindless applauded.
The media poised the population to segregate and alienate its fellow citizens.
“Where would this have ended?” is a question that haunted my thoughts, and still does to this day. How far is too far in times of crises and panic? Incarceration?! Worse?
Fortunately, a silent majority felt the same. In early 2022 Canadians organized and participated in the Freedom Convoy, which drastically changed the course of events.
Prior to the protest, various governments in Canada had flirted with ways to "encourage" vax uptake. Some fun ideas tossed around were: withhold healthcare from the unvaccinated, tax the unvaccinated, maybe even go door-to-door to "check" vaccine status. Once the protest occurred, this type of talk stopped immediately.
The convoy caused provinces to drop their mandates.
People who think that the mandates ended because they were already scheduled to end conveniently forget that governments at that time felt at liberty to arbitrarily extend mandates as the expiration date approached.
Many are still paying the price for their involvement, but I shudder to consider if they had not. I cannot predict the future, but I could see its direction was dark, and I may not be sitting here now if those sacrifices were not made.
Grateful and thankful are shallow words for how I feel.
But the precursor never vanished.
The “event” I anticipated after 2019, compared to what actually happened, was nothing like I had imagined, except in my worst nightmares. Despite the sacrifices of many, that same financial contagion is still there, except an ugly truth has been revealed shattering my naive beliefs. The minds of the public are frail, weak and susceptible to pressure. Disregarding common sense, wickedness takes the stage in times of crises.
So what of the precursor? The real contagion.
Is hyperinflation off the table? No.
But if once public opinion is convinced that the increase in the quantity of money will continue and never come to an end, and that consequently the prices of all commodities and services will not cease to rise, everybody becomes eager to buy as much as possible and to restrict his cash holding to a minimum size.
This phenomenon was, in the great European inflations of the 'twenties, called flight into real goods (Flucht in die Sachwrte) or crack-up boom (Katastrophen- hausse). The mathematical economists are at a loss to comprehend the causal relation between the increase in the quantity of money and what they call "velocity of circulation."
— Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, pg. 423-424
Is hyperdeflation off the table? No.
When the “Everything Bubble” is imploded, we will face a deflationary depression, which will span many years, even decades. This coming Great Deflation is intrinsic to the Great Taking.
The Architects have assured that they alone are positioned to take everything, and that you and your children are positioned on the other side of that, i.e., to lose everything, to be enslaved and even destroyed by it. People will be knocked down, and not be able to get up again. That is intentional, as the populace has been systematically encouraged to go deeply into debt. Whom the gods would destroy, they first cause to borrow at low rates of interest!
— David Rogers Webb, The Great Taking, pg. 62
What are people capable of if either happen?
Will they come together in peace and solidarity like in 2022? Will they reveal an even darker side like in 2021? Is it possible to protect ourselves in this worst case scenario, where the entire world forfeits reason and throws themselves down to false idols?
Even now, we are saturated and surrounded by madness.
History can provide a useful guide.
This fiscal inequity would alone have been enough to intensify the enmity between urban, industrial and commercial circles on the one hand and the farmers and property owners on the other.
In the countryside the landowners and farmers were less affected than anyone, producing most of their own essentials and putting up commodity prices as regularly as the shopkeepers. Landless peasants were not doing so well, and the large number of casual labourers whose wanderings had been limited by the new confines of Hungary formed a particularly destitute class.
— Adam Fergusson, When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse, pg. 61-62
As a guide, I interpret this as leaving Babylonian urban areas and becoming more self-reliant, but is that enough? Escape from the system is impossible, and there’s no mountain retreat full of ascetics. Relocating may help, but running away will not. I need to learn to live with the people who yearned to hunt me down, and who could betray or crucify me during desperate times. Again, how does anyone prepare for that?
These are questions I struggle with.
I have no interest holding on to anger, bitterness or rage, but the causal problem is not gone. There’s a flicker of evil that lives within so many, too many. CBDCs, UBI, and social justice scams are tools that will lock us into a neo-feudal system of subjugation and control, and I refuse to accept that dark fate with a whimper. Human suffering is a preferable state to having your soul imprisoned by the devil.
Like so many, all I can do is pray for forgiveness and grace.
And pray I can get back on the broken horse and prepare for the next chapter.
$1 / $0.29/lb = 3.45 lbs
$1 / $2.49/lb = 0.40 lbs
(1 SilverDollar / 0.046 toz/$ * 0.77 toz/SilverDollar)/ $2.49/lb = 6.72 lbs
$1 / $5.84/lb = 0.17 lbs
(1 SilverDollar / 0.046 toz/$ * 0.77 toz/SilverDollar)/ $5.84/lb = 2.87 lbs
$4,500 * 0.77 toz/SilverDollar = 3,465 toz
$69,243.76 * 0.046 toz/$ = 3,185 toz
$20,012.18 * 0.77 toz/SilverDollar = 15,409 toz
$430,300.00 * 0.046 toz/$ = 19,794 toz
You are a very insightful (and funny) man. Appreciate your honesty and perspective.
The flicker of evil that you speak of is burning brighter each day. Hatred and division stoked by those who want to bring our society to its knees is rampant. For me there is no other answer than to pray that these times will produce stronger smarter people. God willing.