Nobunaga wrote:We make what we deserve to make. That's all there is to it.
No. Deserve has little to do with it. You make a fair wage, you can pay your mortgage, bills, food, a little bit of entertainment and even put some of that money away in savings. Along comes the central bank and through monetary policy devalues the currency you are paid in.
Now, still making that same wage, you can pay your mortgage, bills, food and put a little bit away, but you have to cut back on the entertainment.
More dollar destruction comes along. You get a raise but it doesn't keep up with inflation.
Now you can pay your mortgage, bills, food, but you've cut out virtually all entertainment and aren't able to save.
More dollar destruction.
Now you can pay your mortgage, bills, but you have no entertainment, no savings, and have to be frugal with your food costs.
More devaluation.
Now you struggle to pay your mortgage, have to be selective in the bills you pay. To get food on the table your spouse has to enter the workforce and what used to be a fair wage and got you everything you needed all by yourself, now it takes two people. The children are now being raised by the public schools, left alone and don't have the positive influence from the parents as much as they used to, which leads to problems.
This is the plight of the average family from 1970 until today and it's all because of dollar devaluation.
The devaluation comes as a way to pay our debts. Inflate the debt away, the most insidious tax, the hidden tax. Insidious because it steals your time, the one thing that is the most valuable thing a person has, time.
Currency is a representation of time. It's a fact, there was a time when a family could get by on the income of a single parent and get along just fine. Not anymore. And that leads to other problems. We have to work more and more, sacrifice more and more of our time, and for what? We aren't getting anything more than we used to.
Nobunaga wrote:Those who struggled through university to graduate with a valuable degree, demonstrating a measure of self control (saying "no" to constant partying) are making more than those who failed to do likewise (speaking generally of course, as exceptions always can be found).
This is true enough, the grasshopper suffers while the ant thrives.
Nobunaga wrote:
Artificially raising the value of their unskilled labor, as has been discussed at great length already, hurts pretty much everybody - even those it is meant (or at least meant to appear) to assist.
Artificially raising the value of unskilled labor is not nearly as great a problem as artificially lower the value of our currency.
The price of goods when measured in other mediums than the dollar shows exactly the problem.
In 1970 the price of bread was 36 cents. An ounce of gold was $36.02. You could buy almost three loaves of bread for a dollar. You could buy 100 loaves of bread with an ounce of gold.
Today, a dollar won't buy you even a single loaf of bread, but an ounce of gold will buy you some 700+ loaves of bread. Gold hasn't become more valuable, the currency we use have decreased in value.
The price of bread has decreased, it's gotten cheaper, but not in currency. This is the case with everything we buy. Since we get paid in currency, our ability to purchase things suffers. The devaluation of our currency is faster than the amount of pay increases we get.
If you attempt to pay your employees in gold, you'd be arrested and thrown in prison. Thus the supremacy of this currency which is under the control of a small group of people is maintained. Through force.
When we compare the costs of things we buy, anything, if you compare side by side using debt based currency on the one hand, and virtually any other commodity on the other, you'd find that the cost of almost everything has actually decreased. As it should, at this time in our history never has the human race been so productive as we are now.
But we get paid in that currency that is forever and always being destroyed. Destroyed not for the benefit of the average person, but for the benefit of a select few at the detriment of everyone else and future generations. Too few understand this, but those that do will thrive. For everyone else, we are doomed to a continuing decrease in the amount of time we have to pursue those things which bring us fulfillment. It is economic slavery and is the exact opposite the purpose of money. And it is the true root of our problems in society.
How many are truly economically free? Very few as it stands now and it's only getting worse.
But truly, even though it's bad now, if one is wise they can still prosper. Get out of debt, stay out of debt, use your money wisely even though it's an ever decreasing value, and one will be fine. Unfortunately, too few really understand how to actually do this. And we suffer for it. One would do well to be a net producer than a net consumer. The net consumer is destined to end up in the poorhouse no matter what, and that trip is merely hastened when the currency is constantly being debased.