In Philadelphia, at the corner of Washington Lane and Germantown Ave, is the “Sparrow Jack House.” This is where “Sparrow Jack” lived. He is the man famous for bringing to America, the English House Sparrows, in 1859. Since Sparrow Jack did his deed, the sparrow has become a damned nuisance, and been responsible for the demise of millions of songbirds, thanks to their food being eaten by those damned sparrows, which are everywhere. Cute, yes, but desirable? No.
In 1890, the Starling was introduced, and this black bird has also become a nuisance. Starlings are everywhere, and like the sparrow, have been responsible for lowering the population of jays, finches, and other highly desirable, brightly colored, beautiful, songbirds. So what does this have to do with economics? Simple. The sparrows and starlings have become so numerous, that they can easily be compared to the trillions of paper dollars which have flooded the nation, and ever increasingly become virtually worthless. The buck has indeed lost about 98% of its value in the last hundred years. Their numbers have increased, just as have the sparrows and starlings. Their value has decreased, just as the wonderful songbird numbers have decreased. We have been flooded with trillions of undesirable, virtually valueless paper dollars, and flooded with millions and hundreds of millions of starlings and sparrows. The once beautiful, backed by gold, dollars, have become a laughing stock, and of late, some see signs of a collapse.
“The more of anything there is, the less they will be worth,” (Stott’s Law) and this includes dollars as well as birds. The sparrows and starlings were introduced for what was supposedly a good purpose, and that was to eat and destroy certain insects, which at the time were also nuisances. Welfare, and the handing out of endless streams of dollars to whomever bureaucrats think worthy, has made America overrun with undesirable humanoids, who destroy whatever they touch, it seems. Similarly, the endless hoards of starlings and sparrows have reduced the number of quality birds, whose songs and appearance have thrilled Americans for hundreds of years. Both were done for the best of motives, I am sure. Government has grown, just like the sparrow and starling population, and has become the largest employer, and largest consumer as well. This huge behemoth called government at all levels, but especially the federal has consumed the population with enormous taxes and regulations, just like the sparrows and starlings have consumed the desirable birds.
Sparrows and starlings are everywhere, just as the bureaucrats can be found just about everywhere. The birds, as well as the bureaucrats, are insipid, and are continuously destroying what is good and sound. Having just returned from a three week vacation, I visited several large cities. The products of massive dollar distribution, are obvious. In St. Louis, once wonderful Grand Boulevard has become a disgusting melange of ruined buildings that were once architectural masterpieces. Once magnificent neighborhoods, in the north St. Louis area especially, are now havens for crime of every sort. Do gooder politicians and bureaucrats, have been responsible for the plundering of neighborhoods and the destruction of citizens, by giving trillions of paper dollars for no work done, and no effort spent. Just like the sparrows and starlings began with a few mated pairs, welfare and endless flows of dollars began with FDR 70 years ago, with perhaps the best of intentions. Both have become a disaster, because once begun, both the birds and welfare are impossible to stop. The birds do it on their own, and the people do it the same way by endless copulation and breeding, thereby harming the rest of us, who can easily be likened to songbirds, I suspect.
As the progression began, it was not necessary to have unbacked dollars. Uncle Sam just sold bonds and raised taxes to feed the human sparrows and starlings. But like the birds, the human version increased by leaps and bounds, and today, tens of billions of dollars of “liquidity,” are inserted into the economy each week. Dubya now wants an extra $87 billion for Iraq. How much next month? From where will all this “money” come? You know. The presses will run, and the checks will be written. “Money” created out of nothing. Wish you could do the same? We, who watch our pennies and dollars in order to stay debt free, or at least control our lives in an orderly fashion, are totally unlike the federal government, who is as reckless as it is possible to imagine. “Price is no object,” is a common phrase in Washington D.C.
In the last two years, gold has gone up by close to 50%. In the same two years, if you had your dollars in a savings account at the local bank, you would have seen an increase of perhaps 3%. Daily, more layoffs are announced, and the people with extra dollars, buy stocks for lack of a better thing to do with dollars. Stocks are creeping up, probably in preparation for a drastic fall in the future. The dollar proliferation process will always escalate, just as it always has in times past, with every single currency in history. There is always a shortage of paper “money,” as their values decline. The reason is simple. It takes more and more of them to buy things, so their numbers always must increase to stay the same. In Germany, in 1924, the Reichsmark was going down so fast, that huge trucks were delivering them as fast as the presses could turn them out. Finally, they simply took the old ones and stamped new “values” on them. Some think that could never happen again, or to us. (It happened in Germany again, in 1948.) I hope you are right, but never in history, has a single paper currency survived. Never. Not one. Gold and silver, of course, have been real money for thousands of years, in all lands, and under all governments and time periods. When the paper fails, everyone always turns to gold and silver. These metals meet the qualifications of true money, which are to be a store of value, fungible, desirable, beautiful, universally recognizable, strong and not easily destroyed, etc. Paper currencies meet none of the above.
Worthless birds, and worthless paper currencies, may be a bit of a stretch, but only a bit. I dislike both. Both have ruined what is considered good. Proliferation of dollars has ruined people, cities, and has caused them to become virtually worthless. Dollars and cities. Is this a stretch? When something loses 98% of its value, is it an exaggeration to say it is virtually worthless? Since I began dealing in precious metals, a mere 26 years ago, the dollar has lost probably 75% of its value, based on the prices of goods, cars, and real estate. According to official US government statistics, the average price paid for a new car in 1977 was $5811. Is the average price of a new car, three times $5811 today, or $17,433? I think more. Houses locally, in a nice development called English Gardens, sold for $14,000 in 1977, and now are well over $125,000. All other things are at least three times their 1977 price in dollars, and usually more.
Whatever you tax, you get less of, and whatever you subsidize, you get more of, and this explains the demise of the major cities. The productive sector is being taxed into extermination, and the subsidies roll on and on to the worthless, who destroy the cities, and just about everything they touch. Just like the bol weevil was “looking for a home,” the sparrows and starlings were too, and they all found one. They all did the same thing, just reproduced endlessly. There is no shortage of kids produced by the worthless. The productive sector has long ago reached “ZPG,” (zero population growth.) The endless supply of freebee dollars issued to the worthless, had the same effect. The worthless reproduce, and demand more freebees. Politicians give them what they want, to get their votes. The freebee dollars then decline in purchasing power, as their numbers increase. Our living standard is about where it was 40 years ago, thanks to declining value dollars, and vastly increased taxes. While we have double pane windows, and air-conditioned cars, we also have huge debt to get them, and things just are not getting any better. Protect yourself.