On the surface, it seems wrong to cheer the destruction of the American fiat money system. If you mention this idea to someone they will disagree, saying something like, “You can’t cheer the economic destruction of millions of people.” But they don’t understand that economic destruction is the key feature of a fiat money system. It has been destroying since its inception, continues today, and will continue until it ends.
Why is a fiat money system so destructive? Because at its core is fraud. As Fr. Ripperger says, “At the heart of fractional reserve lending is fraud. A bank has 10 million and loans out 100 million. That is fraud. They don’t have the money.” If the essence of the American economy is based on fraud, we know that everything it touches will be destroyed – financially and morally. Rothbard said, “Fractional-reserve banking is disastrous both for the morality and for the fundamental bases and institutions of the market economy.”
The fraudulent fiat system has already destroyed the country
- Countless lives destroyed from boom-bust cycles, and the false economy fiat systems create. We all know someone who lost a job, a home, or marriage because of the 2008 banking crisis and never recovered.
- Fiat funded forever wars – Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya – which destabilized the countries, killed millions, and created millions more refugees. Many of which went to Europe, destroying that continent.
- Millions of hopeless young Americans. Why get a $12 an hour job in a world where costs increase 10-20% a year and houses cost $350,000? The system crushes opportunity and forces them to remain children – they live at home, forego starting families, turn to drugs, video games and other base pleasures. Morality falls, as Rothbard said.
- Decline of family – over 50% divorce rate, 48%+ babies born to unwed mothers. In the 1960’s a man could raise a family on one income. His wife could stay home and do one of the most important jobs in the world – form the mind of their child. That reality is gone for millions of Americans. Now both parents slave while the state forms the mind of the child. Family is the core of a healthy and prosperous society.
- 40+ million on psychiatric drugs, drug addiction and deaths from drugs at record levels, declining church attendance, rise of vulgarity, decline of modesty, life expectancy down, GDP is down – even with the fed printing trillions, record debt…the list goes on.
The fiat money system has destroyed American society by destroying morality, people, families, marriages, institutions, the hopes of millions of young people, the entire country – a crime almost too heinous to contemplate. Should one be angry? St. Thomas says you must be angry: “He who is not angry when there is just cause for anger is immoral. Why? Because anger looks to the good of justice. And if you can live amid injustice without anger, you are immoral as well as unjust”.
If the system is so destructive, why is it kept alive? Because those in power receive unlimited advantage from it. The fraud is in their favor – and to the detriment of those without power. As the system grows, their power grows…and they become absolutely corrupted. They couldn’t care less if the country is destroyed, as long as they maintain their advantage, wealth, and power. Virtually everyone is subject to being bought, and so they are bought. Laws are enshrined, payments are made, the system goes on…
The collapse of this system will be beautiful, because it will be the ending of a great fraud. It will be a cleansing, a restoration…the antipode of what St. Thomas said – anger that the system exists and destroys – joy that the fraud is ending.
Ultimately, it is cheering the application of justice to a fraudulent system. Justice is virtuous and beautiful, as the system re-balances and the right ordering of society is returned. St. Thomas quotes Tully, who “declares…(De Officiis i, 7) the luster of virtue appears above all in justice.”
The application of justice to an immoral system must happen in order to return to a civil society. “What are kingdoms without justice? They’re just gangs of bandits,” St. Augustine said. American society is based on fraud and injustice – a society of banditry – where destruction rules. It will be of great benefit to all Americans if we lived in a society which is right ordered, just, and where the “luster of virtue appears”.
So let us be joyful as the American fiat system collapses. Let us cheer.
Part 2 will look at what happens if the system continues, and why those with an interest in keeping it together will do so at all costs.