This definitive sign of a currency collapse is easy to see…
When paper money literally becomes trash.
Maybe you’ve seen images depicting hyperinflation in Germany after World War I. The German government had printed so much money that it became worthless. Technically, German merchants still accepted the currency, but it was impractical to use. It would have required wheelbarrows full of paper money just to buy a loaf of bread.
At the time, no one would bother to pick up money off the ground. It wasn’t worth any more than the other crumpled pieces of paper on the street.
Today, there’s a similar situation in the U.S. When was the last time you saw someone make the effort to pick up a penny off the street? A nickel? A dime?
Walking around New York City recently, I saw pennies, nickels, and dimes just sitting there on busy sidewalks. This happened at least five times in one day. Even homeless people wouldn’t bother to bend over and pick up anything less than a quarter.
The U.S. dollar has become so debased that these coins are essentially pieces of rubbish. They have little to no practical value.
Refusing to Acknowledge the Truth
It costs 1.7 cents to make a penny and 8 cents to make a nickel, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The U.S. government loses tens of millions of dollars every year putting these coins into circulation.
Why is it wasting money and time making coins almost no one uses? Because phasing out the penny and nickel would mean acknowledging currency debasement. And governments never like to do that. It would reveal their incompetence and theft from savers.
This isn’t new or unique to the U.S. For decades, governments around the world have refused to phase out worthless currency denominations. This helps them deny the problem even exists. They refuse to issue currency in higher denominations for the same reason.
Take Argentina, for example. The country has some of the highest inflation in the world. In the last 12 months, the peso has lost over half its value.
I was just in Argentina, and the largest bill there is the 100-peso note, which is worth around $7. It’s not uncommon for Argentinians to pay with large wads of cash at restaurants and stores. The sight would unnerve many Americans, who’ve been trained by the government through the War on Cash to view it as suspicious and dangerous.
For many years, the Argentine government refused to issue larger notes. Fortunately, that’s changing under the recently elected pro-market president Mauricio Macri. His government has promised to introduce 200-, 500-, and 1,000-peso notes in the near future.
This is the opposite of what’s happening in the U.S., where the $100 bill is the largest bill in circulation. That wasn’t always the case. At one point, the U.S. had $500, $1,000, $5,000, and even $10,000 bills. The government eliminated these large bills in 1969 under the pretext of fighting the War on Some Drugs.
The $100 bill has been the largest ever since. But it has far less purchasing power than it did in 1969. Decades of rampant money printing have debased the dollar. Today, a $100 note buys less than a $20 note did in 1969.
Even though the Federal Reserve has devalued the dollar over 80% since 1969, it still refuses to issue notes larger than $100.
Pennies and Nickels Under Sound Money
For perspective, consider what a penny and a nickel would be worth under a sound money system backed by gold. From 1792 to 1934, the price of gold was around $20 per ounce. Under this system, it took around 2,000 pennies to make an ounce of gold. At today’s gold price, a “sound money penny” would be worth about 55 modern pennies. A “sound money nickel” would be worth about $3.
I don’t pick up pennies off the sidewalk. But I would if pennies were backed by gold. If that were to happen, I doubt there would be many pennies sitting on busy New York sidewalks.
Ron Paul said it best when he discussed this issue…
There is an old German saying that goes, ‘Whoever does not respect the penny is not worthy of the dollar.’ It expresses the sense that those who neglect or ignore the small things cannot be trusted with larger things, and fittingly describes the problems facing both the dollar and our nation today.
Unless Congress puts an end to the Fed’s loose monetary policy and returns to a sound and stable dollar, the issue of U.S. coin composition will be revisited every few years until inflation finally forces coins out of circulation altogether and we are left with only worthless paper.
There’s an important lesson here.
Politicians and bureaucrats are the biggest threats to your financial security. For years, they’ve been quietly debasing the country’s currency… and inviting a currency catastrophe.
Most people have no idea how bad things can get when a currency collapses… let alone how to prepare.
How will you protect your savings in the event of a currency crisis? This just-released video will show you exactly how. Click here to watch it now.
Nick Giambruno is the Senior Editor of InternationalMan.com
There is an old German saying that goes, ‘Whoever does not respect the penny is not worthy of the dollar.’
This was from back when Germans all used dollars and spoke English.
The US dollar is not trusted anymore. It has, as you say, been debased. The US was able to do this without much problem because its dollar was the reserve currency of the World’s financial system and many other currencies were pegged to it. Now however, the US has simply used its reserve status to blackmail other nations with sanctions etc. to force them to comply with American wishes. That has caused many nations to look for another way of handling financial requirements thus, BRICS was formed. The requirement for US dollars to buy and sell petroleum products is disintegrating and other currencies are now being used. That is the death knell for America’s reserve status.
The eventual transition of a dollar reserve system to a global currency was already a dream of the apex globalists long before the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. The BRICS banking system was envisioned and advocated by the same international bankster cabal that oversaw Bretton Woods. Moreover, BRICS banking institutions are outgrowths of the same Rockefeller/Rothschild banking cartel: IMF, UN World Bank, and esp. Bank of International Settlements (BIS). Follow the money, not the cointelpro rhetoric, to recognize the planned evolution of the next level of social, political, and economic control, the new global order. All nations are on this path and are involved in some form of debasement, capital controls, and moving towards a cashless society.
Totally agree.
Me, too.
Will bitcoin have pennies? will digital currency do the same thing as coinage described in this article?
Bitcoin has all the earmarks of being an elite Trojan meme for a global digital currency. Given that Larry Summers and Goldman Sachs have their tentacles wrapped about Bitcoin, all bets are off.
The prime minister of my country, Australia, is owned by goldman sachs. Its looking real good for our lot!
What a bummer, there seems to be no escape, my friend. This technocratic totalitarian trajectory is gaining speed, hopefully people will begin to push back soon. Incidentally, last month I came across this article related to Australia which links to the original publication out of the University of Melbourne. https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2016/01/19/in-praise-of-technocracy-why-australia-must-imitate-singapore/
For TPTB, the next phase of for implementing their new global economic system requires a level of debasement (inflation) that will whittle away purchasing power giving way to much lower levels of consumption, esp. in the developed world. This is clearly the long game of UN Agendas 21 and 2030 and the aspirations to lower the living standards (consumption) of westerners. Michael Ruppert used the term “demand destruction” – an apt. visualization.
This agenda does not require a COLLAPSE, it could just as easily unwind as a constant and steady squeezing and policy implementation as we saw with the cuts in pensions and eventually NIRP, higher taxes, and bank account “haircuts” from some form of bail-in targeting those with substantial savings.
It’s another reason eliminating cash is a big deal now.
Thats excellent foresight my friend and, I think you may you might be right on the, um, money!
Thanks, Brett!
the entire banking system should go by the way of Iceland – jail ’em and throw away the keys.
END the Fed and the perpetual wars (might) end.
The sooner they collapse the sooner a thousand years of peace will commence.
No usury (unchristian) and no taxes (unconstitutional).
Economic collapse brings world war. America will die.
The entire government are evil treasonous criminals. The day of the next false flag using the nuke they stole in 2007 and blamed on Iran, America will be destroyed by Russia, China and the SCO. This is the war of Armageddon and you can know it is now because of Planet X and the toxic chemtrails that hide it every day. Planet X will end the war when it rips the earth apart again but 90% of Americans will be dead already. All planned by your evil government.
Trying again. Let’s see if the Disqus Memory Hole disappears this again…must have struck a nerve!
Why blamed on Iran? Iran accepted Agenda 21 and IMF restructuring in the late 90s. Iran’s elites formally signed Agenda 2030. Already, Tehran is touting itself a Smart City and introducing Smart Cards to its citizenry, claiming they will be modeled after Hong Kong’s Octopus biometric Smart Cards for virtually all transactions and purchases, a step towards the cashless Orwellian technocratic global tracking system. Russia has been going down the same path in the same time frame. China is leading the way with its Social Credit System, Agenda 21 and 2030, and also recently announced they too will move to a cashless society. While portions of the “awake” community become fixated on 2-D doomer scenarios, the crushing wheels of totalitarian World Government move forward.