Do not expect an accurate perspective about inflation from mainstream media. Such reporting is based on the lie that inflation is the condition of rising prices. This is often repeated by political leaders, news reporters and pundits. It is also taught at all levels of education. Worse, hardly any of the dispensers of this falsehood know they have been misled and are misinforming their audiences.

The truth is that inflation results when more unbacked paper notes are issued. In 1930, $10,000 could buy a modest home. By 2000, a similar home cost $300,000 or more. The change in price resulted largely from destroying much of the dollar’s value through massive insertion of currency. In 1930, money was gold and silver and the paper certificates issued by the U.S. Treasury said they could be exchanged for a designated amount of precious metal. However, backing the paper currency with gold was canceled in 1933. In 1967, President Lyndon Johnson presided over canceling silver backing of U.S. currency. Today, there is no precious metal backing U.S. paper currency.

Inflation is not rising prices. It is an increase in the quantity of currency, which lowers the value of existing currency. Don’t blame the grocery store owners, gasoline station managers, home sellers, or others for what has happened to the value of America's currency. Blame the government officials and Federal Reserve personnel who work together to create paper money without backing.

Government officials and the nation’s news purveyors admit everything has become more expensive. But they point to erroneously-defined inflation as the cause. Very few involved in this fraud are deliberate scoundrels. Most simply don’t know and end up repeating outright misinformation. But either way, they are misleading people about the true meaning and effect of inflation. Virtually no one points to the true reason, which is the dollar’s steady loss of value due to flooding the nation with unbacked Federal Reserve notes.

Inflation amounts to thievery of a misinformed people’s wealth. If not stopped, it can lead to America’s destruction. History teaches that the existence of precious metal-backed currency is essential in any country desiring freedom. Read American economist Henry Hazlitt’s 1946 book Economics in One Lesson to better understand the issue.

A May 14, 2011, Wall Street Journal article titled “Using a Dictionary to Define INflation Can Spell Trouble” said the definition of inflation had been changed from the pre-2003 Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, which correctly defined inflation as “printing too much money”. The article said the same company’s dictionary now defined inflation as “a continuing rise in the general price level.” The faulty definition took root and government officials began repeating it.

Every American who values freedom and national independence should pass this valuable information to many more Americans.

Lawrence Paulsen, information from The John Birch Society