This document was most recently revised on Sunday, November 27, 2022.
| Prefatory Comments from Here and There (Mostly from There) | Skip the Comments |
| Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he can rob the world. —Tyrell Wellick in Mr. Robot | Economists, like all pseudoscientific charlatans, know that they can hold onto their high-paying jobs only as
long as they can keep the common people convinced that money matters are
so mysterious that only economists can understand them. —Juan Orfo in The Way to Dawnworld, by Bill Starr |
| People read The Wizard of Oz, written in 1900 as a children's fantasy, but other people think it's a story about gold. A country kid from the Midwest loses her house, teams up with a farmer and an industrial worker, and battles wicked forces from the West to the East. The only way to save herself is to follow the yellow brick road, which sure looks like gold to me. And by the way, what's gold measured in? Ounces, or Oz. When she gets to Oz, what does Dorothy find behind it all? A corrupt politician behind the curtains pulling strings and controlling the little people. —Brad Meltzer speaking in Brad Meltzer's Decoded Ft. Knox |
| ... Yes, the United States has been rigging the gold market for at least a half a century.... ... it's certainly good for the United States in the sense of maintaining the American empire because the rigging of the gold price maintains the value of the dollar and maintains the value of U.S. government bonds and it keeps the world using the dollar. The rigging of the currency markets has been the central objective of U.S. foreign policy for at least 50 years.... ... Because the currency market is the most powerful mechanism of imperialism. Occupying a country militarily is nothing compared to controlling its currency market. If you control a currency market, you can get everybody to work for you as your slave. —Chris Powell, Head of Anti Trust Action Committee speaking in Brad Meltzer's Decoded Ft. Knox |
| ... Of all the varied
forms of crime, bank robbery is the most satisfactory to both the individual
and to society. The individual of course gets a lot of money, that
goes without saying, and he benefits society by putting large amounts of
cash back into circulation. The economy is stimulated, small businessmen prosper, people read about the crime with great interest, and the police have
a chance to exercise their various skills. Good for all. Though
I have heard foolish people complain that it hurts the bank. This is
arrant nonsense. All banks are insured, so they lose nothing, while
the sums involved are minuscule in the overall operation of the insuring firm,
where the most that might happen is that a microscopically smaller dividend
will be paid at the end of the year. Little enough price to pay for
all the good caused.... —James Bolivar diGriz, in The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World by Harry Harrison |
| A bank is a den of thieves. A credit card is an inducement
to debt slavery. A government ID number is a
tool of a police state. The entire world economy is a ponzi scheme.—Sam Aurelius Milam III |
| ^ | Counterfeit Problem The problem isn't the counterfeit currency. The problem is the counterfeit problem. |
| ^ | Gold Enough Most of the problems in the economy would be solved if the economy was based on a gold standard. Alan Greenspan agrees with me, or at least he did in the past. You can read his comments on the subject in his article Gold and Economic Freedom. |
| ^ | Interest-Bearing Transactions I've long believed that interest-bearing transactions ruin an economy. However, the economists have enshrined interest-bearing transactions as being almost sacred. People keep wondering what's wrong with the economy. Here's part of the answer. |
| ^ | Liability Ltd.: Corpus Corporatum and Corpus Delecti I spent many years trying to discover a remedy for the misbehavior of corporations. One time I even invoked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission against the General Electric Company. That created a lot of job security for everybody except me. Eventually, I learned the answer to the problem. In principle, it's very simple. In practice, it will never happen. People are excessively greedy and insufficiently courageous. Anyway, here it is. |
| ^ | Money When I was an adolescent, my father taught me the definition of money. During seventeen years of formal education, including a b.s. in nuclear engineering, I never encountered that information again. Now, I've discovered that Alan Greenspan agrees with me, or at least he did in the past. You can read his comments on the subject in his article Gold and Economic Freedom. |
| ^ | Quid Pro Something
|
| ^ | Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief: A Satirical Essay In this amusing essay I proposed a fundamental rationale that explains everything, almost, maybe. |
| ^ | Serial Taxation
When you consider that all funds are taxed at least once per transaction, it's amazing that anybody has any funds at all. |
| ^ | Shadow Taxes I call it Shadow Taxation. That means that the tax doesn't stand alone and isn't even called a tax. It falls upon people as a result of something else that's enacted (so we're told) for a completely different reason. However, the prominent results are control and revenue. |
| ^ | Terminal Condition
Imagine the U.S. economy as a juggling act. |
| ^ | The Solmon Scenario Don't be surprised if you wake up one morning to discover that the value of your entire investment portfolio has fallen, overnight, to zero. |
| ^ | They Can Fool Too Many of the People Too Much of the Time I intended, when I began this essay, to prove that fractional reserve banking increases the amount of cash in circulation. Early in the essay, I proved the opposite. I also discovered that fractional reserve banking doesn't really exist and would necessarily destroy itself if it did exist. Beyond that, I found the existing system to be a sinister deception. Inflation is only one of its evils. The thing I least expected to discover but which ought to have been the most obvious from the very beginning is that none of it would be possible without the willing cooperation of the people. |