"War Pigs," Black Sabbath
Paranoid, 1971
I am not entirely convinced that, from a purely materialistic standpoint, the People of Rome didn't have a better deal.
My friends, unless we rebuild our nation's manufacturing base and infrastructure, we will--because of our debt--have no choice in a few years but to reduce our military by half or more.
Cicero stated twenty-one centuries ago that the sinews of war are a limitless supply of money. And real money, true capital, is not the trading of paper instruments at ever inflating values. That is the description of a Ponzi scheme, not any sort of healthy economic system. Real capital is based upon the manufacture, sale and service of material goods and real estate that a man can hold in his hand or stand on.
Currency can be used as the basis of a monetary system, but if, and only if, it is regulated, and allowed to expand when necessary rather than convenient. "Necessary' would include preventing a deflationary spiral of prices during an economic recession.
Even specie--gold and silver--is no guarantee against inflation. Anyone who has read the history of Rome knows that Rome adulterated its coinage at various times because of hoarding, or being forced to use gold and silver to pay for trade items outside of the Empire because Rome had nothing to trade in turn.
This is one of the problems with the gold standard that Congressman Ron Paul is always talking about: unless we are producing more goods than we are acquiring, we will have to pay for them with gold and silver. If we run out of gold and silver, then we have nothing left to trade, and "POOF!", our standard of living is in the crapper, and we have nothing on which to base our monetary "gold standard."
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