An Economic Overview: A Non-Economist's Opinion

Particularly as the third millennium begins, speculation regarding the economy is rife. This is especially true in America, where the election debacle has, as such things do, caused a stock-market flutter. I recall wondering, as a youth, why President Eisenhower's heart attack should have anything to do with stock prices; and thinking, as I still do, that there is risk in investing in anything whose value can be so easily influenced by psychological factors.

So let's cut to the chase: what's the economy going to do? It's going to fail. Probably more slowly than abruptly, but it's going to fail. Not hyperinflation. That points directly to the money as defective. Depression. Unemployment. Someone else's fault; not the money managers/creators!

Well, that's just one man's opinion, of course, but everything you read on these pages is one man's opinion, even if other men share it. (And mine is shared by at least two other folks!)

We've pointed out often enough that a fiat economy, based upon the use of "debt" as money, is bound to fail, as the perpetual creation of money, burdened with interest, to repay prior debts, cannot do anything but fail, eventually, when the debt burden becomes to great to justify further lending, even for government projects which exist for virtually no other reason. Economically, fiat currencies MUST fail! Our rulers certainly know this.

In addition, there is the political factor. Our rulers WANT the economy to fail. The proof of this is their insistence that the economy is "strong," and their constant harping on their plans to keep it strong and growing. The election in Florida makes it clear that political leaders and their spokesmen will earnestly insist that two and two is five if a) they think they can get away with it, and b) it fits their agenda. What kind of agenda would profit from economic failure?

In a word, or two: more government! Government is a big business: indeed, the biggest and most profitable imaginable. But is any business big enough? Does Bill Gates want Microsoft to grow? Does the filling station on the corner want to sell more gasoline? The business of government is the plundering of the productive citizens, via control and regulation of their lives. In fact, "govern" means "regulate, limit, or control." Government's problem is that a productive people do not need government, except in a negative way, to protect their rights, including, and especially, their right to property. Modern governments don't do that. Our rulers need to justify their existence, and they do this by bringing about such conditions as can be sold to the people as requiring government "help." Government, in other words, wants us dependent. For every problem, real or imagined, there is a government program. If the American economy fails, more and more people will subject themselves to government for the promised benefits. And if the American economy fails, the economy of the entire world will suffer, justifying—to some—the emergence of a super-state, or One World Government, which will promise to put a chicken in everybody's pot, or, from another, more realistic, point of view, cook everybody's goose. Economic hard-times, in other words, offer the politicians fulfillment of the dream that has burned in every ruler's breast since Alexander the Great: The Whole World Is Subject To ME!!! And all it takes is a little tweaking of interest and exchange rates. Sure beats the sword!

More evidence can be adduced from the situation of the Amish in Pennsylvania. They want exemption from child labor laws so that their youngsters can work in their shops and stores. One Amish gentleman was recently fined 800 when his thirteen year old girl was "caught" operating the cash register in his store. These child labor laws are designed, ostensibly, to "protect" youngsters from hazardous occupations, such as work in woodworking shops, which many Amish operate, since the family farm has become too expensive to maintain. (And why do you suppose that is?)

Who, do you think, is more entitled to be concerned about a child's safety and welfare: his parents, or a stranger in a distant statehouse? To whom is the child subject: his parents, or the officious official? Is there economic significance in this? There is economic significance in everything the rulers do! For one thing, it will impose an economic hardship on the Amish to have to hire nineteen year old workers for their lumber mills. (The job which is too hazardous for an eighteen year old becomes innocuous on the 19th birthday. That's the law!) Imposing economic hardships is a prime government objective, of course. The rulers have a program to aid those experiencing economic hardships! Just sign up, and, of course, obey the rules! The essence of modern government.

Additionally, children not allowed to work will have to attend school, where they will be carefully led into the paths of ignorance, so that by graduation, they will know nearly nothing of their American heritage and traditions, and a lot of things which are not true.

Tragically, even the Amish seem to agree with the government's presumption of its ownership of their children, because they are not arguing that the federal government's rules do not apply to rural Pennsylvanian children, (or any other!) but rather, that they be exempted from those rules; thus granting them a soft of backhanded legitimacy. And the economic significance? If everyone's property and children belong to the government, as they obviously do, judging not by words but by actions, then everyone is under government control, limitation, and control; i.e., government by its very nature. What kind of people are most easily controlled? Vital, hard-working, knowledgeable productive people? Or the economically depressed, unknowing, dependent people?

An informed, productive, independent citizenry is not in the public interest. (The government refers to its own self-interest as the "public" interest). The government has everything to lose, and nothing to gain, from the appearance and growth of an intelligent, productive, independent population. Economic failure is inevitably not only because a fiat economy must fail as naturally as a stone thrown into the air must fall, but because those to whom we have given our lives to rule and control have long recognized that they can do that job easier if we are poor and ignorant. Between the Federal Reserve System and public schooling, they guarantee that we are, or will be, just that. The assumption of the Presidency by a man who, we are assured, will find it difficult to obtain any consensus for his actions, may be the very trigger needed for the money-managers to pull the rug out from under the economy. In any event, it's inevitable.