“If ever again our nation stumbles upon unfunded paper, it shall surely be like death to our body politic. This country will crash.” -George Washington
(An interesting historical perspective of our fiat currency can be found here: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article1131.html)
In the spirit of yesterday (Constitution Day) I’ll throw in this excerpt from Article I, Section 10:
“No state shall… grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts…” How is our current financial system even legal?
I feel like the world is collapsing around me; and in an economic sense, I think it really is. I’d also like to add I feel somewhat betrayed by my government. In my eyes, it seems like some heavyweight lobbyists and Capitol Hill palm-greasing let this situation escalate to its current level. The people at the top responsible will run off to their island villas [which they were apparently supposed to be paying taxes on this whole time?!] while we, the public, are left to pay for the mess.
Hard feelings aside, I’ve been doing my best to be an “informed citizen” and keep up with this huge financial catastrophe. I felt like there was SO much information that I’d never get through it all. That’s true, of course; however, if you would be satisfied with the quick and easy version of the story, I recommend the following FAQ, written by guest columnists for the Freakonomics page of the NYT:
I really liked the layman-friendly, straightforward Q & A format. While it’s a dramatically simplified version of the tale from just one perspective, this is a great place to start learning about what’s going on.
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