The Last Throes of Hard Money Religion

Posted by Michael A. Kamperman on December 5, 2010

We are witnessing the last throes of the idolatry of hard money.  The era of hard money officially ended when the Federal Reserve correctly decided we needed to print our way back to prosperity.  Yet few have noted the end of the era, and fewer still understand its implications, because of the wailing and knashing of teeth from the ardent disciples of hard money.  They scream hyperinflation and want to back the currency with gold.  They are confused with the concept that the federal government’s dollar resources are not finite, but infinite.  Hence, they fear deficit spending and federal debt despite the impossibility of the federal government ever defaulting on debts it owes in dollars.  Many mistakenly believe if the federal government prints money it increases rather than decreases the national debt.  Hard money religion is our historical heritage, but it is not our future, and is no longer even our present.  The sooner we can come to terms with the end of the hard money era, then the sooner we will be able to heal our self-inflicited  fiscal wounds with the new tools of the soft money era.  The hard money idolatrists are taking us down the austerity path that will break our society apart.  Society will come to its senses and exile the idolatrist to the scrap heap of history.  Ireland is about to do so because they have been asked to absorb too much pain for someone else’s gain.  It is only a matter of when we do the same here.  Since our current political leadership is comprised mostly of hard money idolatrists, including multiple priests of the religion, it will take time for change to come.

Hawaii has cut 17 school days to save money.  Yet the state has the buildings and the books, the parents want the kids to go, and the teachers want to come and teach.  How can we be sitting in the twenty first century and everyone agree we need something we already have the resources for and yet we throw up our hands and say we can’t do it?  The reason is the idolatry of hard money and the mistaken belief that dollars are a finite resource for the federal government.  All Congress has to do is pass another stimulus bill to send aid to the states, and these problems will be solved.  Yet hard money idolatry has us staring at the print button and saying we dare not touch it.  Now we are staring at the state of Arizona cutting Medicaid patients out of transplant programs to save money.  A 32 year-old father in need of a liver transplant has been removed from the waiting list because he is poor and couldn’t show up at the hospital with $200,000 in cash.  The hospital and the doctors are there, yet access is denied.  Again, federalising Medicaid would end this nonsensical atrocity.

Fortunately for us many of the priests of hard money who are railing against debts and deficits and runaway spending, such as our President and most of our Republican and Democrat Senators and Congressman, are actually false prophets and charlatans.  As politicians, they are willing to tell us anything to maintain their own base of power and the perks that come with it.  Otherwise, we would not be looking at an all-but-certain extension of all the tax cuts enacted by both President Bush and President Obama along with an extension of unpaid for unemployment benefits in the midst of trillion dollar deficits.  Most of these so-called deficit hawks are not true believers.  They simply manipulate the beliefs of others to gain votes.  When the polls change, they will change with the polls.  This is actually our saving grace.  All it will take to bring about true change is to change public opinion.  And as President Obama has found out, the public can change opinion fast.