Don't Blame Boomers
AS A BOOMER (b. 1957) who is being blamed for all the ills afflicting subsequent generations, I’d like to state the following.
AS A BOOMER (b. 1957) who is being blamed for all the ills afflicting subsequent generations, I’d like to state the following.
1. I did not vote to establish the private Federal Reserve in 1913. I was not born until many decades later.
2. I did not vote to change our real silver coins (“money”) for copper coins painted silver. I was 8 years old in 1965.
3. I did not vote to change our Silver Certificate Dollars (which could be exchanged for actual physical silver) to pure fiat Federal Reserve Notes. I was 11 years old in 1968.
4. I did not vote to “close the gold window” in 1971. Nixon did that. I was 14 years old.
What happened to all Americans was the planned and structured debasement of our federal reserve currency (it’s not real money). The 4 steps listed above allowed the politicians of both parties to print FRNs with no limits at all, always diminishing the purchasing power (”wealth”) of the beleaguered middle class.
But this currency debasement did not affect all Americans equally. The poor could take advantage of numerous inflation-adjusted welfare programs, with free medical care, food stamps (now EBT), housing assistance, etc.
The most wealthy Americans actually benefited from the currency debasement, because the new FRNs were injected into the top tiers of our society. Banks, hedge funds, mega corporations etc. They received the full value of the new money before prices were inflated throughout the rest of the economy.
Slowly over time the real purchasing power (wealth) of the middle class was diminished. This is why I say the wealth of the middle class was stolen and transferred to the elite class in Washington and New York. I made this Monopoly meme to illustrate how this theft took place.
This upward wealth transfer through currency debasement is called The Cantillon Effect, named for the 18th-Century economist who first described this phenomenon and its implications to society.
I highly recommend everyone read “The Creature from Jekyll Island,” the seminal work by the great G. Edward Griffon. It recounts the secret creation of the private Federal Reserve in 1913.
There is a nice 4-minute video and a writeup at this link about central banks, real money, and the Federal Reserve System which has led to our current predicament.
https://mises.org/what-has-government-done-our-money
To recap the chain of events, in 1963, President Kennedy was murdered, likely by our own CIA.
In 1964, the U.S. minted millions of silver Kennedy Half Dollars to commemorate his life and presidency.
In 1965, under President Johnson and a Democrat Congress, the U.S. stopped minting silver coins, and only made copper coins that were painted silver.
LBJ then began a massive spending spree, printing countless billions of fiat FRN dollars to simultaneously fund both his “Great Society” anti-poverty plans, and the Vietnam War.
Today, the silver melt value of a 1964 Kennedy Half Dollar is $36 in debased fiat Federal Reserve Notes.
In 1968, without much notice or any ceremony, American Silver Certificate Dollars were switched to pure fiat Federal Reserve Notes. Our dollar bills were no longer redeemable in silver. This was blamed on “a silver shortage.”
I was only 11 years old at the time. Don’t blame me.
In 1971, the French sent a warship to New York City to exchange their American dollars for physical gold. After this happened, President Nixon “closed the gold window,” delinking the value of the dollar from gold. There were no limits left on FRN dollar creation after this policy change.
NIXON: “In recent weeks, the speculators have been waging an all-out war on the American dollar. The strength of a nation’s currency is based on the strength of that nation’s economy—and the American economy is by far the strongest in the world. Accordingly, I have directed the Secretary of the Treasury to take the action necessary to defend the dollar against the speculators. I have directed Secretary Connally to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other reserve assets, except in amounts and conditions determined to be in the interest of monetary stability and in the best interests of the United States.
“Now, what is this action—which is very technical—what does it mean for you? Let me lay to rest the bugaboo of what is called devaluation. If you want to buy a foreign car or take a trip abroad, market conditions may cause your dollar to buy slightly less. But if you are among the overwhelming majority of Americans who buy American-made products in America, your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow as it is today. The effect of this action, in other words, will be to stabilize the dollar.”
When Nixon “closed the gold window,” the price of an ounce of gold was set at $35. Today, you will need to spend $4,993 dollars to buy an ounce of gold.
IOW, today a dollar is only worth 1/4,993rd of an ounce of gold.
You can blame the Boomers for the current unaffordability of housing and so on, but none of us voted on the Federal Reserve Act, or LBJ changing silver coins to copper, or Nixon closing the gold window.
Back then, as today, almost nobody understood the significance of currency debasement to their lives. Ask any of your more intelligent friends if they have ever heard of The Cantillon Effect, or how the wealth (in purchasing power) of the middle class was stolen and transferred upward to the already rich elites by constant new dollar creation.
Almost nobody understood the dynamics and consequences of unlimited currency creation then, or now. Not Boomers, not Zoomers, and nobody in between.
Yes, Boomers who own paid-off homes today have benefited from this process, but they didn’t cause it. Even this week in Davos, this prickly subject came up, with Trump saying he’s unwilling to take steps to make American homes more affordable, because this would diminish the wealth of current home owners. So I understand it’s a sore subject.
Millennials and Zoomers are being screwed, this is absolutely true. But Boomers didn’t set this process in motion. Boomers were not yet born in 1913, and were young non-voting bystanders in 1965, 68 and 71.
I wrote a Substack last year called “Baby Boomers Better Beware,” on the subject of inter-generational anger being stoked against older Americans. It’s still highly important, IMHO.
When you add hatred of Boomers by the young to the simmering racial and class hatred that is also being stoked, in the event of an economic collapse, White Boomers are going to be on a lot of people’s “kill them first” list. And then they’ll move into nice Boomer homes when the Boomers are eliminated. Or so they think.
BABY BOOMERS BETTER BEWARE
A geronticidal fury is building to the boiling point
https://steelcutter.substack.com/p/baby-boomers-better-beware
Don’t let anybody tell you that an economy based on real money (gold and silver) limited economic growth. The USA became a global power during the 19th Century and until WW1 using real money that could not be printed by politicians. This was also the case in Great Britain. The workers who built the Panama Canal were paid in actual physical gold and silver coins.
It’s Friday, and the markets will be closing for the weekend tonight. The Friday close and the Monday open are important psychologically, as the global markets evaluate conditions. Take a good look at the silver chart below. It might be the last time we see silver under $100 per ounce.
You can follow the precious metals here at Kitco.
Click on any of the metals to see the charts.
https://kitco.com/price/precious-metals
Noon eastern time update, 23 January 2026: This is not a tech or real estate bubble, soon to pop.
And this is not a vote for silver, for silver’s sake. This is a vote for real money.
We are watching the death throes of the fiat Federal Reserve Note Dollar playing out in real time.
And at the same time, gold is testing $5,000. Yeah, the economy is great, just great.
You can print some of these sheets to keep track of the value of silver related to FRNs. This will be useful at farmers markets and swap meets. Eventually, nobody will care about the FRNs, and everyday purchases will be priced in silver. (Gold will be for large purchases such as cars, houses, and land.)
Bracken—Out.
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