Maybe America Has the Currency It Deserves

The Link Between Money and Culture [The Daily Reckoning] November 23, 2022 [WEBSITE]( | [UNSUBSCRIBE]( Maybe America Has the Currency It Deserves - Money and culture can’t be divorced… - Has our socially inclined money somehow made us less social?… - Then Jeffrey Tucker shows you how inflation can wreck a culture… [BOMBSHELL: Ex-CIA Advisor Releases New Biden Evidence]( [Click here for more...]( This crazy new Biden story is 1,000 times worse than the media will let on. If you think Biden is a life-long corrupt politician who will do anything for money and power, you’re right. And now, former advisor to CIA and Pentagon Jim Rickards has just uncovered this new Congressional evidence that will send shockwaves through Washington. [Click Here To Learn More]( Annapolis, Maryland November 23, 2022 [Brian Maher] BRIAN MAHER Dear Reader , Can a culture divorce itself from its currency? We are not half so convinced that it can. That is one reason we fear for the American future. We fear its currency is anchored to its culture — a declining culture, by our lights — a culture run to strange and often preposterous settings. It is only proper that this low and debased culture merits a debased currency — the debased dollar. Let us then consider the degenerate paper dollar… “It has a very important impact on our culture,” writes economist Jörg Guido Hülsmann. Mr. Hülsmann contrasts paper money with “natural money” — gold. The casual paper dollar parades around in flip-flopped shoes and T-shirts. It is festooned with tattoos and sports a nose ring. Gold, meantime, goes in style. It sports a jacket and tie, finely tailored. Elegant footwear covers its feet. It shaves. In brief, gold is all class. And unlike the lax dollar, gold — natural money — also exhibits high impulse control. It encourages the virtues of saving… thrift… deferred gratification. It sets the mind to the future. Hülsmann: In a free economy with a natural monetary system, there is a strong incentive to save money… Investments in savings accounts or other relatively safe investments also play a certain role, but cash hoarding is paramount. Before the 20th century, explains Hülsmann, debt was a cultural taboo… a scarlet “D” emblazoned across the chest. “Credit for households… was virtually unknown,” he says. Only the poorest households resorted to debt-financed consumption. But the debt-based money system eventually seeped its way into the cultural bloodstream, got into the marrows… and worked its mischiefs. Hülsmann says it all encouraged a short-term perspective: Fiat-money systems tend to make people insatiable in their quest for ever higher monetary returns on their investments. Thus the slow grind of saving yielded to the lure of the fast buck. Americans abandoned their cup of joe for the latte, their bologna sandwich for the sushi dish. Hülsmann argues a natural monetary system runs to more restrained settings. As savings increase under such a system, the return on investments of all sorts tends to diminish. And instead of chasing rainbows, people direct their monies in pursuit of other worthwhile interests — including philanthropy: It becomes ever less interesting to invest one’s savings in order to earn a return, and thus other motivations shift into the foreground. Savings will be used increasingly to finance personal projects including the acquisition of durable consumers’ goods, but also philanthropic activity. This is exactly what we saw in the West during the 19th century. By contrast, in a fiat money society you are more likely to increase your returns by remaining in debt and continuing to chase monetary revenue indefinitely by leveraging more and more funds. The debt-soaked society loses something of the human face then. He concludes: You can imagine, then, how this inflation- and debt-based system, over time, will begin to change the culture of a society and its behavior. We become more materialistic than under a natural monetary system. We can’t just sit on our savings anymore, and we have to watch our investments constantly, and think about revenue constantly, because if it is not earning enough, we are actively getting poorer. A point to ponder of a late November day… Yet, as we have conceded before… perhaps we stretch the facts to fit our case. It is possible we link illusory connections where none truly exists. Nor do we argue that the restoration of sound money would equal the restoration of culture, of manners, of civility. American culture was not especially high and glorious before monetary debasement tugged it down. But it seems this Hülsmann has hooked onto something. Perhaps our paper money system has not only debased our economy and our politics — but also our culture. And maybe our socially inclined money has somehow made us less… social. Read on for more. Below, Jeffrey Tucker shows you how inflation, which we are presently enduring, changes culture for the worse. Regards, [Brian Maher] Brian Maher Managing Editor, The Daily Reckoning [feedback@dailyreckoning.com.](mailto:feedback@dailyreckoning.com) Editor’s note: Our customer service concierge, Cassandra Fox, has asked us to pass this message along to you: “This past week I was looking over a small list of customer accounts (customers who aren’t taking advantage of [our most profitable service at its cheapest price ever]( And it looks like your name is on that list. That’s why I’m reaching out to you today. I wanted to make sure you saw [this special offer]( – from me to you. You see, I just gave you something special. It’s a [credit for $557]( which you can apply to this service – immediately. In fact, I even recorded a brief video clip of myself, [showing you how to claim your $557, right now.]( But please, don’t wait. My boss says we can’t keep the offer open forever. So please, [go here now]( to see how to claim your $557 credit… [Urgent: Currency Wars Alert]( [Click here for more...]( “Worst case scenario is almost inevitable” -Former Pentagon Insider Jim Rickards In my 2011 book, I warned that the U.S. was engaged in a currency war. And that these wars: “Degenerate into sequential bouts of inflation, recession, retaliation and actual violence as the scramble for resources leads to invasion and war.” Now with Putin invading Ukraine…Rising tensions with China… Inflation, recession, and supply chain issues all hitting the U.S. economy at the same time. It seems as if some of my worst fears have finally come true. That’s why I’ve recorded an urgent video message. To update you on exactly what you need to be doing to protect yourself. Because if history is any indicator, this will not end well. [View This Urgent Video Message]( The Daily Reckoning Presents: “(Inflation is) about declining prosperity, the punishing of thrift, the discouragement of financial responsibility, and a culture that gradually falls apart”… ****************************** How Inflation Changes Culture By Jeffrey Tucker [Jeffrey Tucker] JEFFREY TUCKER The midterm elections are over (no Red Wave), but nothing has changed. In fact, the Biden regime will probably become even more emboldened to pursue destructive economic policies because it will interpret the lack of a Red Wave as some kind of mandate. Every day seems to be a day of spin, with every regime apologist assuring the public that inflation is getting better. Just look at the wonderful trend line! They point to the latest inflation numbers, which were down a bit from the month prior. The regime insists that yes, inflation will vex us for a bit more time but will settle down in a few months. Plus, the president is working to fix this! And we know the American people are on board with him since no Red Wave materialized. But in the footnotes, you’ll find the truth: it was a tiny drop and mostly for technical reasons and the main reason for the drop has already disappeared from the price trends. Has any political propaganda on this topic ever been this ineffective? It’s truly a joke. Where’s the Relief Coming From? The producer price index that came out recently paints a clearer picture. It’s grim. It reveals no softening at all. In fact, it shows that there are plenty of coming price increases. Here is the index by commodities from 2013 to the present. [IMAGE 1] Remember how last year many people finally came to the conclusion that we had to learn to live with COVID? That was a smart choice because there was no way that the China-style suppression method could work. Well, here we are now with a preventable inflation pandemic and the realization that we have to learn to live with inflation. Soon we’ll realize that we have to live with recession at the same time. But what does this mean? The impact will be felt not just in terms of economics but in culture. Inflation causes a society-wide shortening of time horizons. True Prosperity Let’s review some basics. All societies are born desperately poor, fated to live off foraging and just getting by. Prosperity is built through the construction of capital, which is the institution that embodies forward thinking. To make capital requires the deferral of consumption: you have to give up some today in order to make tools that enable more consumption tomorrow. This means discipline and a future orientation. And it means, above all, savings that can be invested in productive projects. Only through that path can societies grow rich. A key component of this concerns the stability of the medium of exchange. And not just stability: a currency that rises in value over time incentivizes saving and thus investing for the long term. The late 19th century provided a good example of this. Under the gold standard, money grew more valuable over time, thus rewarding long-term thinking and instilling that outlook in the culture at large. Live for Today Inflation has the opposite effect. It punishes saving. It forces a penalty on economic behavior that is future-oriented. That means also discouraging investment in long-term projects, which is the whole key to building a complex division of labor and causing wealth to emerge from the muck of the state of nature. Every bit of inflation trims back that future orientation. Hyperinflation utterly wrecks it. Living for the day becomes the theme. Taking what you can get now is the method and the theme. Grasping and spending. You might as well because the money is only going down in value and goods are in ever shorter supply. Better to live hard and short and forget the future. Go into debt if possible. Let the devaluation itself pay the price. [Urgent Notice From Paradigm CIO Zach Scheidt!]( [Click here for more...]( Hi, Zach Scheidt here… I’m the Chief Income Officer at Paradigm Press. With inflation raging (and showing no signs of coming to an end any time soon), almost everyone in America is feeling the pain in a big way. Which is why, several months ago, I set out on a big mission… my goal was to create a complete, step-by-step plan to surviving and beating inflation… one that anyone could take advantage of. Today, after hundreds of hours of research, I’m revealing all of my findings. See how to survive America’s deadly inflation crisis… [Click Here To Learn More]( The Seeds of Destruction Once this attitude becomes instilled in a prosperous society, what we call civilization gradually devolves. If inflation persists, this kind of short-term thinking can wreck everything. This is why inflation is not just about rising prices. It’s about declining prosperity, the punishing of thrift, the discouragement of financial responsibility, and a culture that gradually falls apart. Another factor in reducing time horizons is legal instability. This was my first concern when the lockdowns began. Why would anyone start a business if governments can just shut it down on a whim? Why plan for the future when that future can be wrecked by the stroke of a pen? Many people had assumed that this new path would be short-lived. Surely the politicians would wise up and stop the madness. Surely! Tragically, it got worse and worse. The spending and printing began and ramped up over time. It was a perfect storm of sheer madness, and now we are paying the highest possible price. The Hinge of History We need to speak frankly about what’s happening to the global economy. It’s not just about supply chain breakages. Those can be repaired. It’s not just about inflation affecting every country. We are living amidst a fundamental upheaval in the whole world. The most significant single danger to global prosperity now comes in the form of a devastating and deeply tragic wreckage of the country that was set to lead the world in finance and technology: China. The WSJ summarizes the current pain: China in 2021 accounted for 18.1% of global gross domestic product, according to International Monetary Fund data, behind the U.S. at 23.9% but ahead of the 27 members of the European Union at 17.8%. It accounts for almost a third of global manufacturing output, according to United Nations data from 2020. China’s economy expanded modestly at the beginning of the year but data for March and April point to a sharp slowdown. The trouble there traces to the top. When Xi Jinping locked down Wuhan, the world celebrated him for achieving what no other leader in history had achieved: the eradication of a virus in one country. Even now, he gets accolades for this. The rest of the world followed, and elites in all countries said that this path was the future. Going Backwards Now the virus is on the loose all over the country, and the eradication methods are intensifying. This is crushing economic growth and now threatening genuine economic depression in the country that only a few years ago was seen as the greatest economic engine of the world. It’s truly the case that Xi Jinping has put his personal pride above the well-being of all people in China. The scientists in the country know that he is wrong about this but no one is in a position to tell him. We cannot really trust the data coming out of China but officially the rate of infection in that country is one of the lowest in the world. Billions more people need to get the bug and recover in order to have anything close to herd immunity. This means that lockdowns are the way for years to come so long as the present regime remains in power. American prosperity for decades has relied on: relatively low inflation, fairly stable rules of the game, and widening trade with the world and China in particular. All three are at an end. Yes, it is heartbreaking to watch it all unfold. I’m not defending China’s human rights abuses. Far from it. But the best way to end these abuses is through engagement, not estrangement. We all need hope right now but it’s very difficult to find, since we are on a course that is not likely to be fixed for a very long time. Regards, Jeffrey Tucker for The Daily Reckoning [feedback@dailyreckoning.com.](mailto:feedback@dailyreckoning.com) Ed. note: Our customer service concierge, Cassandra Fox, has asked us to pass this message along to you: “This past week I was looking over a small list of customer accounts (customers who aren’t taking advantage of [our most profitable service at its cheapest price ever]( And it looks like your name is on that list. That’s why I’m reaching out to you today. I wanted to make sure you saw [this special offer]( – from me to you. You see, I just gave you something special. It’s a [credit for $557]( which you can apply to this service – immediately. In fact, I even recorded a brief video clip of myself, [showing you how to claim your $557, right now.]( But please, don’t wait. My boss says we can’t keep the offer open forever. So please, [go here now]( to see how to claim your $557 credit… Thank you for reading The Daily Reckoning! We greatly value your questions and comments. Please send all feedback to [feedback@dailyreckoning.com.](mailto:feedback@dailyreckoning.com) [Jeffrey Tucker] [Jeffrey Tucker]( is an independent editorial consultant who served as Editorial Director for the American Institute for Economic Research. He is the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and eight books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown. 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