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41

The End of an Epoch, Report 8 Dec

“There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.” What the heck did […]

42

The Purchasing Power of Capital, Report 29 Sep

We discuss capital consumption all the time, because it is the megatrend of our era. However, capital consumption is an abstract idea. So let’s consider some concrete examples, to help make it clearer. Flipping Homes, Consuming Capital First, let’s look at the case of Timothy Housetrader. Tim has a small two-bedroom house. Next door, his […]

43

Directive 10-289, Report 25 Aug

Everyone must ask himself the question. Do you want the world to move to an honest money system, or do you just want gold to go up (we italicize discussion of apparent moves in gold, because it’s the dollar that’s moving down—not gold going up—but we sometimes frame it in mainstream terms). Gold’s Going Up […]

44

Obvious Capital Consumption, Report 28 Jul

We have spilled many electrons on the topic of capital consumption. Still, this is a very abstract topic and we think many people still struggle to picture what it means. Thus, the inspiration for this week’s essay. Enterprise Car Service Suppose a young man, Early Enterprise, inherits a car from his grandfather. Early decides to […]

45

What Gets Measures Gets Improved, Report 23 June

Let’s start with Frederic Bastiat’s 170-year old parable of the broken window. A shopkeeper has a broken window. The shopkeeper is, of course, upset at the loss of six francs (0.06oz gold, or about $75). Bastiat discusses a then-popular facile argument: the glass guy is making money (to which all we can say is, “plus […]

46

The Elephant in the Gold Room, Report 16 June

We will start this off with a pet peeve. Too often, one is reading something about gold. It starts off well enough, discussing problems with the dollar or the bond market or a real estate bubble… and them bam! Buy gold because the dollar is gonna be worthless! That number again is 1-800-BUY-GOLD or we […]

47

Dollar Supply Creates Dollar Demand, Report 2 June

We have been discussing the impossibility of China nuking the Treasury bond market. We covered a list of challenges China would face. Then last week we showed that there cannot be such a thing as a bond vigilante in an irredeemable currency. Now we want to explore a different path to the same conclusion that […]

49

The Monetary Cause of Lower Prices, Report 12 May

We have deviated, these past several weeks, from matters monetary. We have written a lot about a nonmonetary driver of higher prices—mandatory useless ingredients. The government forces businesses to put ingredients into their products that consumers don’t know about, and don’t want. These useless ingredients, such as ADA-compliant bathrooms and supply chain tracking, add a […]

50

Nonmonetary Cause of Lower Prices, Report 5 May

Over the past several weeks, we have debunked the idea that purchasing power—i.e. what a dollar can buy—is intrinsic to the currency itself. We have discussed a large non-monetary force that drives up prices. Governments at every level force producers to add useless ingredients, via regulation, taxation, labor law, environmentalism, etc. These are ingredients that […]