Richardcyoung.com

  • Home
  • Debbie Young
  • Jimmy Buffett
  • Key West
  • Your Survival Guy
  • How We Are Different
  • Paris
  • About Us
    • Foundation Principles
    • Contributors
  • Investing
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • The Swiss Way
  • My Rifles
  • Dividends and Compounding
  • Your Security
  • Dick Young
  • Dick’s R&B Top 100
  • Liberty & Freedom Map
  • Bank Credit & Money
  • Your Survival Guy’s Super States
  • NNT & Cholesterol
  • Your Health
  • Ron Paul
  • US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool
  • Anti-Gun Control
  • Anti-Digital Currency
  • Joel Salatin & Alfie Oakes
  • World Gold Mine Production
  • Fidelity & Wellington Since 1971
  • Hillsdale College
  • Babson College
  • Contact Us

Fiat Money Is the Confiscation of Wealth by the State

December 6, 2021 By Richard C. Young

By corlaffra @ Shutterstock.com

In 1966, Alan Greenspan told an audience that “The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.” Now, fifty-five years later, Americans are seeing just what that means in real terms. Massive deficit spending and Federal Reserve liquidity operations have amped up inflation, and stolen wealth from America’s savers. On LewRockwell.com, David Stockman what happened when America abandoned the gold standard, writing (abridged):

Alan Greenspan:

In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value… The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard. (Emphasis mine. 

When Greenspan spoke in 1966, the public debt was just $325 billion and amounted to 40% of GDP. And that figure had been steadily falling from the WWII peak of 125%.

No more. The public debt now standards at $28.1 trillion and 127% of GDP and is rising at breakneck speed.

What happened was that once the Fed-fueled tech boom of the 1990s ran out of gas with the dotcom bust in the spring of 2000, industrial production in the US got pinned to the flat-line.

During the first period between 1972 and 2000 the Fed’s balance sheet grew by about $500 billion, or $18 billion per year.

But during the last 21 years since then, the Fed’s balance sheet has soared by $7.6 trillion, or $362 billion per year.

When the central bank injects 20 times more fiat credit into the economy each year, it has to go somewhere.

The stock market became the great monetary sump that absorbed the inflationary tide.

By David Stockman

If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for my free weekly email.

Related Posts

  • Bernie Sander's 8% Wealth Tax is Coming for Your Money
  • Protect Your Money
  • State of Your State Update
  • AMERICAN DECLINE: 50 Years of Fiat Money Takes Its Toll
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Richard C. Young
Richard C. Young
Richard C. Young is the editor of Young's World Money Forecast, and a contributing editor to both Richardcyoung.com and Youngresearch.com.
Richard C. Young
Latest posts by Richard C. Young (see all)
  • Songhoy Blues: Live at KEXP - June 13, 2025
  • Did Israel Singlehandedly End Iran’s Nuclear Dreams? - June 13, 2025
  • Decapitated: Iran Loses at Least 20 Commanders - June 13, 2025

Dick Young’s Must Reads

  • You Need to Seek Some Shelter for When Things Get Ugly
  • Your Survival Guy: “Life on Main Street Hasn’t Been This Hard in a While”
  • Robo-Advisors: When You Have a Lot More to Lose than Money
  • Why Some Kids Won’t Go Back to School, Ever
  • Concentrate on Dividend Record and Compounding
  • Democracy & Diversity: Not In the Constitution
  • Remembering Brent Scowcroft
  • How about Hiring Erik Prince to Crush the Drug Cartels?
  • Florida: Enjoy Certain Freedoms and Individual Liberties
  • Ron Paul: “Freedom and Central Banking Are Not Compatible”

Our Most Popular Posts

  • Whoa, Hang on Here. There’s Trouble in Culver City
  • Is Salt Bad for You?
  • RON PAUL: Can Musk and Trump Reconcile?
  • $25 Million Down; $175 Million to Go
  • Saving Western Civilization
  • Graduating from Work to Retirement #19: A Teacher for Life
  • No More NSAIDS for Back Pain?
  • There Are Only Two Ways to Cut Entitlements
  • The Federal Reserve Finally Killed the Penny
  • Ukraine’s Attack Underlines Need for Trump-Style Border Control

Compensation was paid to utilize rankings. Click here to read full disclosure.

RSS Youngresearch.com

  • Epic Man Cave with Car Elevator in Utah
  • Oil Prices Spike as Markets Brace for Potential Middle East Conflict
  • Is Private Capital Appropriate for 401(k)s?
  • US Underground Natural Gas Storage Capacity Grew in 2024
  • Trump Revokes Biden Policy on Snake River Dams
  • Graduating from Work to Retirement Special Bonus: God Only Knows
  • US Secures LNG Export Deals Worth $200 Billion
  • High-Voltage Cable Crunch Hits Global Electrification
  • May PPI Lower than Expected
  • Graduating from Work to Retirement #20: Life in Reverse

RSS Yoursurvivalguy.com

  • Epic Man Cave with Car Elevator in Utah
  • Is Private Capital Appropriate for 401(k)s?
  • Strikes Expose Israel’s Hidden Drone Operations Inside Iran
  • Even If You Don’t Golf: Part 2
  • Graduating from Work to Retirement Special Bonus: God Only Knows
  • Private Equity: Moody’s Warns There’s Ample Cause for Concern
  • Your Survival Guy: Castle Hill, Newport
  • Containerized Missiles and the New Rules of War
  • Graduating from Work to Retirement #20: Life in Reverse
  • America’s Silent Army with 423M Guns

US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool

My Key West Garden Office

Your Retirement Life: Traveling the Efficient Frontier

Live a Long Life

Your Survival Guy’s Mt. Rushmore of Investing Legends

“Then One Day the Grandfather was Gone”

Copyright © 2025 | Terms & Conditions | About Us | Dick Young | Archives