How to grow your wealth during the coming collapse?

FOREWORD v

took her aside and told her the following: “You probably

won’t be working here long because the dollar is going

to become worthless. It will be good for nothing more

than kindling for the stove.”

‘She was also told that the money she was contributing

to Social Security was a waste since the program was a

pyramid scheme and would collapse in a few years.

‘Nearly fifty years later, here we are. The dollars in my

wallet are still accepted for goods and services and my

mother is still receiving the social security she paid into.

‘The sky has always been about to fall...but never seems

to get around to it.

‘People lap this stuff up and there's always, always, al-
ways someone there to make a buck on it.’
It’s easy to accept such cynicism at first glance.
Since 1971, learned men in the minority, newsletter edi-
tors, pundits, ‘goldbugs’ and gadflies have predicted the end of
the dollar standard. Despite them all, here we are.
But as Jim points out in Chapter 11, ‘The Beginning of the
End for the Dollar’, this reader’s argument is misleading at best
— and downright dangerous at worst.
What the reader who wrote that note may not realise — or
may choose not to recall — is that the US dollar actually did
lose over half its purchasing power in five short years from
1977 to 1981.
US inflation in those five years was more than 50%. In
Australia, it was even worse.
If you had a job, maybe you got a raise. The value of home-
owners’ houses went up.
But if you were relying on savings, insurance or a fixed
income, half of your wealth was lost forever. Maybe that US
bank manager knew something after all.