10/17/09

One Hundred Trillion Dollars

zimbabwe-note


When national debts have once been accumulated to a certain degree


[there has never been] a single instance


 of their having been fairly and completely paid


 


The liberation of the public revenue...


has always been brought about by bankruptcy


 though frequently by a pretended payment [through inflation]


 


Adam Smith


Moral philosopher and Father of Modern Economics


 


Did Spanish money become worth less


after the Emperor borrowed against 100 years of future tax revenue


to pay for war against England?


 


Nations are not ruined by one act of violence


but quite often, gradually, and almost imperceptibly


by the depreciation of their currency through excessive quantity


 


Nicolas Copernicus


Discovered Earth was not the center of the Universe


 


Why did the Continental Congress issue paper money


backed by anticipated tax revenues


to pay for war against theocratic England?


 


All the…confusion and distress in America arise


not from the defects in the Constitution...


not from want of honor or virtue


so much as from downright ignorance


of the nature of coin, credit and circulation


 


John Quincy Adams


 


Why did the Legal Tender Act of 1862 authorize paper money


not exchangeable for gold or silver


to finance the Civil War without raising taxes?


 


No State shall… make any Thing but gold and silver Coin


 a Tender in Payment of Debts


 


Article I, Section 10, Clause 1


The Constitution of the United States

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