How Long Has It Been Since Your Last Hyperbola?

     Here’s one, just in case you’ve forgotten:

     All right, it’s a little glitchy. However, it illustrates a critical relationship: the one between the size of the money supply and the value of the dollar.

     What’s that you say? The chart doesn’t graph those things? Ah, but it does! The size of the money supply is proportional to the size of the federal debt. As for the value of the dollar, here’s all you need to know:

  • 1913 price of gold in dollars: $20.67 / Troy ounce.
  • 2024 price of gold in dollars: $2550 / Troy ounce.

     Did gold become rarer over that interval? Did it become a better conductor? Did it become more resistant to chemical bonding? Did it become prettier?

     You know the answers. You also know why a loaf of bread that cost a nickel in 1913 costs more than $5.00 today. (Don’t bother telling me that the 1913 loaf would be stale by now. I’ve already eaten it, so there!)

     Reflect on the awful splendor of the hyperbola.

1 comment

    • Houston on November 14, 2024 at 8:53 AM

    One man.  F.D. Roosevelt.  I know he didn’t lay the groundwork but he lit the match to the wick.  You are correct Fran.  The State, the governments created by man are the cause of most all of human suffering.  

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