Inflation is a Policy

It has been so long since the United States was seriously impacted by inflation that most citizens have no understanding of it.  However, it is an old problem with known causes.  It does not come around on accident.  Here is the wisdom of those who experienced inflation and their thoughts on it.

When a business or an individual spends more than it makes, it goes bankrupt. When government does it, it sends you the bill. And when government does it for 40 years, the bill comes in two ways: higher taxes and inflation. Make no mistake about it, inflation is a tax and not by accident.

Ronald Reagan

By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.

John Maynard Keynes

Inflation is a form of tax, a tax that we all collectively must pay.

Henry Hazlitt

Inflation is taxation without legislation.

Milton Friedman

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.

Ernest Hemingway

The lesson is clear. Inflation devalues us all.

Margaret Thatcher

Continued inflation inevitably leads to catastrophe.

Ludwig von Mises

Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output... A steady rate of monetary growth at a moderate level can provide a framework under which a country can have little inflation and much growth. It will not produce perfect stability; it will not produce heaven on earth; but it can make an important contribution to a stable economic society.

Milton Friedman

The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.

Vladimir Lenin

Inflation is not only unnecessary for economic growth. As long as it exists it is the enemy of economic growth.

Henry Hazlitt

Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.

Milton Friedman

The most important thing to remember is that inflation is not an act of God, that inflation is not a catastrophe of the elements or a disease that comes like the plague. Inflation is a policy.

Ludwig von Mises

John Marshall said that the power to tax is the power to destroy.  Milton Friedman declared inflation a tax without legislation.  Mismanagement of the money supply is causing destruction.  The last time the US had to contend with inflation, the rising interest rates brought about a recession in 1982.  That is likely to happen again.