The Royal Scam

In early July, the New York Times published an opinion piece by a promising Gen X writer titled "It's Time to Stop Living the American Scam." Essentially, it's a sobering observation of our current economic malaise from a generation that was the first to experience a downwardly mobile trajectory - a shift that occurred during a time when productivity increased exponentially. He goes on to illuminate the inconvenient truths of Millennials growing to adulthood without experiencing capitalism as a "functioning economic system" and the residual nature of a predator corporate machine that's driven a large majority of its populous into a perpetual state of struggle. Or as the author noted, "an endless, frantic, hamster wheel of survival."

I didn't bother to check the responding defensive letters to the editor but I'm confident they arrived fast and furious with Boomers leading the charge, writ large. And I have no doubt their self serving screeds and distorted perspective of the truth was genuine within their life experience. But how many of these one time Summer of Lovers took the time to think about their wealth, how it was actually accumulated and at whose expense? And at what point did they acknowledge their participation in a Royal Scam of massive proportion - one that ultimately led to the demise of future generations, freedom of expression and habitat sustainability?

Technically, the scam began in 1971 when Nixon took the US off the gold standard and again in 1974 when Kissinger forged a deal with the Saudi's that forced the world to pay for oil in Dollars (aka The Petro Dollar). These two actions allowed the United States to print money at will (also known as fiat currency) in an effort to generate liquidity, drive growth and ultimately create wealth. One the surface, this sounds perfectly fine. However, as always, the devil is in the details. First and foremost, money printing comes from debt given the US dollar is technically a note (look at the top of any bill), a promise to pay the privately held Federal Reserve Central Bank who, along with the Treasury, engineers the entire process. And two, the debt money printed was controlled, distributed and allocated by a newly deregulated corporate class that used Government and Wall Street to dictate the size and direction of the flow - mostly to themselves. They sold this scheme to the public through a self-descriptive slogan, "Trickle Down Economics" that ensured "all boats float upward" as long as the masses worked hard to build the economy within the rules of the new system.

The people bought it. The net result - a 40 year multi-trillion dollar looting of the Treasury which benefited the 1% who conceived and manufactured the ruse from its inception. And who ended up holding the bag? That's right, the working stiff, low wage, dual income, one time middle classer who is currently drowning under the sinking boat - the one that was riddled with holes from the start. How big is the bag you ask? Well, at the time of this post, about 30.5 trillion - with a T. And to add insult to injury, it was those same lever pullers at the top who delivered debt slavery to the masses below by off-shoring manufacturing, terminating unions, suppressing wages and commodifying every service that was an integral component of their normal lives including health care, education and the food they eat to survive. They call it, neo-liberal economics. And why does the United States, the global empire, owner/distributor of the world currency, a country that has more wealth than any other in the history of the world have to borrow money when it has the ability to print its own?

Are you beginning to see the scam? I get a good chuckle when I read or hear about the current inflationary issues. Of course, corporate media has placed most of this burden on Putin and Russia (as they do everything), the Covid stimulus checks, labor costs and/or regulation. But rarely, if ever do you read about the primary driver - the money supply. Take a look at the charts below. They represent the money supply and specifically, Quantitative Easing (Fed Speak for the amount of digital currency injected into the system) in an attempt to bailout their Ponzi post stock market crash in 2001, 2009 and 2020. Yes, this is the same Federal Reserve whose publicly stated charter reads "to maintain price stability."

Huh!

Let's take a look at the subject of inflation from a different perspective. In 1970, the purchasing power of 100 US Dollars was equivalent to $763.00 today. That's an 87% loss in value within 52 years. Simply stated, todays dollar buys about 13% of what it did back then. On the flip side, wages have regressed, significantly, when measured against these staggering inflationary metrics even while the productivity per individual has increased to levels never imagined. And people wonder why we have record inequality, mass shootings, homelessness, hopelessness and a general distain for the elite and their clueless narrative!

The Cares Act, the primary driver of the 2021 money creation was sold to the public as a means of saving the economy during Covid but like all programs written and promoted by the controllers, the act ultimately benefited themselves. In fact, technically, it was the greatest upper transfer of wealth in the history of the world. Billionaires became 62% richer while Mom and Pop filed bankruptcy and homelessness skyrocketed.

In the prophetic words of Steely Dan's 1976 title track

See the Glory

Of The Royal Scam

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

Thomas Jefferson