“Get Your Popcorn Ready To Watch The Coming Keynesian Self-Destruction,” Nathan Lewis writes in Forbes, quoting from an 1896 book on the economic horrors of the French Revolution titled Fiat Money Inflation in France:
“The evils which we have already seen arising from the earlier issues were now aggravated; but the most curious thing evolved out of all this chaos was a new system of political economy. [Author’s emphasis.] In speeches, newspapers and pamphlets about this time, we begin to find it declared that, after all, a depreciated currency is a blessing; that gold and silver form an unsatisfactory standard for measuring values: that it is a good thing to have a currency that will not go out of the kingdom and which separates France from other nations: that thus shall manufacturers be encouraged; that commerce with other nations may be a curse, and hindrance thereto may be a blessing; that the laws of political economy however applicable in other times, are not applicable to this particular period, and, however operative in other nations, are not now so in France; that the ordinary rules of political economy are perhaps suited to the minions of despotism but not to the free and enlightened inhabitants of France at the close of the eighteenth century; that the whole state of present things, so far from being an evil is a blessing. All these ideas, and others quite as striking, were brought to the surface in the debates …”
This time it’s different?
Read the whole thing, which concludes:
Napoleon was so popular that he declared himself emperor in 1804, and it stuck. Thus did a great nation rise again from the ashes; although Napoleon soon returned it to ashes in his own special way, with a side trip to Moscow.
The self-destruction of today’s Keynesians will lead to a new gold standard system, just as it always has in the past. But, first the Keynesians need to finish their self-demolition, accompanied, as it was in 18th century France, by widespread cheers and encouragement.
That should be interesting. Get your popcorn ready!
Might want to stock up on a few bags of Orville Redenbacher now though, before Mayor Mike or Michelle ‘I Can’t Stop Eating French Fries’ Obama decides to arbitrarily ban the stuff, or you need Weimar-sized bills to pay for it.
Related: “Wealth Is Not the Culprit.” But whether the year is 1789, 1933, or heck, right now, it certainly makes for a potent bogeyman.
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