The story of the “nation’s monetary system” as controlled by the “robber barons” of the Federal reserve is even better than global warming for the purpose of demagoguery. It’s too abstract for average people to understand completely and it sounds really scary. What a powerful way to mobilize the masses.
I think the real conspiracy is that the conspirers are perpetuating a false story of a conspiracy.
Here’s a question for you: what if the supposed scam of the Federal Reserve “robber barons” had never been put in place? In what way would we have benefited? Could our nation possibly have been more advantageous to the poor and middle class than it has been to date? Is it not somewhat questionable to propose that the United States is the greatest example of freedom and prosperity that has ever existed, yet somehow it is run by a system of “robber barons” who have been keeping us down for the past century or so?
We were doing fine before we ceded our monetary system to private banks. Inflation was relatively stable for the first 100 years of our history during the years we were on a gold or silver standard. Lincoln violated those rules during the Civil War, but we returned to sound money after its conclusion.
The inflation of the past 100 years speaks for itself. Every dollar you save during your youth will be more than halved in value by the time you retire, on average. That's outright theft. And it is by design.
The freedom and prosperity you talk about is somewhat hollow when we think about the loss of representation we've suffered because of the wresting of control over our economic system by the group of business leaders who led the charge (secretly by the way) for the Federal Reserve system.
This is a fairly complex story and it takes time to learn. I can't do it justice when compared to G. Edward Griffin video documentaries some of the other von Mises publications. The John Birch society also has some excellent material on these issues. Please seek those out for yourself and learn about the real history of these private institutions that control our money.
I'll be content to let you wait until the end of the year, when gold hits $1500 for your answer.
*******Here’s a question for you: what if the supposed scam of the Federal Reserve “robber barons” had never been put in place? In what way would we have benefited? Could our nation possibly have been more advantageous to the poor and middle class than it has been to date? Is it not somewhat questionable to propose that the United States is the greatest example of freedom and prosperity that has ever existed, yet somehow it is run by a system of “robber barons” who have been keeping us down for the past century or so?******
Since the trace of a gold standard (Nixon closing the gold window), the top 1% of the people in the country have increased their share of the total wealth from 35% to at least 45%. (probably 50% now as the 45% is an old number.)
It is probably worse as the way of calculating the CPI was changed during the Clinton administration. Because of that change some people believe that the increase in the CPI has been understated by about a 1/3. But even if it was only understated by 15%, that would still mean that the middle class and lower have suffered a significant drop in their standard of living. With SS and a lot of other entitlements linked to the CPI, there is a big incentive for the federal government to understate the CPI.
Inflation hits the lower classes much harder. Especially as wages do not increase fast enough to overcome inflation.