Inflation: Why Your Dollar Just Doesn’t Buy as Much

When I first considered filing bankruptcy, I felt guilty about the idea of not honoring my debt. But when I added up how much I was paying in interest and how much I was getting to keep to eat, entertain myself, save for the future (that would be ZERO), and pay down my mortgage, I realized I was working most of the week for the banks. I was giving the banks thousands of dollars a month and then getting excited over being able to buy a salad spinner.

How can anyone get out from under 29.94 percent interest? And that interest hike was because I was late paying a bill. How can a credit card company justify doubling someone’s interest because their payment arrived a few days late? They don’t need to justify anything. They just do what they want. And then other cards raised their rates. I was being squeezed by everybody. I would be forever working for the banks. If the rates were lower I might have had a chance. But their greed was my emancipation.

Don’t even look at your mortgage. The banks advertise six percent, seven percent. Doesn’t seem like much. But in the first seven years or so you’re actually paying about 95 to 98 percent. And the average American moves every seven years, so you’re always in the 95 plus percent bracket. And if you do manage to pay off enough of the mortgage to get down where you’re only paying, say, 50 percent a year, the bank encourages you to refinance or take out an equity loan. Anything to get you back up to 95 percent. Buy a hot tub. You deserve it! How about a European vacation? Or that sleek, new, sexy automobile that’ll make you look and feel SUCCESSFUL?

We’ve been trained to think of credit as money available to spend. You know, you have a credit card with a $5,000 limit. You owe $3,200 on it. Don’t you think of the $1,800 as available to spend. Don’t you WANT to spend it? I know I did. We all know the saying, “Money is burning a hole in my pocket.”

I knew a woman who fell for the lure of refinancing. Her house payment in Florida was about $250 a month, and she had a lot of equity in the house. Well, she refinanced her home and bought new carpeting and a hot tub. I would live on a dirt floor at this point to have a $250 mortgage. This woman signed away future earnings and paid way more for those items than had she just saved up every month to buy them.

I Won’t Be Retiring Any Time Soon

At a time in my life when I should be looking forward to retirement in a decade or two, I have nothing of worth. I have no savings. And I’m pretty typical of the average American. I did my bit for God and country, which was work jobs that did not fufill me or that I hated to pay taxes and consume goods produced by other people who hated their jobs and paid their taxes. Our entire economy is based on and sustained by consumerism.

I’ve read that about 96 percent of the American population will be unable to retire and enjoy their current life style. They will have to continue to work and rely on the government to support them with health care (what I call disease management) and retirement income. I’m one of those 96 percent. Are you? I doubt social security is going to be around when it’s time for me to enjoy my retirement years.

The game we play is to cleverly move debts around until we have what we want and hopefully don’t find ourselves insolvent at some point. Even if you are technically debt free, all mortgages paid off and car loans too, you are responsible, in the eyes of the government, for your share of the national debt. Your debt freedom is relative, not absolute. –Jason Kirby, June 2006

The Banks Are Calling the Shots

We now pay about 50 percent of our income in taxes. Does that seem right to you? Who came up with the idea that the government should get something of everything we earn? And how easy does the government make it for us to save money for retirement? I love how they put limits on how much you can set aside each year for retirement, and whatever you do save, if you invest it you pay interest on your gains.

Make no mistake. The government isn’t calling the shots. The bankers are calling the shots in this country. I’ve been learning quite a few things lately that I’d like to bring to your attention. But you’re going to have to have an open mind. And I’m going to have to find time to write it.

Inflation Explained

For now, the following video will explain to you why your dollar just doesn’t buy as much today as it did a few years ago. This is going to be information that the average American simply doesn’t know. There are a lot of things we don’t know about, mostly because we’ve been programmed to entertain ourselves with consumer goods. And we’ve grown up giving our trust to a government that hasn’t earned it.

Here’s the next video in that series:

No Longer Guilty

When I consider how much interest I have paid over my 35 or so years of employment, I don’t feel guilty anymore about not paying back the banks. The things I have learned in the past week make me very angry, and I hope they make you angry too. Angry enough to pay off or discharge your debt and free yourself. This should be the land of the free, not the land of debtors.

Additional reading:
The Real Reason for Inflation and Deflation
How Dare I Ruin the Economy!
Get Out of Debt Now by Any Means