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quoting nevent1q…csj2

As I understand it, the economy of the last century is essentially a grand scheme of wealth redistribution through control over money. Originally, money was natural — gold, silver — you couldn’t print it, and it had real, intrinsic value. But with the rise of banking and state debt, the idea of fiat money emerged — first as a temporary measure, then as a convenient mechanism for managing society.

The 20th century began with rising competition between empires over resources, influence, and markets. Economic tension, militarism, and a network of alliances led to an explosion — World War I broke out in 1914 as a result of global power struggles and imperial ambitions. To finance this war, major powers abandoned the gold standard and began printing money. This led to widespread inflation, mounting debt, and post-war economic chaos.

Germany suffered particularly hard after the war. Crushed by impossible reparations, the Weimar Republic turned to mass money printing — which led to one of the most destructive hyperinflations in history (1921–1923). The mark devalued daily. People carried cash in baskets and spent it immediately, before it lost even more value. The middle class was wiped out. This societal collapse became fertile ground for radical forces and directly paved the way for Hitler’s rise to power, and eventually World War II.

After the war, a new global financial system was proposed. In 1944, the Bretton Woods system was established, where the U.S. dollar was pegged to gold, and other currencies were pegged to the dollar. That system lasted until 1971, when the U.S., drowning in debt and running low on gold, unilaterally ended the dollar’s convertibility to gold. From that point on, the dollar became fully fiat — backed by nothing but trust in the U.S. government and its military power.

Back in 1933, the U.S. had already run a rehearsal — it confiscated gold from its citizens, exchanging it for paper “gold certificates” — dollars. A year later, it raised the price of gold by nearly 100%, devaluing the savings of those who had handed it over. Printing money became a criminal offense — for everyone except the government and the banks aligned with it.

Since 1971, the money supply has only grown — and with it, inflation. People aren’t getting poorer because they work less, but because their money is losing value. Currency is created out of thin air. Government debt is never repaid — it’s simply serviced with new debt, including interest. This is the debt spiral: to keep the system from collapsing, more borrowing is always needed. When the market can’t absorb more debt, the central bank steps in and buys it up with newly printed money (known as QE — Quantitative Easing).

Interest rates have become the main lever of economic control. Raise rates — and households and businesses are suffocated by loans. Lower them — and debt-fueled bubbles form. Sometimes rates even go negative, and you literally pay the bank to store your money, just to keep it from losing more value.

The system is fundamentally unjust, because it’s built on the Cantillon Effect: those who receive new money first — banks, corporations, elites — spend it before inflation kicks in. Everyone else gets the devalued version. It’s a hidden tax, imposed not through parliaments, but through monetary policy.

Inflation doesn’t just hit wallets — it slowly degrades the entire fabric of society. Prices rise, and to survive, businesses cut every corner: materials get cheaper, food becomes more synthetic, jobs more precarious, healthcare more inhuman. Buildings go up faster but look cheaper, more generic, more disposable. Architecture loses beauty because no one can afford beauty anymore. It’s the same with clothing, furniture, and lifestyle — on the surface, people have more: internet, cars, fast fashion. But the quality of everything has collapsed, because money no longer stores value, and no one plans for the long term.

Those who print the money are deeply tied to the state — or, in some cases, control it from behind the scenes. The state, in turn, is protected by the military and police, which are paid for by the people through taxes. So we end up financing our own inflation, our own decline, and the power of those who rule over the money system. And all of this continues simply because we still believe in paper that can be created endlessly.