"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Got Money?
Recommended "And so here we find ourselves, embarrassingly, without any money. But if not money, then just what do we have? Unfortunately, the answer to that question is debt. Our system "monetizes" its debt into pieces of paper, which include those fancy little green exchange tickets that we pass around. Every FRN in circulation is in reality a tiny little portion of the mounting $10-plus trillion national debt floating from wallet to wallet. We give our goods and services to others in exchange for scraps of paper that represent debt owed by our government. We are thus cheated in that we give value but do not receive value in return. We accept an irredeemable IOU instead of actual payment. Why do we tolerate such a state of affairs?" Column by tzo.