I would not begin to tell you I understand international finance, or that I understand the country’s banking system. I have trouble, like a lot of you, balancing my own checkbook.

But how would you like to own a business that would allow you to print money; not earn it, or work for it, but print what you need. Say you were running a little short this week; well, just go in the backroom and print up a couple thousand. Presto! No problem!

Well there is a business that can do this, and there are people who own that business, private individuals, just like you and me. It’s called the Fed, or Federal Reserve, or Federal Reserve Bank.

Like I said, I don’t know a lot about it, but I have read some of its history, and I read just about anything about it that I can get my hands on.

First you ask: What is it? Well we really don’t know. When it needs to be, it is a private business, private bank, and uses all the protective secrecy that a private business would need and want; thus it fends off the media from prying into what it does and audits and checks by the federal government.

For instance, just on Wednesday it made a big decision behind closed-doors that will eventually affect you. The press can’t cover its meetings, and not even the Congress can audit it.

Secondly, when it needs to be, it is a government entity: For instance, it doesn’t pay property taxes on its Washington, D.C., offices because it claims to be an arm of the government, sometimes.

Next, not only is it a private company while simultaneously being a government entity, it is also a manufacturing company: It manufactures dollars.

Say the Congress wants to inject $700 billion into the U.S. economy. After the Congress approves it, the Congress goes to the Fed banking window, and ask for the money. The Fed officials type into their computers $700 billion and then cuts Uncle Sam a check for the money.

Presto! It’s done. But the Fed, which is owned by other banks throughout the country, which are owned by private stock holders, has just created $700 billion that did not exist before, and not only did it create the money, it charges the government and taxpayers, who have to pay it back, interests on the $700 billion it has created.

This is great, isn’t it? The Congress dumps the money into the economy; the banks are happy; Uncle Sam is happy; the people that get the money in the economy are happy; everybody’s happy.

But you, Dear Friend, who can do nothing about this, and are working so hard to make ends meet that you don’t have time to notice it, it is you that pays for this because the ponzi scheme has one drawback: When the Fed directors do this, they devalue the currency and the money you have in your pocket, and the money you have in the bank falls in value, too.

In other words, it is an indirect tax on you from Uncle Sam. He slips it to you while your are not looking and unaware, through inflating the currency. Easy as falling off a log, and the American people today don’t demand a change, so they continue. You can’t do anything about it, so why worry. I guess you are right.

Now comes the Fed again, on Wednesday, and recent news releases have said that the Fed voted 10-1 to “ease” the money supply. Interpretation: They are going to turn on the printing presses again and take a dip out of your savings. They are going to what is called “monetize the debt.” They do this by printing money for their bank and then purchasing government bonds from the government with the fiat, or manufactured dollars.

Germany and China, which hold zillions in dollars, have warned them not to do it, because they know that it will devalue the dollars they hold. You wonder how much longer China will put up with us. A big investment guru on Wall Street said that if the Fed does this, the dollar in your pocket will drop about 20 percent in value over the next two years. Is he correct? Probably. Other critics have warned it will ignite inflation again. Said the WSJ, “The central bank is embarking on the electronic equivalent of starting up its printing presses. . .”

Do you remember what a dollar would buy in the late 1950s? I do. I remember I could take a dollar in the late 1950s, go to the bank and redeem it for a silver dollar. I remember doing it, because I liked to flip the silver dollar; it had a distinctive ring to it when you thumped it. It was real money. I remember a nickel coke, 24 cent pack of cigarettes, 24 cent a gallon gas, etc. It all changed because of the Fed, its directors and politicians who devalued the dollar.

You can’t get a silver dollar for your greenback because the dollar has been disconnected from gold and silver, and the politicians, in Washington, D.C., did it, so they could manipulate you and the money supply. Look on your dollar; it says “Federal Reserve Note.”

I remember when gold was $32 an ounce. Now it is over $1,300 an ounce. I remember, too, when Americans could not own gold; there was a law against it; look for that to happen again.

Will it ever stop, or be reigned in? Probably not. Events will inevitably take their own course. A great Roman writer wrote during the height of the Roman Empire that the Romans were not worried about what was happening between Caesar and the Gauls on the frontier but about the pebble in their sandal.

There are a few people in Congress trying to do something about it. Some have suggested tying the dollar to gold and silver again. Some want the Fed audited. Some want to abolish the Fed.

The state and local governments can’t do this, just like you can’t in your personal budget. They can’t print money so they must balance their budgets. Thus the tough cuts locally on the state and local levels recently. But the federal government can. Some want the federal government to have to balance its budget, too, with no gimmicks. We will see.