Tuesday, September 15th, 2026
Bill Bonner, from Poitou, France
Although there are countless maladies that are forever causing the decline of kingdoms, princedoms, and republics, the following four (in my judgment) are the most serious: civil discord, a high death rate, sterility of the soil, and the debasement of coinage. The first three are so obvious that everybody recognizes the damage they cause; but the fourth one, which has to do with money, is noticed by only a few very thoughtful people, since it does not operate all at once and at a single blow, but gradually overthrows governments, and in a hidden, insidious way.
—Copernicus
The man who took the earth out from under our feet and set it spinning around the sun found time, in his off hours, to notice something rather more delicate: that a nation may be swindled as well as robbed.
NBC News, with the lead story on Friday:
Diesel hits all-time high of $6 per gallon and just about everything will cost more
Price increases are in the news. And perhaps for the first time ever, we see a flicker of understanding...a spark in a forest of dead wood...in the (almost) mainstream press. The Washington Examiner:
Stop blaming corporate greed — the real reason you can’t afford anything is fake money
Sen. Rand Paul (D-KY) recently, and quite uniquely, nailed the true cause of the affordability issue. It isn’t corporate price gouging or other standard, conventional scapegoats — such as greedy corporations, or deregulation, or heavy regulation, or environmental restrictions on “drill, baby, drill.”
It’s about the money.
Asked about the source of the price increases for diesel, however, people are most likely to blame either Iran, for cutting off oil exports, or Donald Trump, for starting the war. Both are guilty, as charged.
But the bigger culprit is the one Sen. Paul identifies. The feds began with real, gold-backed money. It kept prices stable for nearly 150 years. Then, in 1971, the feds added a new kind of money — fake money, trillions of it, backed by nothing.
And since there is plenty of nothing...and very cheap!...
And since it is far easier and faster to produce fake money rather than real money (no gold needed!)...
And since it is also easier to ‘print’ this new money than it is to make refrigerators or grow avocados...
The volume of money greatly surpassed the volume of goods and services it was meant to buy.
And there you have it...the whole gaudy spectacle stripped of its Ph. D upholstery, reduced to a few simple sentences. Tom sent us the startling proof on Saturday. As part of a huge study, involving 167 nations over 67 years, researchers found the US had a long-term money supply growth rate of 7.4% — or more than 2x GDP itself. Guess how much gold went up? 7.6% — almost exactly the same. And the S&P less dividends? Again, 7.5%.
In other words, the fake money created the whole Bubble Empire.
In the 1960s, the nation struggled to finance the Vietnam War...along with the Great Society at the same time. But with this new fake money, the whole economy could be pimped up...‘financialized’ so that not only could Wall Street get a bigger piece of the action, the whole guns-and-butter program could be charged to an account no one had to settle. Attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran and others...could be paid for with fake money. Americans had to make no sacrifice…except for those who died.
Was it worth it?
That’s a question you don’t have to ask…not when you can ‘print’ the money to pay for it. Like a lottery winner, America enjoyed a spending spree.
Over the weekend, the media put on a black armband, wrung its hands and beat its breast, trying to recall 9/11...and the lessons learned since. Most of the commentariat focused on the ‘mistakes’ that came after — notably US foreign policy blunders in the Middle East.
But those ‘errors,’ too, were merely another consequence of fake money. A war you have to pay for is one you have to discuss, analyze and justify. The public must be persuaded, not simply bamboozled.
The basic template of all organized societies is this: those that have want to have more. Elites find reasons for non-elites to hand over their wealth and power. What restrains them is real money itself. The People only make so much of it…and they give it up no more readily than a hungry Rottweiler parts with a T-bone steak.
The US Constitution specifically gives the people’s representatives the right and responsibility to decide how much of their money they will give up. All spending and taxing has to be approved by them.
But the fake money runs rings around Congress. The People never earned it. They never saved it. It wasn’t taxed from them or lifted from their pockets. And then, prices rise.
People feel they are being robbed. But they can’t pick the felon out of the line-up.
They curse the ‘greedy rich,’ and vote for more swindlers.
Regards,
Bill Bonner
Private criminals steal and risk going to jail.
Publicly funded criminals steal and risk nothing more than being replaced by another thief.
It’s expensive being a peasant.
Again, nicely laid out. You have been beating this drum a very long time and seem to continue to refine the explanation. The vast majority of people can’t distinguish between money and currency. Which is precisely the way politicians want it and bankers need it. Please persist with your quest.