I have a chapter on money in my new book Is Everything a Scam?
Inflation is counterfeiting or printing money out of thin air, price fixing is every seller agrees or conspires to fix prices at an artificial level, price gouging is when there is a temporary shortage of a good or service and the price goes up significantly.
It matters for the same reason we need to know the difference between “polio” and poisoning. If one believes there is a “polio” virus they will poison themselves with toxic pHARMa products. If one believes the symptoms of “polio” are caused by pesticides and toxic heavy metal poisoning they will avoid those toxins and detox if they have symptoms.
If prices are going up we need know the root causes otherwise we might do more harm then good. Prices have gone up dramatically, especially food prices, in the past few years. Some say it’s “corporate greed” or price fixing. Basically the unconscious claim is that all corporations got together and agreed to raise prices. Yeah sure all the corners grocers, farmers markets, and farm stands got together and hatched an evil plan to raise the price of their eggs, meat, and vegetables. Why wouldn’t one of the farmers lower their prices and corner the market? If the farmer owns the land and is self sufficient they could keep their prices lower and even advertise that they aren’t ripping people off like the price fixers are.
The banksters, or whoever controls the currency, do have a monopoly and have conspired to raise the price of everything. They counterfeited trillions of dollars the past several years, so that it takes more dollars to buy the same dozen eggs than it did 5 years ago.
How does printing money make prices go up? Let’s say two people are wanting to buy or rent a house, one is a plumber and the other an accountant. They both have a down payment and proof of steady income and they offer similar bids for the house. Well along comes a friend of a bankster who just received millions of newly printed fake money, this third house shopper offers $100,000 over the other two offers. Why not? It’s free fake money, and who is the seller going choose, are they going to turn down an extra $100k? Would you?
All this new fake money bids up the cost everything. As business owners see the cost of everything they buy going up they have to raise their prices to prevent loosing money and going broke. It’s diabolical because it’s sneaky and a hidden tax. Also it forces everyone to gamble with their dollars in investments or assets, because cash looses value every day as more money is printed.
Also smart money, people with cash want to trade their depreciating dollars for hard assets that appreciate – real estate, gold, stocks that do well during inflationary periods. So this also bids up prices.
Another way to think of inflation is if my neighbor is a bee keeper and they trade me honey for relationship guidance. If after a while I find out they are adding sugar water to the honey do I have more or less honey? In other words diluting honey with water doesn’t make more honey. In CAFO factory ranching they spray carcasses with water and pump brisket with water to increase the weight, does this increase the amount of meat? No, it makes more money for the factory owners but the buyer losses by paying a high price for water that evaporates during cooking or aging. Likewise printing money is profitable for the banksters but at the expense of everyone else. Especially poor people who don’t have assets nor businesses and their purchasing power gets stolen while their wages stay the same.
Looking to authorities or far away unknown institutions to “fix” our problems is part of the problem. If we trade or barter or use a local currency like an ounce of honey or shells or gold or any hard goods, then we would be unaffected by the fed printing more fake money. Likewise if we ate from local farms and gardens and made goods from local trees, plants, etc. we wouldn’t be devastated by overseas tariffs or lockdowns or any other nonsense interventions the powers that shouldn’t be come up with.
I learned about inflation and money from the Austrian Economists, especially Murray Rothbard. Mises.org and Lewrockwell.com have tons of free information.