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To: TheBusDriver who wrote (15369)	7/6/2006 10:56:39 AM
From: LLCF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78416

<This is my problem: As long as there are governments I don't see how we are not going to have a fiat money system....if money were to "cease to exist" then I suspect governments will too.....there go my survival instincts again....> I think folks tend to take these things to the Nth degree.... ie. Germany pre-WWII where the currency had to be replaced. There are lots of other examples of less severe, slower deaths to currencies. The $US has been a veritable beacon of hope in a sea of currencies sinking like rocks to the bottom of a basket of goods (sea) one uses throughout ones lifetime. DAK

To: TheBusDriver who wrote (15369)	7/6/2006 2:26:00 PM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78416

When there was coinage of silver and gold there was no inflation for hundreds of years. When there was a crunch in the empire, they debased coinage. Now was it inflation that was a symptom or did debasement cause a crunch? I think it was a bit of both. When France introduced paper money there was a vicious economic collapse shortly thereafter. China had paper money for centuries and 4 great economic collapses. The reason could be pointed to as easy credit in every case. It is obvious that with too easy credit business failures will abound and economies will start to head south by degrees. compounding dictates and increasing rate of failure after a while. Compound interest rates themselves dictate an decrease in the value of cash over time. It is inherent in the system. If money must be paid back with interest, it is evident that a fixed amount of money must decrease in value, ergo inflation. It is built in to the system. Can the muslim system of no interest defeat inflation? In practice is merely stifles the economy. Money has a time value obviously as borrowing has to be worth something but as the interest on the loan is never created in making the loan where does it come from? Answer, the poor {or the many} pay the interest of the rich. This is not Marxian maxim, but a democratic fact. Republican too. When gold was the currency as in Spain's colonial era, inflation was instant and massive even though the metal is supposed not to inflate. It left Spain tragically weakened, and undermined its ascendancy in Europe for several hundred years after the empire receded. Although wealth was not easy to come by, as one had to build galleons and travel thousands or miles, brave jungles and hostile native for decades to engender return, it must have been in economic terms, still to easy for the output of the average Spaniard. Ergo an inflated economy that never returned to glory. However when one compares this era to the modern one, we see that despite the supposed fleeting romance with power that was Spain's history, their empire endured for hundreds of years, far longer than our modern one has so far, with several resounding crashes so far. We have however struggled out of the lean times to become stronger than before. The struggle is what made the nation strong. In its deliverance from penury, its effort was its currency; its salvation. In effect, the hour a man labours is the currency of the nation. The effectiveness of that labour dictates the economic strength. It seems we must work assiduously towards some goal with routine and co-ordinated urgency as if an economic sword hung over our heads with a tenuous string. Become an effete group who believes in moderate effort and extended leisure, and the fate of our nations shall be soon reflected in the ruins of cities we have dug up in the sands of the far gone places of the old world. After decades of Archeaological analysis we have come to see that the same ills that befell the civilizations of the past afflict us today. The men of old who built grand castles tombs and vast stone cities had no means of continuously dealing with ever encroaching barbarians, piles of created waste, populations who grew ever more effete with realms of ease and peace. What set in, in just about every case was a debasement of currency, inflation, dependence on cheaper labour or slaves to do the hard work, mercenaries to do the fighting, and a reliance on brick walls to give the population a {false} sense of security. Eventually more driven and hungrier societies, who had to work harder, and were driven by greater goals, took the place of the more civilized and reduced the great cities to ashes. It happened every time, and these phenomena made Spengler predict "The Decline of the West" in his celebrated tome of that name. Ironically, "Hitler's historian" foretold the inevitable demise of the very civilization that he was suppose to extol. EC<:-}