In 1933, President Roosevelt's administration confiscated citizens' gold at $20/ounce, then immediately devalued the dollar by repricing gold to $35/ounce. This accounting maneuver created a massive profit for the government, which was then used to fund New Deal stimulus programs.

Related Insights

The primary driver of wealth inequality isn't income, but asset ownership. Government money printing to cover deficit spending inflates asset prices. This forces those who understand finance to buy assets, which then appreciate, widening the gap between them and those who don't own assets.

The spike in 1970s oil prices was a direct reaction to the U.S. abandoning the gold standard. Oil-producing countries were no longer being paid in gold-backed dollars, so they raised prices from $3 to $40 per barrel to compensate for the currency's rapid loss of purchasing power.

Deficit spending acts as a hidden tax via inflation. This tax disproportionately harms those without assets while benefiting the small percentage of the population owning assets like stocks and real estate. Therefore, supporting deficit spending is an active choice to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.

To fund deficits, the government prints money, causing inflation that devalues cash and wages. This acts as a hidden tax on the poor and middle class. Meanwhile, the wealthy, who own assets like stocks and real estate that appreciate with inflation, are protected and see their wealth grow, widening the economic divide.

Executive Order 6102 forced citizens to surrender gold so the government could unilaterally reprice it from $20.67 to $35/ounce a year later. This instantly devalued every dollar in existence by 41%, a move necessitated by years of money printing to counterfeit their own currency.

The Federal Reserve's ability to print money is a direct mechanism to take value from every citizen without legislation. It is mathematically equivalent to government-sanctioned counterfeiting, devaluing currency and transferring wealth from the populace to the government, acting as a tax.

Central banks evolved from gold warehouses that discovered they could issue more paper receipts (IOUs) than the gold they held, creating a fraudulent but profitable "fractional reserve." This practice was eventually co-opted by governments to fund their activities, not for economic stability.

The word "inflation" is a deliberately implanted euphemism that makes monetary debasement sound like positive growth. The reality is that money is depreciating and its purchasing power is being stolen. Reframing it as "monetary depreciation" reveals the true, negative nature of the process and shifts public perception from a necessary evil to outright theft.

The original definition of inflation is an expansion of the money supply. By shifting the definition to mean rising prices (a consequence), governments can deflect blame for inflation onto businesses, unions, or foreign events, rather than their own money-printing policies.

Inflation is framed not just as rising prices, but as a form of secretive theft. Since only a small percentage of Americans own significant assets that appreciate with inflation, the policy mechanistically funnels wealth upward from the working and middle classes to the top 10%, creating vast, systemic inequality.