The_Inflation_Deception_FINAL3:Layout 1 6/9/11 1:40 PM Page 1 of from “History is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations CRAIG R. the authors engineered by governments for the gain of governments.” SMITH —Friedrich A. Hayek Crashing the Dollar Nobel Laureate Economist THE “High, or even hyper, inflation is rapidly approaching. After 30 years of helping people hedge against financial risk, I can feel the tremors of this oncoming economic tidal wave rumbling beneath my feet. It is far bigger than I have ever INFLATION felt. The coming devastation will put America’s economy underwater and destroy the U.S. Dollar as we have known it, as the world’s Reserve Currency.” —Craig R. Smith from his Introduction to The Inflation Deception QE27 Craig and Lowell show how to free our nation, and protect our families, from already-skyrocketing prices and declining values created by our ruling Inflatocracy – government of, by and for inflation. In this excellent book, you’ll discover why today’s paper money should say: DECEPTION “In God We Trust, Not in This Paper.” —Pat Boone, Entertainer from his Foreword to The Inflation Deception Craig R. Smith, Founder and Chairman of Swiss America Trading Corporation, has been interviewed by Fox, CNBC and other business media. He is a columnist for WND.com. SixWays Government Tricks Us ... Lowell Ponte is a former think tank futurist, And SevenWays to Stop It! former Reader’s Digest Roving Editor and Newsmax.com columnist. Politics/Economics/Personal Finance CRAIG R. SMITH Copyright 2011 by Idea Factory Press, All Rights Reserved. Published by Idea Factory Press, Phoenix, AZ, USA Book design and illustration by Linda Daly and LOWELL PONTE Produced and directed by Lowell Ponte IDEA www.inflationdeception.com FACTORY PRESS Foreword by PAT BOONE The Inflation Deception Also by Craig R. Smith Rediscovering Gold in the 21st Century: The Complete Guide to the Next Gold Rush Black Gold Stranglehold: The Myth of Scarcity and the Politics of Oil (co-authored with Jerome R. Corsi) The Uses of Inflation: Monetary Policy and Governance in the 21st Century Crashing the Dollar: How to Survive a Global Currency Collapse (co-authored with Lowell Ponte) Also by Lowell Ponte The Cooling Crashing the Dollar: How to Survive a Global Currency Collapse (co-authored with Craig R. Smith) The Inflation Deception Six Ways Government Tricks Us... and Seven Ways to Stop It! Craig R. Smith Swiss America and Lowell Ponte Foreword by Pat Boone Idea Factory Press Phoenix, Arizona The Inflation Deception: Six Ways Government Tricks Us... and Seven Ways to Stop It! Copyright © 2011 by Idea Factory Press All Rights Reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or parts thereof, in any form except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. Printed in the United States of America. For more information contact publisher. Cover art by Linda Daly, Dalybread.com Based on a design concept by Lowell Ponte Copy editing by Ellen Ponte Portions of this book originally appeared in Crashing the Dollar: How to Survive a Global Currency Collapse by Craig R. Smith and Lowell Ponte Copyright © 2010 by Idea Factory Press. All Rights Reserved. Portions of this book originally appeared in The Uses of Inflation: Monetary Policy and Governance in the 21st Century by Craig R. Smith Copyright © 2011 by Swiss America Trading Corporation All Rights Reserved. Library of Congress Data ISBN Number 978-0-9711482-2-2 First Edition. June 2011 Idea Factory Press President, David M. Bradshaw 13232 North 1st Avenue, Phoenix, AZ 85029 Tel. (602) 918-3296 * [email protected] Updates, reviews and more posted at http://www.inflationdeception.com Table of Contents Foreword: Pat Boone........................................................................vii Introduction: Craig R. Smith..............................................................1 Part One: Grand Theft Dollar Chapter One: “Inflation Is Theft” ......................................................7 Chapter Two: CSI – Crime Scene: Inflation .....................................21 Chapter Three: Ways Inflation Deceives..........................................47 Part Two: Inflation’s Method of Operation Chapter Four: A Compressed History of Inflation...........................75 Chapter Five: Inflation in America ..................................................91 Chapter Six: The Money Illusion ...................................................111 Chapter Seven: Under Inflation’s Spell...........................................137 Part Three: The Uses of Inflation Chapter Eight: Inflation as Taxation ..............................................153 Chapter Nine: Inflatocracy – Inflation as Ideology and Power......169 Part Four: Arresting Inflation Chapter Ten: Three Political Ways to Rein in Inflation .................193 Chapter Eleven: Three Ways Alternative Money Can Handcuff Inflation ...................................................................215 Chapter Twelve: How to Escape from the Inflatocracy ..................233 Sources ..........................................................................................243 Additional Background Sources ...................................................255 Dedication To my wonderful wife and best friend Melissa Smith, who makes me better each day and raised our daughters Holly and Katie to love the Lord with all their hearts. Also to my Pastor Tommy Barnett, who taught me that doing the right thing is always the right thing to do, and to always hold onto the vision. Foreword by Pat Boone “The wicked man earns deceptive wages, but he who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.” – Proverbs 11:18 The Framers of America’s Constitution followed the Biblical standard for money, specifying that it be an honest measure of silver or gold. So long as America kept faith with this standard, between the 1820s and the creation of the Federal Reserve Board in 1913, the purchas- ing power of the U.S. Dollar over that time gradually increased in value. American prosperity grew in part from keeping our money a medium of exchange and a store of intrinsic value trusted around the world. You could actually redeem this paper for a fixed amount of gold or silver. In 1913 we began the turn from gold to today’s Federal Reserve Notes, paper money based only on politician promises. In less than a century the buying power of our paper dollar has plunged to only two cents of its 1913 value. In this book my long-trusted friend and advisor Craig Smith and for- mer Reader’s Digest Roving Editor Lowell Ponte explain how this happened, why we feel like the man the Prophet Haggai described as earning wages but seeing his money vanish as if put “in a purse with holes in it,” and how our government now deliberately creates infla- tion as a deceptive way to tax and control us. During the same era that politicians adopted un-Biblical fiat money, they in 1957 added the words “In God We Trust” to U.S. paper cur- rency. Craig and Lowell show how to free our nation, and protect our families, from already-skyrocketing prices and declining values created by our ruling Inflatocracy – government of, by and for infla- tion. In this excellent book, you’ll discover why today’s paper money should say: “In God We Trust, Not in This Paper.” “Believe me that the whole system of credit and finance which is carried on here at Rome in the Forum, is inextricably bound up with revenues of the Asiatic province. If those revenues are destroyed, our whole system of credit will come down with a crash.” – Cicero Roman Republic statesman 66 B.C. Introduction by Craig R. Smith “History is largely a history of inflation, usually inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.” – Friedrich A. Hayek Nobel Laureate Economist High, or even hyper, inflation is rapidly approaching. After 30 years of helping people hedge against financial risk, I can feel the tremors of this oncoming economic tidal wave rumbling beneath my feet. It is far bigger than I have ever felt. The coming devastation will put America’s economy underwater and destroy the U.S. Dollar as we have known it, as the world’s Reserve Currency. For those who have not prepared, the economic devastation about to arrive will bring hardships that make the Great Depression look like a summer picnic. Most of us have been deceived into thinking that high inflation is the inadvertent by-product of misguided or unlucky government policies. As this book will show you, inflation is the government policy. The approaching tidal wave has been deliberately set in motion. This investigation will show you how and why. Our aim is to show you why inflation is much more than higher prices, and what steps you and your family can take to survive, thrive and even prosper during the hard economic times in America’s immediate future. In this book you will also learn how you have been systematically de- ceived about what inflation really is, how much it has taken from you, and how many ways our politicians and central bankers use it. Inflation, we will show you, is quietly being used as a tool, an ideology, and a form of taxation that secretly extracts the earnings not only of Americans but also of unsuspecting people in other countries. It has also become a means of wealth redistribution, a mode of social engi- neering, a device to weaken some and strengthen others both within our nation and in the global community of nations, and a way to seize and exercise power. Inflation and its monetary impact can, as recent scientific brain scans suggest, literally affect our perceptions, judgment and decision-making ability like a mind-altering drug....just one of the ways inflation can be used to manipulate us through what economists and scientists call “Money Illusion.” Inflation is being deliberately created and used to trick us out of: 1. Our earnings, savings, investments and property 2. Our opportunities to pursue happiness 3. Our independence and self-reliance 4. Our security and peace of mind 5. Our freedom and our rights, and 6. Our children’s and grandchildren’s future in what used to be a much freer America. The welfare state depends on inflation to fund its unlimited craving for expansion.