Free Lies the government told you by Andrew P. Napolitano Page A

advantage for the government, why would it not only allow the fraud to continue but also support it at every step? To understand the answer, we must understand the concept of inflation and deflation. We need to know how the concept affects the value of money, and therefore the value of our labor.
    The idea of a central bank in Western culture, to control the banking and finance structure of a country, harkens back to 1694 and the creation of the Bank of England by King William III. The King wanted a perpetual money machine for the monarchy so as to assure that the King’s treasury would never run out of money and to circumvent the uprisings that would ensue with increased taxes. With the power of banking, the King could print more money on the sly, so it would not be directly linked to him, and therefore fund his armies and treasury without stealing by assessing taxes. Then, when the money flooded the market, the purchasing power of money bottomed out. And the King, having spent the money before this time, profited, while the people lost out on payments of their labor. Yet, the people, not being knowledgeable about inflation, did not blame the King and no uprisings happened. The monarchy continued this tradition, and it migrated to America as soon as there was profit to be had.
    In essence, Congress struck a deal with the private bankers who would run the Federal Reserve, granting them absolute power over the control of America’s money (a power delegated to Congress in the Constitution) in exchange for infinitely deep pockets. Whenever Congress needs money, the Federal Reserve prints it. And the more money printed by the Federal Reserve, the more inflation, and the less worth is attached to each day’s labor. And the best part, for Congress, is that this tax is not only invisible and infinite, but Congress also does not have to attempt to raise the money, either through taxation or transfer of funds from expenditures; it can just get it without any direct, immediate consequences. Rather, the consequences land on the American people, who are forced to work harder and longer hours in order to get the same buying power that they used to get with a shorter day’s work.
    Essentially, the Federal Reserve, through its inflationary policies, has found a neater way to do what used to be done by monarchs when they ordered their Treasury officials to shave off or clip coins as they passed through the Treasury. If a private person did that, or if the king’s treasury officials did that and helped themselves to whatever they could shave or clip, and got caught, that would be instantly recognized as theft and fraud; yet when the Federal Reserve does the exact same thing to paper money that the King did to coins, no one says a word, because Congress has legalized the theft. And the only person who pays is you, when you attempt to take out your 401(k) and notice that the money you put in for the past twenty years is really only going to buy you less than the amount you put in, less than had you accumulated the cash in a shoe box. The Federal Reserve has in essence diluted the value of the 1914 dollar to seven cents. But don’t worry; at least the same banks of today will always be doing business, having been bailed out by the Fed many a time before.
    What we have to understand is that nothing in life is free, everything has a price, and right now the invisible tax is having a large impact on the middle class, lowering standards of living and causing job losses, while the economic elite gain the benefit of being the first to spend any issue of money before it is deflated in worth. A one-time Chairman of the Fed, Alan Greenspan, even admitted that if the top-secret monetary policies sometimes leaked prior to the Fed’s actions, 24 those to whom it leaked could make a fortune.
    For anyone who would question the impact on the value of the dollar without the backing by gold, and for whom the example of the Continental does not suffice,