Monetary Choice

Better than a gold standard. Your standard.


Welcome

Monetary Choice helps people avoid inflation and promotes the freedom of people to choose their money.

Every year, better production methods and new technology make it easier to make things, however prices rise. The truth is that costs are falling, but your money is falling in value faster, and everyone raises prices to receive the same value. If money is worth 50 percent less, then prices will double. The problem is the money, not the prices (or shortages or greedy merchants).

Declining Standard of Living

Because of inflation, most people get poorer every year:

  • Your salary does not keep up: If the value of money falls 10 percent during a year, and you negotiate a five percent raise, then you are five percent worse off. You might earn five percent more, but you can only buy about five percent less.
  • Your savings buys less: If when you earn and save 100 dollars, the price of a movie ticket is five dollars, you saved the equivalent of 20 movie tickets (100 divided by 5). If the value of money falls 50 percent, then ticket prices will rise to 10 dollars, and the value of your $100 savings will buy just 10 movie tickets (100 divided by 10). Your savings are worth half as much.

Central banks actually target a two percent annual price increase, meaning your salary must rise two percent annually to stay even.

Inflation is a Tax

Governments use national currencies to tax people. In fact, governments without strong tax authorities primarily use inflation to tax people. When a  government or its “central” bank issues new money, the value for the new money comes from the existing money – in your saving account and your wallet. Your government’s deficit is paid by you through inflation. Those ten tickets you lost, were taken by your government.

It’s like stock fraud. To take value from existing shareholders, fraudulent executives issue more shares. Your dollars, or yen, or euros, are your share of what can be purchased with those currencies. If there are 100 dollars, and you have 10 dollars, then you own 10 percent of what can be bought. If the government issues 100 more dollars, raising the total to 200 dollars, then your 10 dollars are five percent of what can be bought.

A central bank is not necessary for an economy. The central bank’s legions of economists calculate how much they can devalue the currency without causing a revolution. If the central bank targets a two percent annual price increase, and calculates a new invention such as email reduced costs by two percent, then the central bank issues new money to devalue money by four percent, leading to a price increase of two percent. That new money goes to other banks that earn interest on new loans or to the government and its contractors.

You never benefit from new inventions.

Protect Yourself

To protect yourself from inflation, limit your exposure to your national currency. Simply act like a tourist visiting a hyper-inflationary economy.

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Political Recommendations

To end the hidden inflation tax and return to a rational economy, we recommend these changes:

  • Individuals should have the right to use any product as money.
  • Taxes should apply to only one side of a transaction.
  • Remove the monopoly privilege that only “central” banks can issue notes.
  • Exclude government from money.

Benefits

  • Stable or lower prices each year due to productivity improvements
  • Secure savings that need not be invested to maintain purchasing power
  • Government limited by direct, visible taxes.

Getting There

  • Individuals learn how money works and support and vote for politicians who will give them monetary choice (even better: disband the government, as they once removed kings).
  • In the short-term, individuals can arrange their finances to limit the inflation tax.