A fiat currency and debt-based economy have lowered Americans’ standard of living. From Tim Hartnett at lewrockwell.com:
In the bad old days, before G-Men took down the mob, were urbanites getting a better deal? Does the betting man receive worse odds from state run lotteries than Vinny gave on the corner running numbers? Did businesses shaken down for “protection” have higher hopes of survival in mob clutches than in municipal ones? Was there more or less anxiety about making rent or the mortgage in 1974 than in 2024? Which is the greater fiscal peril, organized crime or uber-societal-organization? It has become a valid question.
Gangsters had fingers in a lot of pies. Credit card racketeers, waging the present battle against physical currency, demand a slice of everything out of the oven. They’d gladly have us believe that paying for anything, without their supervision and cut, equals a criminally tainted transaction. Mobsters found their pecuniary prevalence legit in its way too. Transactions that jibed with their economic codes they called “kosher.” Other trading activity inside their ambit was deemed transgressive. Parasites tend to sound tiresomely alike. The difference is that the above ground finance industry finds no place outside its ambit.
Street people’s encampments clutter cities all over the country. What pushed so many over the edge? And how many are treading that edge carefully now? We know that insanity is somewhat genetic, but scientific observation has yet to prove external factors can’t nudge innately inclined individuals into psychosis. Facts point that way.
Should we harbor suspicion of so-called improvements in the finance system? The Bush-Obama era housing crisis arrived after the government gradually amped up its influence on the mortgage market. Once mortgages became de-localized and Wall Street joined in default skyrocketed and losses went international. Isn’t the NYSE supposed to make markets safer and more efficient? Have we seen anything like that coming out of financial centralization?
Is that why everyone could afford nice suits and jalopies back in the day?
Oh…the dollar was worth more and backed by gold.
Good times.
Tell me more about these glorious victories the past 80 years in “police actions” that only result in demilitarized zones surrounded by concertina wire and minefields and ever expanding budgets annually?
Your parents house cost $30,000 back in the sixties and a bad ass car for $3000, now a cookie cutter pod costs $150,000 and a new Trabant is around $50,000?
The Long March to the workers utopia is just grand. (s/)
Breaking from Masta Ace Incorporated:
Born To Roll (Instrumental)
O/T-Early AM area study and a youngster was having a blast on a electric mini-bike hooting and hollering, I LUL and gave a thumbs up.
I love the sound of personal mobility in the morning…it sounds like…victory.