As much as I could cover the printing of money that the government does not legitimately have, I will not. In as far as the value of the dollar dropping because of additional currency made to meet a need, that isn’t the topic today. Perhaps the title might be a little misleading. Perhaps I am instead discussing that which is not real, and it has little to do with money directly, but instead challenges ideas and ideals.
As a mental exercise, consider what would happen in your community if you had a product to sell, a valuable commodity which under normal circumstances would be available only for payment in gold coin. Product X, highly demanded, and you are the producer of it along with a few others. A customer arrives with cut string to trade you for your goods, and you accept as payment in full. Your continued acceptance of such a “currency” has given value to it. For anyone who has a cut piece of string, they can always buy at the very least, product X.
Value of the currency is implied by your acceptance for the product of your work..
As long as those in the United States accept the dollar for goods and services, it has a nominal value. It is worth something to someone, and as it is passed on, confidence in its ability to maintain value strengthens unless something of an extreme nature happens to negate the confidence. As the dollar becomes more easily disbursed, and its volume grows, it loses value eventually, but it will retain value if its demand remains high through confidence. Further, if a bank offered to accept counterfeit dollars as good as the real, it would give them the legitimacy to be used as real tender. This is one of the fundamentals of economics.
And this concept also thrives in the field of ideas.
Many of you who read this blog regularly will often accept my words as true. I will likewise offer my belief, or acceptance of others whom I have learned will generally speak the truth, and are consistent to core principles to which I ascribe. Hopefully, my thoughts are consistent and strong, and those words I craft find acceptance with as many as possible. My value as a writer, philosopher, or ideologue is more solid if I remain focused on a more narrow set of principles and ideals. I attempt to ADD to my overall value by explaining to those who are uncertain, WHY I have certain ideas and operate on any particular premise.
Those who believe that liberty is paramount, and nothing supersedes it will find that I have much to offer for their belief in my work, and will assign a value to what I am saying. If I depart from my core message, and spend some of my value in areas which are not a part of my core ideas, I dilute my overall value, while assigning a small part of the value to ideas outside the core. I lessen my “buying power” of any who might read and believe normally what I say. My credibility can be lost if I randomly spend my influence.
This is why I become frustrated with Republicans who should be repudiating messages which are overtly contrary to liberty and the rule of law, instead weaken their buying power for the minds of the people by proposing cheap copies of liberal policies, thus lending their value to them. Those Republicans, who give in to the parasites who produce little towards freedom and prosperity, merely feed them and make them stronger. They pass on the value of their credibility as the currency of ideas. They offer as legitimate, ideas which are counterfeit and worthless.
I do not have to accept your ideas. The complaint of the moderates insofar as a conservative’s inability to bend, suggests they have given the ideas and thought of the “liberal/left” some real worth. Even if its value has been diluted with those inconsistencies we witness daily. Liberals have ideas that tilt, tack, move around. There is little core consistency to hold their ideas to a firm standard. What is unacceptable on any given day, might not be on others. They operate on a relativistic model which shifts reality based on what is the fad, knee jerk, or emergency position of the day. A sliding scale of what is right or what is wrong.
I try as hard as possible to limit my spending of the value you might place in my writing. In THIS bank of ideas your trust is worth so much, that I strive to maintain my buying power..