by George Ure
http://urbansurvival.com/week.htm
...the USA is on a similar track - toward death of the dollar - although Zimbabwe got there first. Our own progress has been a little slow, but not for a lack of effort on the part of the left-right-money alliance in Washington. The ruling Troika (and the Russian word is becoming more and more apropos) has been moving us right along the nonlinear path toward hyperinflation ever since the bankers seized the nation's monetary controls in 1913.
By 1929, the not-really-federal reserve had stolen away 42.1% of the dollar's purchasing power. By 1950, that amount had swelled to where 58.9% of the dollars purchasing power had been stolen. Even more importantly, thanks to Keynesian doubletalk, the American public had the "Big Lie" about inflation deeply seated in both textbooks and popular media.
The Big Lie is that prices go up. They don't. The purchasing power of your dollars goes DOWN.
By 1975, the dilution of purchasing power had sucked 81.6% of the dollar's purchasing power away - meaning that something which cost $1 in 1913 when the banksters took over (along with their free lunch/deficit spending pals in congress) was up to $5.43.
Then things got worse.
By 2000 the dollar's purchasing power was diluted 94.25% from where it started in 1913. What had cost a single dollar then was up to $17.39.
This morning, if we assume 5% inflation for 2009 year-to-date, what cost a single dollar in 1913 is up to $22.61. The dollar is buying 4.42% of what it did in 1913, or more clearly its purchasing power has dropped 95.57%
It doesn't take a financial genius to figure out that what's happening to the US dollar's purchasing power is along the same lines as Zimbabwe's only slower - at least for a little while. But over time there's no way of getting around it: We're going down the same road led by compounding interest the whole way.
The major task of governments is to keep as many people buying into the idea that paper money is a 'solid' thing. It is...and it isn't.
John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics wrote a most excellent piece back in 2008 - a "Hyperinflation Special Report" in which he forecast a "Hyperinflationary Depression remains likely as early as 2010."
Williams calculations of the dollar depreciation, by the way is even more grim than mine. The way he figures it, the decline in purchasing power has been such that since December 1913 through August of this year, fully 96% of the dollar's purchasing power has gone toes up and what cost a single dollar in 1913 is up to $25.18.