‘Rag baby,’ was the commonly used nick-name for the greenback dollar, which was the North’s ‘dollar’ in the War Between the States, commonly called the ‘Civil War.’ The rag content of that paper dollar was so high, that the term ‘rag baby’ was born. Frank Bellew, a cartoonist popular in the 1860’s penned a rag baby being born, with a money doctor breathing life into it. Another showed the doctor holding the rag baby in the air and saying, “Bless its dear little heart.” Another, showed a rag baby getting a sort of Frankenstein type of life, pursuing its money doctor, and trying to kill it, it was such a fraud.
Since the rag baby was the only form of currency available in the North as the war continued, obviously those who saved in them, lost everything when the war ended. Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury was Salmon Chase, who disliked paper money, but decided to allow it anyway. He wrote, “I have great aversion to making anything but coin a legal tender as payment of debt. It is, however at present, impossible to avoid such legislation in consequence of the large expenditure entailed by the war, to procure sufficient coin for disbursements.” Chase founded the Chase National Bank. As happened on both sides of that war which killed 610,000 Americans, and which was begun by Lincoln ordering his soldiers to fire on a fort owned by the South, after waring him not to do so. Both sides printed money to the extent that both became worthless.
Confederate ‘money’ has become so collectible that it is worth its paper value equal to current paper bills. A genuine $20 Confederate bill can be priced at $20 U.S. or even more, so many fakes have been printed. I’m not sure about whether a genuine rag baby has value.
The same thing happened during the Revolutionary War, when the ‘continental’ was printed to its eventually becoming worthless. The expression, ”not worth a continental,” arose from that printing of un-backed paper money. What happened during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, exactly copied each other, as is happening today everywhere in the world. All have ‘prices going up,’ and eventually going up so high. that the ‘money’ can be used as insulation or to start fires. Prices will escalate so much, that they will up each day, and finally became a joke. That’s my prediction. Are current dollars to become ‘Democrat babies,’ or ‘Biden babies?’ The price of gold and silver will up too, but they will still buy what they bought before the inflation began, wherever it happens. An ounce of gold has always bought a good man’s suit, and a couple of silver dimes have always bought a gallon of gas. They still will, and that’s why people need to save surplus assets in universal money, not in paper promises of value, which always become wholesale lies.
“Those who will not learn from history, are going to repeat it,” and that is so obvious, when the subject is paper money. Did you ever remember paying $75,000 for a deluxe pickup? My 1941 Plymouth telephone truck, cost $400 brand new and is worth about $35,000 U.S. and going up. All other items are the same. Remember, for close to 150 years, gold was $20.67, and silver $1.25 an ounce. I still have a little paper envelope I received when I turned in a ‘silver certificate’ dollar bill, to the U.S. Treasury back in the 1950’s. Remember, the U.S. paper money, is backed by, “The full faith and credit of the U.S. government.” That should give you comfort.
Is there any possible way to stop inflation once it has begun? I know of no way. Remember “Stott’s Law.” “The more of anything there is, the less they will be worth.” He any government in history, ever stopped inflation by balancing their budgets, or backing their money with gold or silver? Not so far! don@coloradogold.com