Part 4/12:
In mid-20s, the same individual read The Creature from Jekyll Island, which unraveled the history of the Federal Reserve and debunked common misconceptions about money.
Key Insight
They learned that money, as paper currency, isn’t backed by tangible assets like gold anymore. Since President Nixon severed the gold standard in 1971, the U.S. dollar became a fiat currency—its value rooted solely in government promise rather than physical reserves.
This understanding revealed that inflation—the gradual decrease in currency value—is essentially a hidden tax caused by the government’s practice of printing money to cover deficits, rather than increasing real wealth.