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608 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
But the greatest source of funding came, as it always does in wartime, not from direct taxes, but from the hidden tax called inflation. Between 1915 and 1920, the money supply doubled from $20.6 billion to $39.8 billion. Conversely, during World War I, the purchasing power of the currency fell by almost 50%. That means American unknowingly paid to the government approximately one-half of every dollar that existed. And that was in addition to their taxes. This massive infusion of money was the product of the Mandrake Mechanism [Griffin's term for the Fed's creation of money out of debt manufactured out of thin air] and cost nothing to create. Yet the banks were able to collect interest on it all. The ancient partnership between the political and monetary scientists had performed its mission well. (259-60)The history portion of the book (95%) is incredibly illuminating and fascinating. It's quite fascinating how much of the early political debates in American history were about money policy. George Washington warned against fiat money:
"We may one day become a great commercial and flourishing nation. But if in the pursuit of the means we should unfortunately stumble again on unfunded paper money or any similar species of fraud, we shall assuredly give a fatal stab to our national credit in its infancy" (323).Near the end of the book Griffin starts to get kooky about a supposed global conspiracy and a radical 1960s document that provides a road map to world domination and economic upheaval. Especially compared to the rest of the book, the volume and depth of cited materials are conspicuously lacking in this section. However, his detailed prescriptions to begin to dig us out of the hole we are in--mostly involving paying down debt with fiat money, going back to a gold/silver standard, and steadily eroding the suffocating power of central government from our lives--are sound, practical, and easy to grab hold of.