Inflation Is A Form Of Tax, A

In Practice [monetary Management] Is Merely A High-sounding Euphemism For Continuous Currency Debasement. It Consists Of Constant Lying In Order To Support Constant Swindling. Instead Of Automatic Currencies Based On Gold, People Are Forced To Take Managed Currencies Based On Guile. Instead Of Precious Metals They Hold Paper Promises Whose Value Falls With Every Bureaucratic Whim. And They Are Suavely Assured That Only Hopelessly Antiquated Minds Dream Of Returning To Truth And Honesty And Solvency And Gold.

The Most Obvious And Yet The Oldest And Most Stubborn Error On Which The Appeal Of Inflation Rests Is That Of Confusing ‘money’ With ‘wealth’…real Wealth, Of Course, Consists In What Is Produced And Consumed: The Food We Eat, The Clothes We Wear, The Houses We Live In. It Is Railways And Roads And Motor Cars; Ships And Planes And Factories; Schools And Churches And Theaters; Pianos, Paintings And Books. Yet So Powerful Is The Verbal Ambiguity That Confuses Money With Wealth, That Even Those Who At Times Recognize The Confusion Will Slide Back Into It In The Course Of Their Reasoning.

Competition Always Tends To Bring About The Most Economical And Efficient Method Of Production. Those Who Are Most Successful In This Competition Will Acquire More Capital To Increase Their Production Still Further; Those Who Are Least Successful Will Be Forced Out Of The Field. So Capitalist Production Tends Constantly To Be Drawn Into The Hands Of The Most Efficient.

A Hundred Welfare Programs, Spending More And More Billions, Lead To Chronic Budget Deficits, Which Lead To Increased Paper-money Issues, Which Lead To Higher Prices.

The More Things A Government Undertakes To Do, The Fewer Things It Can Do Completely. When The Government Tries To Do Everything It Must Do Everything Badly.