A response to Mike George’s "Shades of the 1930s” March 5, 2022

My Dad used to say "Where goods and services do not cross borders, soldiers will." But we need to update Dad's rule of international relations to the following:

"Where honest money does not cross borders, soldiers will."

 What most people fail miserably to understand is the vital role of money in  our lives. Money is the basis for honest, voluntary, mutual exchange [markets]. It permits people who do not even know each other [indeed who may not have even lived at the same time] to benefit from one another's work through the division of labor. This is true across town as well as across the globe.

 But "ALL sorts of evil" [to quote the Apostle Paul] ALWAYS results when somebody begins tampering with the money on which division of labor and markets depend. Near the end of the last worldwide war, the nations of the world realized the need for honest money to sustain peaceful markets rather than military conflicts among nations. Unfortunately, AMERICANS were the ones chosen to be the global stakeholder ... to be trusted by everyone from children in Asia to old folks in Africa ... and at Bretton Woods the US$ became the world's reserve currency ... linked to nature and fairness by a golden redemption promise on which everyone could rely for fair and equal treatment in their labor upon the earth.

 I say "unfortunately" because AMERICANS betrayed the entire world in 1971 ... from children in Asia to old folks in Africa ... and unilaterally repudiated the world's sacred trust set out at Bretton Woods in what became known as the Nixon Shock.  Since that day of infamy when honest money died at the hands of Americans, "all sorts of evil" has befallen the entire world ... including the working families in America. That another world war should follow became as certain as night follows day.

 Those who wish to study history to understand the present need look back only 50 years ... and heed Micah 6 where the prophet explains that tolerating "dishonest scales and the treasures of wickedness" brings God's "curse" on everyone. And yet you will not hear this essential sermon preached in any pulpit in America. And if the prophet was right and if God is unchanged, it is only a matter of time until America becomes "a desolation ... and the scorn of the nations" for her adulterous betrayal of the people who labor the earth.