As the years passed, there seemed to be a real problem in the kingdom of the United States of America. Everything seemed to be going wrong. Prices kept going up, with the Emperor’s economists wrongly blaming the greedy shopkeeps and manufacturers. The schools weren’t doing too well either, with most graduates not being able to read, write, spell, or count proficiently, or qualify for any but the most menial jobs. The Emperor’s currency was buying so little, that the citizens were having a really difficult time.
Back in 1959, a smart man invented what became known as a “credit card,” which allowed the citizens to charge goods and services. The credit worthy got these cards, after qualifying for them, by proving they were good risks. The interest rates were low, because only the best, most reliable citizens were able to get these cards. The bankers who issued these cards, soon realized that not everyone paid their bills in full each month, and the interest charged, added to their profits. The banks then loosened their requirements for obtaining these cards, so that more citizens could get and use them. The banks could make more money that way. The predictable chain of events soon came to fruition, with just about everyone getting some of these cards, and many of them not being worthy credit risks. The defaults and bad debtors mushroomed, causing the bankers to raise their interest charged to very high levels. With times as tough as they were at the turn of the century, the debts and interest charged on these cards grew to very high levels. Old folk, working people, and others too, found that these cards were their only way to survive, in the troubled times the United States of America was suffering through.
Other nations weren’t taxing their citizens as severely as did the United States of America. The citizens of the United States of America, were paying not only a tax on their incomes, but taxes on their every day purchases, retirement benefits, medical care, schools, fuel for their cars, electricity, gas, telephones, and hundreds of other hidden taxes which most of the citizens weren’t even aware of, they were so well hidden. The uneasy feelings throughout the kingdom were rampant. The emperors and their henchmen mounted vast public relations programs, and their chief economist kept telling everyone how grand it was to be a citizen of the United States of America, and how wonderful their currency was, since it had achieved the title of “reserve currency of the world.”
The nations of Europe decided to start their own kingdom to compete with the kingdom of the United States of America. They called it the “EU,” or European Union. They had gathered all the nations together, and made them promise to use their new unbacked currency, which they decided to call the “euro.” The EU didn’t have an emperor or henchmen, but each country did as they pleased, as long as they obeyed basic rules, and used the euro to buy things. The euro was supposed to be 15% backed by gold, but no one ever said where that gold was stored, or how much they had. As is usual with unbacked paper money, the euro presses began running almost immediately, and prices went up in the EU too. As a matter of fact, all the nations in the world started printing lots of their currencies, which were unbacked, and all the prices in the world began to go up.
The kingdom of the United States of America, began losing jobs to other nations who taxed their subjects far less, and who would work for nice wages in their lands, but it took so many unbacked dollars of the United States of America to survive, that when the “Americans,” as they came to be called, looked at the wages of workers in foreign nations, they were shocked. Shocked, because the other nations’ workers were working for wages, which Americans worked for sixty years earlier, and doing very nicely. The workers in China, were doing for an American quarter, what an American was being paid fifty quarters for, and not doing nearly as well as was the Chinese worker. The Chinese workers’ standard of living was rising, at what Americans called “slave wages,” while their standard of living was going down, making fifty times as much.
In the early 1950’s a man named Walton, in a United States of America state called “Arkansas,” began to open stores with low prices. Walton was a very patriotic man, and vowed to sell only American made merchandise, which made American manufacturers very happy and prosperous. He called his stores “Wal Marts,” and they soon began to proliferate. Wal Marts appeared all over the United States of America. Unfortunately, Walton, who was so brilliant and patriotic, soon got sick and died. He made his children some of the richest people in the United States of America. The children decided that they would make Wal Marts even bigger and more competitive, by buying cheap merchandise from overseas, whose workers would work for what Americans called ’peanuts.’
Gradually, other large chains began copying the Walton children’s decision to sell merchandise from overseas, and this buying soon became concentrated in China. More and more American factories closed, and hundreds of thousands of well paid workers lost their jobs and became poor. They found that with their reduced incomes, they were almost forced to buy at the Wal Marts which had in reality cost them their jobs. More and more small shops and independent businessmen closed or went bankrupt, because of the large chains. While the subjects of the United States of America were very smart, often their education was very poor, due to the free schools the emperors and their henchmen had provided. The Americans had invented practically every worthwhile thing ever invented, thanks to their one time ability to think and be free. The Americans had invented movies, TV, elevators, motors, electricity, and thousands of things, which were now being made overseas. The Americans were very proud of their heritage and inventiveness, but they became less proud of their emperors and his henchmen.
As the period in which this bedtime story took place came to a close, the subjects of the United States of America, were very disconsolate and angry. Their emperors kept telling them how powerful and happy they were, but they didn’t feel that way. They soon discovered that at one time they owed no one, and were supreme in just about everything. By the year 2010, when this story closes, the subjects had discovered that their United States of America was the largest debtor in the world, and owed everyone. They discovered that their wonderful armed forces couldn’t figure out how to defeat a war fought with what came to be known as ’guerillas,’ because they couldn’t be detected or identified, since they looked like everyone else.
Their ’reserve currency of the world,’ which were called ’dollars,’ also became a virtual laughing stock, so many of them had been printed and placed in circulation. Whenever disasters occurred in the world, billions and billions of dollars were printed and given to the victims to help them get over their times of sorrow. When natural disasters occurred in the American kingdom, more hundreds of billions were printed to help the victims of earthquakes, fires, floods, and tornadoes. The welfare class had risen to huge proportions, and hundreds of billions of dollars were printed to help them. Tens of thousands of babies were being born to mothers who had sneaked across the Mexican border to have their newborns made official citizens, since they had been born in America.
The Emperor and his henchmen, didn’t seem to care very much about the illegal people by the millions crossing into the United States of America from Mexico, but they were very careful about who boarded airplanes. The emperor created more henchmen to make everyone safe, but it required more hundreds of billions of dollars to be printed to pay them. These new henchmen also created great discontent among the subjects, and many of them became so upset and angry, that millions refused to pay the direct income taxes, which the emperor and his IRS henchmen said they should pay. No one, of course, could avoid the hundreds of other taxes which were hidden in all the bills the subjects had to pay each month.
As the years passed, each week saw the dollars buy less, and prices go higher and higher. As the years passed, the subjects’ savings in dollars became actual losses, because the dollar was declining faster than the interest which was being paid by the banks was accruing. The internet was blossoming with exposé’s about the fact that the emperor’s dollars were nothing more than pieces of paper with ink on them, and bore no actual, tangible worth. Not only that, but they were buying virtually nothing besides.
As this story closes, admittedly five years hence, I can only predict what will happen over the next five years to this once marvelous kingdom of the United States of America. I can only predict, because I have no crystal ball. But I do predict, that by 2010, millions of citizens will say, as the old story goes, that the “Emperor Has No Clothes.” Not only does he have no clothes, but he, his predecessors, and their various henchmen, have destroyed what was once beautiful. They have lain waste the once most profitable, prosperous, happy, independent, powerful nation in the world. The emperors and their henchmen, have destroyed education, independence, inventiveness, creativity, and sound money. The various elected emperors and their appointed henchmen, became totally different people, once they entered the sacred holy city of Washington D.C. It seemed as though when they performed their scared rites and voted, they always thought they were royalty, supremely intelligent, patriotic, and had on wonderful garments. In reality, they had no clothes, and their laws and regulations destroyed a once wonderful kingdom. Tell everyone you know, NOT TO STORE SURPLUS ASSETS IN FAILING DOLLARS. It may mean their future survival. No kidding! Protect yourself.