Marty Small, the mayor of Atlantic City, said Thursday that roughly 7,900 residents who own real estate in the City will get a $500 “stipend” from City government. This will cost the City nearly $4 million. The City will also pay $3,500 to each of its employees “who worked. . . between March 20 and September 28, 2020” when most City Hall offices were closed during the coronavirus quarantines and shutdowns.
That will come from $33 million, roughly 17% of the City’s budget, paid by the federal government to Atlantic City’s local government. The federal government paid a total of $2.9 billion to all local governments in New Jersey. It paid $6.5 billion to New Jersey state government.
All this comes from the federal government’s $1,900,000,000,000 ($1.9 trillion) “American Rescue Plan” adopted by Democrats in Congress, and approved by President Biden last March. Not a single Republicans voted for this measure.
No taxes were approved to pay for this. No announcement was made as to how or when this money will be paid back. It may never be paid back. All we know is that the Federal Reserve is issuing electronic money and printing paper money with nothing to back it up.
This of course cheapens every dollar in our wallets and bank accounts. Prices are going up because the value of the dollars we spend is going down.
This has been going on for years. In 1965, Democratic President Lyndon Johnson stopped using silver to guarantee the value of our coins and blue sealed “Silver Certificate” dollar bills. In 1971, Republican President Richard Nixon stopped using gold to guarantee the value of our money.
Until now, our government got away with it. Every paper dollar contains the words “This Bill Is Legal Tender For All Debts Public And Private”. So far, most Americans agree to accept dollars in payment. Most save their money in dollars.
So far, most businesses and people in other countries who sell us what we need accept payment in dollars. That is because our dollar is still more reliable than the money of most other countries in the world. However, they are raising their prices. A good yardstick is the price of gold.
Three years ago, $1,400 would buy an ounce of gold. Now, you need $1,800, an increase of roughly 30%.
What will happen when people in other countries tell us they don’t want any more dollars and want to be paid with something else? We don’t know. That has never happened to America before. For years, our money was always backed by gold or silver and trusted by everyone we dealt with. The term “sound as a dollar” was once a popular expression that was very true.
This did happen in Germany in 1923. At that time, the socialist government spent far more money than it took in for two years. It printed so much paper money to pay pensions, salaries, and welfare payments that nobody in or out of the country wanted to exchange valuable goods for paper that was almost worthless.
The same thing happened in Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia), an African country run by a socialist government in 2009.
Much of America is now being run as a socialist country. What is wrong with this?
- The value of our work and what we produce no longer determines how much money we get. More than half of Americans get most of their money from the government in benefits rather than from private businesses or people for the value of their work. For those people, the group they are part of and the political power they have determines how much money they get.
- There is now very little connection between how much government spends and how much taxes it collects. When government doesn’t have enough money to pay its bills, it either borrows money or prints paper money. Because few people think they will pay higher taxes if the government spends more money, most voters routinely vote for candidates who promise to spend more to give them what they want.
- Webster’s Dictionary defines “money” as “something generally accepted as a medium of exchange”. If our government keeps printing and issuing paper money with nothing of value to back it up, our dollar will no longer meet that definition. What will replace it? Who will benefit the most? Who will be hurt the most? Will hyper-DEflation offset from pension and bond defaults offset hyper-inflation? Click here for link to contrary opinion: Before You Borrow Heavily To Bet On Inflation, Read What Atlantic City Native Rick Ackerman Says About DE-flation! – Liberty and Prosperity
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