Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana
The Life of Reason
Most people recite quotes without putting them in their proper context. The above quote is more appropriate to us when the context is added. Another example is Benjamin Franklin’s quote on security. Our “leaders” are playing a Ponzi scheme with our personal assets. Is it greed, incompetence and redistribution. I could argue those reasons and even some additional ones but the end result is the same. How do I know? Because it is always the same.
When will it stop? We all know the answer to this question. We just do not want to face the consequences of our inaction: physical and economically on a personal level.
The article below offers a fascinating history lesson that answers the question of not what is in your pocket, but who is in your pocket.
David DeGerolamo
Revolutionary France’s Road to Hyperinflation
The hyperinflation of 1790s France illustrates one way in which inflationary monetary policy becomes unmanageable in an environment of economic stagnation and debt, and in the face of special interests who benefit from, and demand, easy money.
France had learned how easy it is to issue paper money and nearly impossible to keep it in check. Thus, the debate over the first issuance of the paper money, known as assignats, in April 1790 was heated, and only passed because the new currency (paying 3 percent interest to the holder) was collateralized by the land stolen from the church and fugitive aristocracy. This land constituted almost a third of France and was located in the best places.
