What Government Is Doing to Our Money (Lew Rockwell)

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   By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. -- Mises Insitute

  [This speech is also available in MP3 format.]

  The cultural and economic consequences were devastating. A generation was punished for having saved and accumulated capital. Debtors were rewarded for their profligacy — the government the biggest debtor.

  This period of our financial history was called the Age of Inflation. But did it really come to an end? The problem is that we've continued to live through the late 1970s, just stretched out over a greater period of time. The dollar of 1990 is today worth 64 cents. And yet we call this a low rate of inflation. Thus was the same level of devaluation accomplished.

  In some ways, it is perverse that we should be sanguine about inflation. It would be as if we screamed bloody murder if someone broke into our houses one night and stole all our flatware, our electronics, and our precious metals. But if the same burglar had the key and came in every day to just grab a fork, an iPod, and a Krugerrand, should we happily announce that we are experiencing a low-burglar rate?

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