I don’t know how many of my readers have noticed that their trips to the grocery store have gotten just a bit more expensive. I certainly have. Simple things like sugar, bread, coffee, all have gone up in price.

I am by no means an economist, and many of the articles I read on the economy speak in terms that I have a hard time understanding. Nevertheless there are a couple of things I have learned from my reading.

First I have an pretty good understanding of how a healthy economy should function, and ours is by no means a healthy economy. Secondly, and this is what has me worried, things are only going to get worse.

I just finished reading a report by the NIA, the National Inflation Association. I cannot verify their findings, but they certainly sound dire. As the title of this article says, can you afford to pay $23 for a loaf of bread. Well that’s exactly what the NIA predicts a loaf of bread to cost in the near future. It also predicts drastic rises in other essential items, such as $11 for one ear of corn, $62 for two pounds of sugar, $45 for a container of Minute Maid Pure Squeezed Orange Juice, $15 for one Hershey’s candy bar, and $77 for an eleven ounce jar of my choice of coffee, Folgers Ground Classic Roast. And it is not only food that is going to go up. The NIA predicts that a single cotton T-shirt at Walmart is going to cost you around $55.

I remember my father telling me stories from when he was a kid during the Great Depression and I wonder is my son going to relive the past my father experienced?

How far is your current budget for grocery shopping going to when prices reach those levels? I wonder, will people begin to pay attention when they have to start canceling their cable TV, losing their ability to watch football or reality TV shows that keep them entertained? Are people going to be willing to give up their cellphones, their internet service just so they can buy a few more items at the grocery store? How about the sporting events for their kids, are they going to have to tell their children they no longer can go to soccer practice because they need the extra money to buy some ground beef for dinner?

To me, a healthy economy is merely how easily people are able to pay for the items they need to survive. If people are working, and earning a decent salary, and the factories are producing items which people can afford, then the economy is healthy.

I see the news and the reports on the gains and losses of the Dow Jones Industrial Index. To me, that is not the gauge of a healthy economy. When a company records profits and their stock prices go up, does that make it any easier for you, as a consumer, to go out and buy goods at the stores? No, so why then do people place so much faith in the Dow as an indicator of how vibrant an economy is?

If you work in a company and they downsize, laying off one third of their workforce, yet the company continues to produce the same quantity of goods, the company will of course show a profit, as their overhead has gone down drastically. Yet if one third of their employees suddenly find themselves without a job, how are they going to be able to afford to purchase the goods their former company manufactured, especially if they end up taking jobs at salaries far less than they previously earned? They can’t, and therefore, according to my definition of a healthy economy, the economy has just gotten weaker.

Prior to our nation’s Revolutionary War, the colonies experienced what I consider to be a very healthy economy. From Ben Franklins autobiography I quote, “There was abundance in the Colonies, and peace was reigning on every border. It was difficult, and even impossible, to find a happier and more prosperous nation on all the surface of the globe. Comfort was prevailing in every home. The people, in general, kept the highest moral standards, and education was widely spread.”

How was it that the colonies experienced this level of comfort? To again quote Franklin, “That is simple. In the Colonies, we issue our own paper money. It is called ‘Colonial Scrip.’ We issue it in proper proportion to make the goods and pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power and we have no interest to pay to no one.”

There, in a nutshell, is the reason why the economy of the colonies flourished. It was because they issued their own money in proper proportion so that goods passed easily from producers to consumers.

If they had issued too much currency, the would have induced inflation. Most people assume inflation is merely the increase in cost of goods. Unfortunately they are mistaken, as the dictionary defines inflation as, “an increase in the supply of currency or credit relative to the availability of goods and services, resulting in higher prices.”

Shortly after Franklin explained how the colonies were able to live in such comfort, Britain took away the colonists right to produce their own currency, requiring that they use gold and silver which was provided by British bankers.

In just one year the economy of the colonies had done a 180, as Franklin describes here, “In one year, the conditions were so reversed that the era of prosperity ended, and a depression set in, to such an extent that the streets of the Colonies were filled with unemployed.”

While many believe that it was taxation without representation that led to the Revolutionary War, it was in fact the economic situation in the colonies that was, according to Franklin, the prime reason the colonies sought independence. From Franklins autobiography, “The colonies would gladly have borne the little tax on tea and other matters had it not been that England took away from the colonies their money, which created unemployment and dissatisfaction. The inability of the colonists to get power to issue their own money permanently out of the hands of George III and the international bankers was the PRIME reason for the Revolutionary War.”

Our Constitution grants Congress the power “To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures” It is only when Congress gives up that power, granting it to a system of private banks, that our nation experiences economic difficulties.

Our founders were extremely wary of the influence of the bankers, or money changers as they were often called. James Madison once stated, “History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling money and its issuance.”

Thomas Jefferson was even more dire, “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”

It is my fear that we are witnessing the beginnings of that prediction coming to fruition. Already we have experienced the housing crisis which has led to many people losing their homes to the banks. Now we are on the verge of hyperinflation, when even the most common of goods are going to become too expensive for the average American family.

Our government gave its power to coin our nations money to the Federal Reserve, and ever since they have controlled our economy by the raising and lowering of interest rates, and at times infusing massive amounts of money into the economy to keep it artificially stimulated. Remember, it is the amount of money in existence in an economy that causes inflation, not the cost of making the goods, nor the amount of money you earn.

Has it ever occurred to you why the IRS, a government agency, can audit you for mistakes you make on your income taxes, but this same government has refused to audit the Federal Reserve, which supposedly is under government oversight?

I know from my conversations with people, that many of them are far too unfamiliar with the history of their own nation. Therefore it comes as no surprise that they do not recall the battle President Andrew Jackson fought against the Central Bankers.

During his personal battle to wean our country from the influence of the bank, Jackson was quoted as saying, “If the American people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system – there would be a revolution before morning…”

That quote is equally applicable today, as the American people would be outraged if they knew how much of their financial suffering can be directly attributed to the fiscal policies of the Federal Reserve. If the truth were to be made public, the ensuing protests would make the Tea Party movement look like, well, a Tea Party.

Congressman Ron Paul had introduced a bill, HR 1207, which would have required an audit be taken of the Federal Reserve. Yet to date that bill has not been passed. Our Congressional leaders do not want it to pass because if they do, and the corruption were to be exposed, it would mean the end of blank check days. Congress would be forced to live within their means, and that is something they do not want.

In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte said, “When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes… Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.”

Our government, and we the people, have place all our faith in the FED to manage and sustain our economy, and it has failed miserably. Each time they bailout a failing business, or enact quantitative easing, a monetary policy where the FED increases the supply of money to stimulate the economy, they reduce the buying power of the dollars you earn.

The monetary policies of the FED, and the uncontrolled borrowing of our government are leading us headlong into an economic meltdown that will make the Great Depression look like a walk in the park. When it comes you will be lucky if you can buy enough food to feed your families for one day, let alone a week. Your money will be as worthless as if you had walked into the stores and offered used kitty litter in exchange for food.

I could go into great detail the persons behind this, and who will only get richer as the rest of us suffer, but it would serve no purpose. My only intent is to let you know what is coming. Maybe, if enough people become outraged, they will flood their elected representatives with phone calls and letters, demanding that they audit the FED, control their spending.

We may still be able to halt our slide into another depression, if people act now. But once it begins, there will be no stopping it. And, if it begins, I pray that people have stored up enough supplies to ride it out. I also hope that people are prepared to defend their families, and their supplies, from those who will steal, and possibly kill you, just for the food in your pantry

But people must act NOW. Not in 2012 at the next elections. Not in six months, not in two weeks…NOW! After all, it is you who will suffer when you can no longer afford the prices that are coming if we don’t act to stop this madness. Your choice people, watch TV now and starve later or act now and possibly have a future. I know what I am going to do, do you?

~ The Author ~
Neal Ross can be reached for comments at bonsai@syix.com. Visit Neal’s Blog at http://www.zombie-slayer.com/neal