Please note that every time government gets involved in a service or product, like education or health care, the cost goes up and the quality goes down. We know that you could have tripled your money if you had invested it, instead of forced to give it to Social Security—which will be bankrupt in 2026.
“According to historical references, Keynes, in an interview with Lenin, the Soviet dictator, said virtually the same thing: debauching the currency will destroy capitalism.
In America, the currency is being debauched.
On March 10, 2022, the federal government of the United States announced that from February 2021 to February 2022, prices in America rose 7.9%. This rate of inflation is the highest in 40 years.
Let’s go back 60 years — to 1962. What cost $1.00 in 1962, costs $9.31 in 2022. Expressed another way, the 1962 dollar is now, in 2022, worth 11 cents.”
Imagine, we no longer blink when Congress is spending $1-4 trillion in a single bill. We expect government waste and corruption, government officials getting rich and the voters lied to and abused (the $33 billion train to nowhere now costs $150 billion, for instance).
By Richard Colman, Exclusive to the California Political News and Views, 3/14/22
How often do a English aristocrat and a Bolshevik revolutionary agree on something?
The English aristocrat was Lord John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), perhaps one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. According to Wikipedia, Keynes “ . . . was an English economist whose ideas fundamentally changed the theory and practice of . . . the economic policies of governments.”
The Bolshevik revolutionary was Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), the first head of the Soviet Russia. Again, according to Wikipedia, Lenin “. . . served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924 and of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924.”
Why are Keynes and Lenin the odd couple?
According to Keynes’ 1919 book, “The Economic Consequences of the Peace,” “ . . . the best way to destroy the capitalistic system [is] to debauch the currency.” The book was written shortly after the end of World War I.
According to historical references, Keynes, in an interview with Lenin, the Soviet dictator, said virtually the same thing: debauching the currency will destroy capitalism.
In America, the currency is being debauched.
On March 10, 2022, the federal government of the United States announced that from February 2021 to February 2022, prices in America rose 7.9%. This rate of inflation is the highest in 40 years.
Let’s go back 60 years — to 1962. What cost $1.00 in 1962, costs $9.31 in 2022. Expressed another way, the 1962 dollar is now, in 2022, worth 11 cents. These figures come from the federal government. Critics of these numbers say that the government is underestimating the true rise in prices.
Will the inflation over the last 60 years end the capitalist system in America? To be candid, the American system contains elements of both capitalism and socialism.
Since 1913, the role of government is America has expanded, perhaps dramatically. In 1913, America adopted the federal income tax and established the Federal Reserve, a federal body that has the power to set interest rates and print money. (Today, money is not really printed. Some sort of computerized system is used.)
In 1935, Congress passed and President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. The act takes tax dollars form American wage-earners. The funds collected are to provide money for elderly people and others.
In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Medicare program, a plan to provide elderly Americans with health-care coverage.
Under other presidents, especially Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joseph Biden, the role of the federal government became — and has become — even larger. (Nixon, Reagan and Trump, were and are Republicans. Obama and Biden are Democrats.) Under all of these presidents, the federal budget kept growing, and more and more of the nation’s output of goods and services became related to government spending.
In 1981, Reagan’s first year as president, the national debt reached $1 trillion. Today, the national debt is over $30 trillion.
The odd couple, Keynes and Lenin, may have been totally correct: Debauching the currency will mark the end of capitalism in America (and perhaps elsewhere).
