Jim Huntzinger | On June 25, 2020

Gold and Silver Bars (Photo by Mark Herpel) (CC BY) (Resized/Cropped)

A central bank, like the Federal Reserve, without a gold (commodity) based currency, can issue paper money or credit at its whim. This action debases the value of the currency, which directly destroys the wealth of most citizens, but allows banks to make profits from this debasement at the expense of most citizens.

Economist Jörg Hülsmann expounds that, “Central banks protect the banking establishment by pumping additional central-bank notes (in a commodity money system) or paper money into the economy whenever bank runs threaten the fractional-reserve banks. These inflationary measures, which save the banks at the expense of all other market participants, make the system display an artificial stability.”[1]

Hülsmann summaries the very issue with a fractional-reserve system – it self-protects by continually sending mal-investment signals into the market, destroys value of individuals’ currency assets (savings and etc.); both of which allow for economic bubbles which further devastates the property of most citizens. With further economic destruction because, instead of people putting time and energy into creating wealth, they must now put their time and energy into compensating for the prior wealth destruction, or their time and energy into wealth which will be taken away from them (taxes) and re-distributed to another party. This is a negative form of what Claude Frédéric Bastiat called that which is not seen.[2] Though not seen, it is painfully felt by citizens of the United States. Scripture also instructs us of the very same thing in 2 Corinthians. “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.” Paul and Timothy warn, “For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”[3]

Austrian historian Thomas Woods presents a scenario in which taxes cause the same effect as Bastiat’s that which is not seen. Woods writes, “The importance of contrary-to-fact scenarios is especially clear. If people are taxed $10 million to fund some government project, they now have $10 million less to spend on things they need. That decline in spending will cost other people their jobs, since taxpayers are now less able, to the tune of the $10 million taken from them, to carry on their previous consumption patterns.”[4] This behavior and result, or potential results (that which is not seen), eludes many politicians, historians, and even economists.

Originally published on Townhall Finance.

Jim Huntzinger

Jim Huntzinger began his career as a manufacturing engineer with Aisin Seiki (a Toyota Group company and manufacturer of automotive components) when they transplanted to North America to support Toyota. Over his career he has also researched at length the evolution of manufacturing in the United States with an emphasis on lean’s influence and development. In addition to his research on TWI, he has extensively researched the history of Ford’s Highland Park plant and its direct tie to Toyota’s business model and methods of operation.

Huntzinger is the President and Founder of Lean Frontiers and a graduate from Purdue University with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Technology and received a M.S. in Engineering Management from the Milwaukee School of Engineering. He authored the book, Lean Cost Management: Accounting for Lean by Establishing Flow, was a contributing author to Lean Accounting: Best Practices for Sustainable Integration.