The Counterfeiting Machine

Imagine if I had a machine that could counterfeit money. I would be at quite an advantage in the marketplace. Imagine that I shared this funny money with my friends, which of course includes you, dear reader. We would go around spending our newly made cash on all of the finest things this world has to offer. Would it be fair to all of those people who don't have such a machine? Of course not. Not only are we getting rich without producing anything or rendering any services to anyone, we are actually stealing from everyone. As we buy more and more, prices are bid up and up. The law of supply & demand tells us that as money increases relative to the amount of goods and services there are to pay for, prices MUST go up. The money in everyone else's checking account can't buy as much today as it did yesterday because of our counterfeit spending spree. But who cares? They're all suckers.

Of course, if we did this we would likely be caught pretty quickly. People who spend wantonly and have no ostensible income tend to attract the attention of the Feds. We would have to be sneakier. I actually know about some people at a corporation who do it pretty well and no one seems to notice. They claim it's perfectly legal, but it doesn't sound legal. This corporation has a friend with a printing press who they have hired to help with investments. But they don't just ask the guy to print them up money. That would be flagrantly counterfeiting. No, they are much more clever than that.

The corporation issues bonds, which are bought up by certain investment firms, most notably Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs then turns around and puts the bonds back up for sale at a higher price in order to make a profit. But who in their right mind would pay the higher price instead of the original market price? A man with a counterfeiting machine, that's who. The counterfeiter prints up some cash and hands it over to the investment bankers. Then the man with the machine allows the bonds to mature. Once they have matured, he cashes them in and uses the money to cover his "expenses". And here's the best part. Any profit above expenses that the counterfeiter makes is returned to the original corporation which is his employer.

These people have all gotten insanely rich off of this scheme. They are some of the wealthiest people to have ever lived on this planet. I am not one to begrudge someone the accumulation of vast amounts of wealth. If you get rich by selling me something I want/need, good for you. If you never lifted a finger in your life and inherited an obscene fortune, I don't give a shit. It doesn't bother me. But I don't like being robbed. I don't like being made a sucker. Don't you think the government should do something about these swindlers? Don't you pay taxes in order to build prisons for people like these?

I'm sure, dear reader, you have realized by now that the mendacious corporation in the example *is* the government. The man with the money machine is the Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States. Of course, the Fed doesn't actually need a printing machine. It just creates digital money out of thin air and transfers it to the likes of Goldman Sachs or the U.S. Treasury Department. And it's all legal because they write the laws. As these bastards spend their ill gotten fortunes, prices are bid up. Your money is worth less. We're all a bunch of suckers.