Free Money to Change Your Life

‘You get honest people when they have to do honest work for honest money.’

–Bill Bonner

There’s something wicked about ‘printing press’ money. It is corrosive…phony…impermanent. No one owns it; like a public housing project, it invites trash, graffiti, and police sirens.

Back in 1971 when the Funny Money Era began, US debt-to-GDP stood at just 34%. That is only government debt. Private debt was at 90% of GDP. Today, the figures are 120% and 140%. That represents approximately $38 trillion (a number suspiciously like US government debt itself)…of extra money. Money spent, but never earned, derived from credit, not from work — not from paychecks, not from savings, nor from sales or profits. And since no one broke a sweat to earn it, it might be said that it belonged to no one; is it any wonder that it ended up in the most grasping, ruthless, and conniving hands?

Foreign aid money, for example, is the kind of easy cash that slides into the pockets of the rich and powerful. Perhaps it is just an urban myth, but top-of-the-line Mercedes sales were said to go up immediately after a poor country got a dollop of aid money.

And just look at what is going on in the Ukraine. The US has provided $130 billion over the last four years. Where did that money go?

Solidarity:

Treason, $100 million stolen cash and Zelensky’s kleptocratic inner circle.

Timur Mindich, known to some as “Zelensky’s wallet”, got tipped off just in time of a raid on his Kiev apartment by officers of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU). A luxury limo, supplied by a senior official of Ukraine’s border control, picked him up and raced him to the Polish border where he was waved through. Hours later he was in Israel where he holds citizenship, reportedly with hundreds of millions of dollars in loot secured in bitcoin.

When anti-corruption police burst into Mindich’s apartment…they stood in awe at the gold-plated toilet and gold bidet in his bathroom. They gasped when the large safe was opened and saw stacks of brand new $100 bills still in their plastic [US] Treasury sleeves.

You may say: ‘How awful…ripping off the government like that.’ But that money was sour from the get-go. Destined to prolong the war…and kill Russians…a gold bidet may be the least harmful use to which it was put.

And now that Mindich is in Israel, surely the Israelis will use some of the money for their own project — slaughtering Palestinians.

But you don’t have to go overseas to see the funny money curdle. Last week, a member of Congress was indicted. NBC News:

Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., was indicted Wednesday in connection with stealing and laundering $5 million in federal relief funds, and using the money for her congressional campaign, the Justice Department said.

And she wasn’t the only one. Associated Press looked at Covid -related scams:

Fraudsters used the Social Security numbers of dead people and federal prisoners to get unemployment checks. Cheaters collected those benefits in multiple states. And federal loan applicants weren’t cross-checked against a Treasury Department database that would have raised red flags about sketchy borrowers.

An Associated Press analysis found that fraudsters potentially stole more than $280 billion in COVID-19 relief funding; another $123 billion was wasted or misspent. Combined, the loss represents 10% of the $4.2 trillion the U.S. government has so far disbursed in COVID relief aid.

Again, dear readers are likely to shake their heads. Stealing from a relief program; what could be worse? But the money was handed out all over town; what difference did prison bars – or even a pulse — make?

Besides, when the feds give away ‘free’ money; it hardly seems like stealing to take it. And who are you stealing from? The fake money came from no one. No one has a genuine ‘right’ to it. And neither need nor merit had anything to do with the feds’ Covid Era giveaways. They simply came up with a plan for doling out cash.

And why not? It wasn’t their money. And the whole idea was to get money into the economy…so it could be spent. The fraudsters were just doing the jackasses in Washington a favor.

But in that great orchestra of fake-money performers, Ms. Cherfilus-McCormick is little more than a three-chord musician, busking on a ratty street-corner. Tomorrow, we’ll look at the real virtuosos of rip-off. These are the cads who play the Kennedy Center (perhaps to be renamed after Melania Trump) and pick the public’s pocket so artfully…they get applause, not jail time.

Stay tuned…