The French Revolution inflation was unsecured. Between April 1790 and February 1796, 40 billion livres or francs were issued. New paper money (Mandats) replaced them that year; the following year both sorts were declared no longer legal tender (waste paper!) - and 2 years later Napoleon took over "to save the Republic."(!)
We could still keep from going utterly bankrupt by going back on some hard standard (gold, silver, uranium, mercury, bushels of wheat - something). But it would not be easy, it would not be popular; it would mean hard times for everyone while we recovered from an almighty hangover. Do you think a Congress and a President can be elected on any such platform?
One chink in the armor of any democracy is that, when the Plebs discover that they can vote themselves Bread & Circuses, they usually do ... right up to the day there is neither bread nor circuses. At that point they often start lynching the senators, congressmen, bankers, tax collectors, Jews, grocers, foreigners, any minority - take your choice. For they know that they didn't do it. The citizen is sovereign until it comes to accepting blame for his sovereign acts - then he demands a scapegoat.
I used official figures without comment to show where we have been the past 70 years... and how we got into the mess we are in. But, while I think our government is more nearly honest than some others (see INSIDE INTOURIST Afterword, page 439), there is a lot of hanky - panky in those official figures. Example:
Social Security taxes go into the general fund and are spent. If Social Security were in fact insurance (the basis on which the gimmick was sold to us by FDR's "New Deal"), the receipts would be segregated and invested and not shown as income ... OR a competent insurance actuary with staff would calculate the commitment and it would show in the National Public Debt.
(The fact that a debt is amortized over the years doesn't stop it from being a debt. It was an amortized mortgage that got me into this racket. The prospect of years and years of future monthly payments spoiled my sleep.)
The only way the Government can go on paying Social "Security" to my generation is by taxing you young people more and more heavily... and each year there are more and more old people and fewer and fewer young people. It won't help to run the printing presses faster; that causes food to rise in price, rents to go up, etc. - and people over 65 start putting pressure on Congress .. . and there's an election coming up. (There's always an election coming up.)
One thing I learned as a ward heeler was that (with scarce exceptions) people in my age group want one of two things: 1) They want to keep on clipping those coupons and collecting those rents and they don't give a damn what it does to the country, or 2) they want that raise in Social Security (Townsend Plan) ("Ham & Eggs") (you name one) and they don't give a damn what it does to the country.
(I don't claim to be altruistic. Just this pragmatic difference: I am sharply aware that, if the United States goes down the chute, I go down with it.)
I use the term "Federal Public Debt" because what is usually termed the "Public Debt" is by no means our total public debt. There are also state, county, city, and special - district debts. It is difficult to get accurate figures on these public debts but the total appears to be larger than the Federal Public Debt. I can't make even a wild guess at the Social Security commitment
but our total public promises - to - pay have to exceed two trillion dollars. How much is a trillion? Well, it means that a baby born today owes at least $4,347.83 to the Federal Government alone before his eyes open. (No wonder he yells). It means that the Zero Population Growth family (who was going to save us all - remember?) of father, mother, and 2.1 children owes $17,826 in addition to private debts (mortgage, automobile, college for 2.1 children).
Of course papa won't pay it off; that debt will grow larger. But it will cost him $2000 a year (and rising) just to "service" his pro - rata; any taxes for which he gets anything at all - even more laws - is on top of that.
A trillion seconds is 31,688 years, 9 months, 5 days, 8 hours, 6 minutes, and 42 seconds - long enough for the precession of the equinoxes to make Vega the Pole Star, swing back again to Polaris, and go on past to Alpha Cephei. Or counting the other way it would take us to 29,708 B.C.... or more than 25 thousand years before Creation by Bishop Usher's chronology for creationism.
I don't understand a trillion dollars any better than I do a trillion seconds. I simply know that we had better stop spending money we don't have if we want to avoid that Man on Horseback.
But I don't think we will stop "deficit financing," the euphemism that sounds so much better than "kiting checks."
You may have noticed that 1970 figure for public employees (not my extrapolation for 1980, but the official 1970 figures straight from the United States Bureau of the Census).
That figure does not include the Armed Forces. It does not include some special categories. It is easier to learn the number of slaves imported in 1769 (6,736) than it is to find out exactly how many people are on public payrolls in this country. And it is not simply difficult but impossible to determine how many people receive Federal checks for which they perform no services. (Or food stamps. Are food stamps money?) But one thing is certain: the number of people eligible to vote who do receive money from some unit of government (aid to dependent children, Supreme Court justices, not growing wheat, removing garbage, governors of states, whoever) exceeds the number eligible to vote but receiving no pay or subsidy of any sort from any unit of government.
Have you read the Federal Register lately? Have you ever read the Federal Register? Under powers delegated by Congress certain appointed officials can publish a new regulation in the Federal Register and, if Congress does not stop it, after a prescribed waiting time, that regulation has the force of law - it is law, to you and to me, although a lawyer sees nuances. I have vastly oversimplified this description, but my only purpose is to point out that "administrative law" reaches into every corner of our lives, and is the major factor in the enormous and strangling invasion of the Federal Government into our private affairs.
I can't see anything in the Constitution that permits the Congress to delegate its power to pass laws.. . but the Supreme Court says it's okay and that makes my opinion worthless.
I'm stopping. There are endless other gloomy things to discuss - the oil shortage, the power shortage (not the same thing), pollution, population pressure, a projected change in climate that can and probably will turn the problems of population and food into sudden and extreme crisis, crime in the streets and bankrupt cities, our incredible plunge from the most respected nation on Earth to the most despised (but we are nonetheless expected to pick up the tab). Bill Gresham was right but he told only half of it: you not only don't get rich peddling gloom; it isn't any fun.
So now come with me - "OVER THE RAINBOW - "
The new President had not been in office ten days before it became clear to his own party as well as to the "loyal opposition" that he was eyen more of a disaster than the defeated candidate had predicted. Nevertheless the country was shocked when he served even fewer days than the ninth President - killed in a crash, his private plane, himself at the controls; dying with him his three top aides: White House chief of staff, press secretary, appointments secretary.
No U.S. or Canadian news medium said a word about alcohol or incidents in the dead President's past; they treated it as a tragic accident. Papers and TV reporters elsewhere were not as reticent.
The Speaker of the new House saw the ex - Vice President first (even before the oath of office) as the Speaker's seniority in line of succession enabled him to do. He came right to the point. "I am ready to take this load off your shoulders. We both know that you were picked simply to support the ticket; no one ever expected to load you down with this. Here's how we'll do it: You resign at once, then we'll meet the press together - after I'm sworn in. I'll do most of the talking. I promise you, it won't be a strain on you."