Duke that is a pretty reasonable formula for preserving existing wealth, but it does not speak to the problem of wages constantly losing value (and tax brackets creeping up).
Let’s say I was saavy enough and had time and space enough to buy and sell commodities with my monthly paycheck savings. The amount of commodities I could by each month will continually go down unless my wages kept increasing with inflation. For the last twenty years, wages have not tended to to that, and it is getting worse not better.
So-called “rising living standards” for the last twenty years or so are a result of kicking mom out into the workplace and making her a taxpayer too while the kids are raised in daycare by workers making near minimum wage. This is a formula for societal collapse IMHO, but big government and big business both love it.
When I was a kid, my allowance may have only been 10 pennies, but I knew a penny would buy 1 piece of bubble gum. That was my “commodity”. I remember when it went up to two pennies. Now it is at least a nickel, and the gum is not as good. In terms of bubble gum, the buying power of the dollar has lost 80% of its value in my life time. That’s a problem. The answer is an honest dollar whose value is constant, not asking every American to become a commodities trader.
“Duke that is a pretty reasonable formula for preserving existing wealth, but it does not speak to the problem of wages constantly losing value (and tax brackets creeping up).”
If you wish to discuss wages losing value, then adopt the commodities standard for money. Take gold. Since the supply of gold is constant, when the population doubles, the amount of gold per person is cut in half. What does that do to wages?
“The amount of commodities I could by each month will continually go down unless my wages kept increasing with inflation.”
But the value of the commodities you held would have increased in value in proportion to the inflation rate.
My point was that it is rather easy for an individual to live on a commodities based standard of money. Use your money to buy commodities. One wonders if Ron Paul has done so?
“For the last twenty years, wages have not tended to to that, and it is getting worse not better.”
I’m making about three times what I was 20 years ago.