You are being ripped off...

...if you are paid in U.S. dollars.

Ever since the creation of the Federal Reserve system in 1913, a collusion between private bankers and the federal government have been siphoning off (i.e. "stealing") your hard-earned money. This is worse than traditional taxation because it is largely unseen and it cannot be approved or repealed by vote. It's like an economic version of radon gas poisoning. It is the sneakiest of all "taxation without representation" schemes. Our founders - especially Jefferson - actually warned us about it (unbacked "paper currency"), as it was used to fund the American Revolution and nearly caused the early economy to collapse from the get-go. Subsequent dalliances with central banking all ended in failure. The Fed is just the latest incarnation of the scam.

The government is indeed stealing from us.

Do you think this is an exaggeration? Click here for a tool that converts the value of the U.S. dollar in any given year into the currency of any other given year. Notice that the value of your money always decreases over time; it never increases. There is a built-in and expected depreciation (inflation) that we have come to expect as normal. But it isn't "normal." Do the math with your own income. You can clearly see that what you think is a "raise" may well actually be a reduction in your salary. The fact that you make many thousands of dollars more now than you might have a decade ago only masks the fact that it's all smoke and mirrors. Given this reality, does it make more sense for people to save and invest, or rather to borrow and spend?

Yeah.

And imagine how hard it would be to make decisions regarding buying and selling goods and services if the units of measure - such as pounds, gallons, square feet, yards, and liters - were reduced in size over time. It makes capital investment decisions a crap-shoot - as a boom or bust could be just around the corner. In the ancient world, dishonest scales were so common that in several places Scripture denounces the practice as an abomination.

Furthermore, imagine if someone were allowed to "skim" the difference for themselves. And imagine further if it were actually illegal to audit the secretive institution that runs the whole thing. Imagine if the central bank, answerable to no-one, could make secret loans of billions of dollars to anyone it chooses - loaning "money" that doesn't even exist! That's the situation in the United States today.

Is it any wonder we are in such a mess?

The difficulty in gaging the "signals" of the market, thanks to this manipulation of the currency (especially when new "dollars" are being created out of nothing by the Fed and being loaned out at interest, which drives this constant devaluation of our currency), leads directly to the boom and bust cycle and to financial "bubbles" (which brought us the Roaring Twenties followed by the Great Depression, which began less than a decade after the creation of the Fed).

We're now about a hundred years out, and our dollar is today worth less than a nickel, all the precious metals have been removed from our circulating coins (beginning in 1964), the last link to the gold standard has been abolished (1971), our government actually mints a gold coin whose "face value" is $50 but whose actual market worth is about $1,200, and the United States is now so far in debt that mainstream economists are now talking about the dollar going into default. Our savings rate is lower than it ever has been, so low, in fact, that it is statistically less than zero! And is it any wonder? What is the incentive to save money for later if it depreciates? And thanks to the artificially low interest rate (especially combined with banking fees), why should anyone have a savings account?

Once again, this little application will show you exactly why this is happening.

It is time to end the Fed. In fact, righting this wrong is long overdue. But at least now people are openly talking about it. Sadly, most in our current political class and journalistic establishment (including "conservative" talk radio), with very few exceptions, would rather yammer on about about more lurid and emotional issues that ultimately have nothing to do with the collapse of our civilization. The Fed is destroying us at home and weakening our position in the world. It explains the deficit, the trade imbalance, and unemployment. It is statistically impossible for the scam to continue forever. This is why folks around the world who used to trust the dollar for their own savings are getting rid of them and looking for more honest forms of saving. The dollar is a ripoff, and our own elected officials are literally robbing and plundering us. They are killing the goose that laid the golden egg - only know, the "golden" egg is made of paper mache with a cheap coat of paint.

I hope our people wake up soon.