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Show THE DOLLAR WILTS The American dollar wilts. High prices? They are only the wrong name for sinking sink-ing dollars. What is now happening to the dollar may turn out to be more destructive to the nation, and tragic to more individuals, indi-viduals, than the horrible war itself. From the President down, few Americans seem to understand un-derstand the danger, or to be willing to face the bitter truth. The dollar is no longer anchored to the product of a day s work. That fact explains soaring prices. Talk about speculation or unusual demand confuses, but gives no honest hon-est warning. For centuries gold was the base for honest money. Why? Not merely because it was durable, movable, divisible, divisi-ble, and attractive. Gold was always hard to get. A unit of gold always represented a unit of work. Work was the true base for sound money. Receipts for gold, bonds, notes, checks, and paper money were "good as gold" as long as they, too, represented productive work. , Today s sky-riding prices and drooping dollars trace straight back to the divorce of the dollar from work. The Glass-Stegall amendment to the Federal Reserve Act in 1931 authorized the Reserve Banks to issue currency against government bonds. That did little harm until later. Then in 1934 our money was unhitched from gold. The evil blazed up when government spending continued, year after year, to exceed the government income; when war multiplied mul-tiplied the spending it became a conflagration. When the country abandoned gold, and started using paper currency backed only by government "credit," the value of money began to be diluted by dollars that do not represent productive work. Tremendous home demand, huge exports aggravate but do not themselves cause the trouble The trouble is "managed" paper money. Such money has always in history come to disaster. What to do? The first thing is to recognize that high prices are mere symptoms. They only reflect the wiltino-dollar. |