Lies the government told you by Andrew Napolitano (big screen ebook reader .TXT) 📕

who would question the impact on the value of the dollar without the backing by gold, and for whom the example of the Continental does not suffice, compare what you could buy with an ounce of gold only forty-five years ago as compared to today. In 1964, an ounce of gold was worth thirty-five U.S. dollars, which could buy a gentleman a very nice business suit; in 1979, the same suit could be bought for three hundred U.S. dollars, coincidentally, the price of an ounce of gold at the time;25 today, a nice suit can still be bought for three hundred U.S. dollars, yet the price of gold is now around twelve hundred dollars an ounce. And if that were not enough, the prices of oil, milk, and eggs have not actually risen; that is, they are worth the same if priced in 1908 twenty-dollar gold pieces; rather, the only thing that has changed is that the dollar of today has the same buying power as the nickel of a hundred years ago.26 These are just some illustrations of how unstable the purchasing power of fiat money is compared to gold, of which the same amount can buy today what it could buy forty-five years ago.

Requiem for a Dollar

Economist Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University recently noted that “the US crisis was actually made by the Fed. Monetary expansion generally makes it easier to borrow, and lowers the cost of doing so, throughout the economy . . . The Fed, under Greenspan’s leadership, stood by as the credit boom gathered steam, barreling toward a subsequent crash.”27 This is shocking candor and a damning admission from a Big Government guy.

It looks as if we haven’t learned from our mistakes, as recently a new proposed bill would grant the Federal Reserve sweeping new powers. Even the Washington Times sometimes forgets that the Federal Reserve is a privately run corporation, as it claimed the Fed is “. . . already arguably the most powerful agency in the U.S. government.”28 When even the conservative media reports the Fed to be a government agency, you know that the deception spawned by the government has been so pervasive that no one thinks to question the myth. Until we realize that our monetary situation is run by a private banking cartel, we cannot gain stability in the economy and the dollar will continue to plummet.

In the same article, the Washington Times quotes Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, attempting to justify the new, broad powers being granted to the Fed, stating that we need to prevent future crises, and in order to do that, in order to make our system stronger, we have to give one entity “clear accountability, responsibility and authority for preventing future crises.” This sounds like a recycled Wilson speech right before enactment of the Federal Reserve Act. It also sounds like someone utterly ignorant of history or willfully deceptive about it.

Once again, an expansion of the Federal Reserve Act is being called for in the guise of a need for economic stability. Proponents claim that granting expanded powers to a central regulatory authority is the only way to ensure that stability occurs. Will we keep ignoring the lessons of history and allow the government to continue to delude us into believing that it is running the Fed and we need the Fed to keep our economy stable? How can one say with a straight face that because we worry that private bankers will go off the deep end and cause an inflation, we should therefore ensure that a group of bankers working together will ensure that this does not happen? They never have in the past and won’t do so now. And the government now appears to believe its own lies, as President Obama is expounding the Fed’s role as supercop of the markets and is expounding that he will not let the country forget history.

The President might not let us forget the federal government’s version of history, but maybe he should take a look a little bit further back and note that the economy has become more and more unstable the more that power has been given to the Fed. As Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Chair of the Senate Banking Committee, once made clear, giving the Federal Reserve more power is like awarding your son a bigger, faster car right after he crashes the family sedan. Maybe this time we should listen. Thomas Jefferson foresaw this two hundred years ago, when he said: “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

Lie #9

“It’s Only a Temporary

Government Program”

Milton Friedman, the esteemed Nobel prize–winning free market economist, famously noted, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program,”1 and, “The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.”2 Examples of temporary government programs that have become permanent fixtures include income tax withholding, rent control, and social security.

Another example is the National Defense Act, which was created in 1916 during World War I and was also used in World War II. It is known to be the most comprehensive piece of military legislation ever passed by Congress. The Act permitted the President to make obligatory orders in times of war that take precedence over any market forces or lawful private contracts. The government is then allowed to seize operations of private companies for the purpose of wartime efforts at whatever price it has deemed appropriate, and any resistance would result in a felony. By setting prices below market value, the federal government was able to conceal the true costs of both World Wars. The Act was a violation of private property rights, and the Supreme Court has since eliminated executive wartime power to seize private property