| Since the gold standard was removed from currency issuance, the fiat currency that is currently in circulation is no longer exchangeable for any tangible asset or commodity but is instead backed by a guarantee that the government is “good for it” via its taxing authority and/or other means. Therefore, currency transition to “legal tender” or fiat currency renders money in circulation with no intrinsic value beyond the word of its issuer, thus allowing the issuer to create money at will. |
There's an inclination on the part of people to blame the producers of products—the butcher, the baker, and the gasoline maker—but that's actually very silly, insofar as these people create real wealth.
They're fighting the effects of government inflation, which doesn't create anything but fiat currency and fiat credit, which is what actually takes the prices higher. Inflation of the currency, which is to say an increase in the amount of purchasing media above the increase in real wealth. It's what inflation is all about; it's the State subtly stealing capital and wealth from individuals.
The big problem with the depreciation of the dollar is that producers are blamed for being the problem. They're the solution to the problem in 
that they create real wealth. The real enemy here is the State and its central bank, the Fed.
The prime directive of life is to survive, and entities, whether they be governments, corporations, or individuals. They will basically do whatever they have to do to survive.
Unfortunately, inflation is all about theft, subtle and hard to diagnose as it is, but theft breeds more theft.
Leaders of any organization, whether it be governments or corporations, set the moral tone. The average person may not understand much about economics, which is the study of how men produce and consume in order to survive, but they have an intuitive, even if not a technical, understanding of it.
Inflation, the theft of people's wealth, eventually leads to revolution and overturning of society itself.
Once again, the average person doesn't understand economics very well, but he does understand that some people in modern society are getting rich without producing anything. And, they're benefiting from the subtle fiat currency creation.
In any event, they diagnosed that there was a theft going on. In a society based less and less on production and more and more on the theft of pre-existing wealth, it's natural enough that it becomes a Hobbesian war of all against all where counter-theft takes place through the legal system as opposed to actual physical violence.
It's very much like Al Capone said. "One thug can rob a gas station of $100, and if he's caught, he'll go to jail for years. But a lawyer with a pen can rob a country of a million and never get caught." That's what's going on.
The system has become entirely corrupt, and the government, which is supposed to protect the individual man, is actually the main culprit in stealing money from him. The fact that the US has over a million practicing lawyers is a symptom of corruption where people are using the legal system to steal.
Originally published at https://internationalman.com/
** Best-selling author, world-renowned speculator, and libertarian philosopher Doug Casey has garnered a well-earned reputation for his erudite (and often controversial) insights into politics, economics, and investment markets.