Billionaire Investor Carl Icahn Warns
Inflation a ‘Terrible Thing’ Which
Led to Roman Empire’s Downfall

Not just Roman. Too many to mention. Our monetary crises is a time bomb. The dollar is high only because it’s the prettiest mare at the glue factory.

darn ? you think ? gosh the #stoopidity , ignorance is sooo”schtrooong “ h/tbig mike

Democrats and Rino's want to bankrupt this country. Biden has many many more plans to spend TRILLIONS of dollars of your money that you don't have.

And the rise of Hitler

#4, In Germany in 1922 my grandfather got a cash inheritance payout for his 25% of the family farm. He got the money on a Friday and did not spend it immediately. On Monday he was able to buy 3 large beers at the tavern using the entire cash inheritance.

The U.S. does not have any way to pay its debts and promises, but to inflate it away. We will be seeing inflation for years. The Federal Reserve will try to moderate the inflation rate, but cannot bring it down but some percentage, which at best will be 5-6%, with unemployment at the same rates.

Where do the elite think they can live in peace once they destroy the country?

The problem with the Roman Imperial banking system was that, as the empire expanded, it was too easy for other regions to counterfeit and shave the coinage so that it could no longer be trusted for its gold content. If it was easy to counterfeit US dollars Icahn's analogy would make sense but this has nothing to do with inflation. Inflation is the result of the overall money supply exceeding the productive capacity of an economy in terms of available labor and real goods. Both the money supply and the productive capacity must grow at roughly the same rate but there is no upper limit to how large they can theoretically get. Only a tiny portion of the money supply is in paper bills or coins. Almost all of it is in bank deposits recorded in computer databases managed by the Federal Reserve member banks. What really destroyed the Roman Empire was the collapse of their Republic's rule of law and respect for traditions and religious practices that had united them.

The German Wiemar (Between the Wars) Republic experienced hyperinflation because they were paying reparations for WWI to Great Britain and France (converted from marks to pounds and francs) that exceeded their total GDP. Since the German people also had to live, the government printed additional currency but the Depression destroyed what was left of the German industrial and agricultural productive capacity so people would pay anything for what little goods were available rather than starve. The lesson here is that if you are in debt to another country and have to pay them in their sovereign currency you are no longer a free country and will probably collapse. Germany eventually just reneged on the reparations once the Third Reich took over.

#9, you mean like our indebtedness to China?

#9. Excellent summary. #9, #10--Reparations would have ended in 1983. Reparations were unsustainable for the German people.

As most of us learn when studying the Fall of the Roman empire, there were many conditions leading to the overthrow of the Western half and then few more centuries later, the Eastern half (Constantinople/Byzantium): Conquering and then maintaining huge expanses of territories, leading to the need for more soldiers (whose loyalties could not be relied upon) while at the same time the once vaunted Roman Army, composed of Roman Citizens, led by Roman nobles, had begun to lose its illustrious reputation, and fewer wealthy Romans saw the value in "serving', and it wasn't "expected" of them either. The moral character of Rome had begun to degenerate. It always comes back to the moral character or lack of it, when we look at the decline of once great civilizations. All the other aspects of the culture either slow down or accelerate the decline, even the basic material needs, such as the ability to feed the citizens and provide safety. A really interesting thing archaeologists have noted in artifacts found in Rome dating to the era preceding the barbarian conquest and that was the inferiority of the products. They discovered that the pottery, for example, was no longer made in Rome, but in the conquered territories and imported into Rome and surrounds. As much as things change, they remain the same. And we don't learn from history, ergo being doomed to repeat it, "first as tragedy, then as farce." And then the eternal recurrence.

Karl, it took 700 years to fall…

Time was we backed are currency with gold. Like the SPR, I suspect Fort Knox has been looted as well.

#9 - That's the usual story. But then, was the war "free"? Someone paid for four years of total war on two fronts. At the outbreak of the war in1914, the Reichsbank suspended conversion of currency into gold, increasing its paper note issue by 2 billion marks. By the day the inflation was officially ended in 1923, it had issued 92.8 quintillion (92,800,000,000,000,­000,000) paper marks. A few days later (on November 20) a new cur­rency, the rentenmark, was issued that effectively pledged the country's total assets in support - the government's gold long gone. The old marks converted at a rate of a trillion to one. Interest rates were 90 percent by 1923. Now, let's compare that to the $14 TRILLION appropriated in thin air by Congress and approved by the President to fight the War on COVIDS, adding 50 percent to the national debt. I don't recall hearing any concern about inflation then from anyone. Now it's Biden's turn to hold the bag, like Dubya did in 2008, caused again by easy money and government spending on credit. And some are advocating MORE stimulus, debt forgiveness and giveaways. We still have more checks in the checkbook, right?