How an idea from 1896 took over Washington D.C.

Borrowing is out of control – which means the Free Silver movement won!

The fiscal year, which government uses to keep the books, ends Monday. It will conclude with the United States going almost $2 trillion further into debt during FY24, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Government spent $2 trillion more than it took in -- during a period when the economy was strong and there were no bona-fide emergencies. As opposed to every issue being “a crisis!” to politicians and the MSM.

To put $2 trillion in new debt in a single year into perspective, the one-year new-debt number that shocked George H. W. Bush – causing him to abandon his “read my lips no new taxes” pledge, advocate higher taxes, and be defeated for reelection in 1992 – was $700 billion.

All money numbers in this essay have been converted to 2024 dollars.

Thus the debt just added to America’s national tab is three times the amount viewed with alarm by the elder George Bush.

A prominent American saw this future: the populist William Jennings Bryan, Democratic candidate for president in 1896, 1900 and 1908.

Bryan’s campaigns were based around a cry for Free Silver – the metal silver as a basis of currency. This would have led to big increases in the money supply, credit, debt and inflation. Today’s means are different than what Bryan called for, but ends are the same: borrow, borrow, borrow without restraint. Free Silver won!

Two weeks ago this space proposed “We’re All Marxists Now.” A reason capitalism did not collapse is that 9 of the 10 planks of the Communist Manifesto were adapted by the United States, European Union and Japan.

We’re all Free Silver now too! You may have a 512 gigabyte globally interconnected artificial intelligence in your pocket, but the 19^th century is running Washington.