America, the Un-American

The direct link between sound money and civil society...

DON'T GET ME WRONG, writes Dan Denning for The Daily Reckoning's Australian edition.

   We have a lot of respect for our many American readers. Many of them are long-time readers, friends, and family. I was born and raised in Colorado, lived on the East Coast (Baltimore and Washington DC) for ten years before moving to Europe (Paris and London) for three years, and now Australia for the last three years.

   And besides, it's not Americans we're upset with. It's American politicians.

   We can't tell you how many times in the last five years people asked if we were Canadian, as if we'd be embarrassed to admit we came from the US. Far from it! We love the idea of America, where people live and let live, where you can say what you like, work as hard as you like (and keep your money), and where all the virtues of a liberal society are brought to life.

   But today's America – largely thanks to the worst generation of political leadership in the country's history and an inherently flawed money system that forces people into debt – is nothing like the idea of America. Not even close.

   So if we're critical of the current monetary regime and political leadership, it's not because we're being un-American. It's because America doesn't practice American ideals any longer – especially not the political class, which looks out for its own interests and treats people like tax animals to be farmed and (when need be) slaughtered for some ill-conceived policy mess of their own making.

   In terms of economic ideals, America's gradual move toward socialized risks and everyone living at each other's expense makes people both less free and less wealthy. Keep in mind that Karl Marx never expected communist revolutions in pre-industrial states. He declared that communism was the natural evolution of a capitalist industrial economy after workers grew sufficiently alienated from their production. Marx would probably look at modern day America and nod knowingly.

   The US Dollar is the symbol of all America's monetary and political corruption. It's the tool used by American policy makers to steal away the purchasing power of ordinary people through inflation. We are forced to use it, even as it's worth less and less each year. Meanwhile, American policy makers rack up enormous debts to make promises they know they can't keep.

   These debts must be paid by future generations either through higher taxes or more borrowing from foreign lenders, both of which will inevitably result in more money printing and further declines in American purchasing power. Lower standards of living are the inevitable result.

   If you mess with value of a currency, you also mess with the durability of other values. There's a direct link between sound money and civil society. The debasement of our money has lead, in many different, aspects, to the debasement of our culture, politics, entertainment, sport, and business ethics.

   So that's why we're so nasty about the people who have a monopoly on money printing in the United States. They've abused that function to the great detriment of the American people. There should be more outrage and more contempt and a lot less respect for the institution of central banking. It will be the ruin of all of us.

   Hopefully not this weekend, though. And the upside? Throughout human history, people have tended to use one commodity more than any other as a medium of exchange: Gold. It's a lot cheaper now than it was a month ago.