The Uneasy Status of the Dollar

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It is no surprise that the dollar has started to plunge on world markets. When the Federal Reserve prints more dollars to pay for the “stimulus plan” and the boondoggles of federal spending, a higher supply of dollars cannot keep up with demand.

Once Presidents Roosevelt and Nixon took the United States off the gold standard, the dollar’s value has been determined by a floating currency market. That is, its value is determined by how much investors are willing to pay for dollars versus other currencies such as the pound, the Euro, or the yen. Like any market, the currency market is subject to the law of supply and demand. Demand drives value up; greater supplies tend to drive prices down. And if supply goes up and demand goes down, that is the worst situation in which a product, such as the dollar, is sold. With billions of new dollars added to the supply, it is impossible for demand to keep up; thus, the dollar’s value begins to go down. At first this mainly affects American international travelers who have to spend more dollars in currency exchanges to get a particular country’s currency. Over time, the lower value of the dollar affects the prices of both imported items and domestic items. Higher prices mean less buying, and this means that there will be less need for workers, compounding the problem of unemployment.

Some have argued that abandoning the floating currency market for a return to the gold standard will help bring stability to the dollar. I am not an economist by profession, and I defer to them to argue this point. It has always made me uneasy to know that the only thing giving the dollar value is investor demand. I do know enough about economics to know that flooding the currency market with dollars fuels inflation, with all its poisonous effects on the U. S. economy. The United States must either get its spending under control or face the possibility of hyperinflation, defaulting on its bonds that China and other countries buy, with the result that the economy spirals into recession followed by a full-fledged depression. The American people may be too spoiled by government benefits to support limited spending–if so, they will have only themselves to blame for inevitable economic ruin. The future of America seems as uneasy as the future of the dollar.

Will Traditional Christians be Persecuted in the United States?

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Attacks on the values of traditional Christians (and Jews and Muslims) appear constantly in the mainstream media. A Roman Catholic professor in Illinois is fired due to his presentation of the natural law argument against practicing homosexuality in his class. Just north of our border in Canada, it is illegal for anyone to speak against homosexual practice, including preachers in the pulpit. Violators are arrested for “hate speech.” Churches in California opposing homosexuality have been physically attacked by radical homosexuals. Those who affirm that abortion is murder are routinely mocked by the media and Hollywood. In some fields, such as academia, you must be careful to whom you speak about traditional moral values. If the government ever rules out some traditional values as “hate speech,” as Canada has, then the United States will be in the business of persecuting traditional Christians. We are teetering on the edge of an abyss of darkness, with the nation divided about 50-50 between two hostile value systems. I am concerned that in the future, intolerance in the name of tolerance will be enshrined in law. If this is not done by Congress with the help of a radical president, it may be accomplished by radical judges on the federal bench.

Although such a situation would be tragic for freedom of expression in the United States, it may end up separating the wheat from the chaff among Christians. Christians who have rejected their Christianity and still call themselves Christians (theologically and morally liberal Roman Catholics and Protestants) are irrelevant anyway–they might as well be militant atheists. But among members of traditional groups, those who would rather go along with the crowd will leave the church in droves when persecution comes. But the wheat, those dedicated to what is right no matter what, will, like Medieval monks, keep a dim light of remaining Christian civilization alive. I hope the country does not reach that stage. But it is difficult to reverse the trends of the 1960s, and after 1968 there was such a radical cultural shift I’m not sure it can be reversed. The scum of 1968 and its intellectual descendants now control the academy and most of the media. To this point, traditionalists have helped check the decline–but the battle has been two steps forward, three steps back. I suppose part of the problem is the nature of fallen man–it is easier to be bad than to be good. When intellectuals and the media offer excuses for someone to be bad, that person’s natural tendency is to say “Sure” and act on moral evil. I do not claim moral purity; I have made many mistakes in my life–but I do not claim that what I did was morally right simply because I did it, which is the tendency of morally rebellious Americans. These Americans resent traditional Christians and other traditionalists challenging their lifestyle, and they desire to silence them. If ordinary intimidation does not work, they will make use of the law. The time may not come in this country where Christians, like St. Peter and St. Paul, sing hymns from a prison cell. Yet it may, and may God help us if it does.