The Editor,
The decision to print more money represents a clear and present danger to the Liberian economy and its people!! (Re “House Approve Printing of Additional Money”, Daily Observer:)
When a government prints more money without a corresponding increase in its economic output, it unleashes hyperinflation! And hyperinflation debases your currency!
Memo to economically-illiterate Liberian Lawmakers: Look. We all know that you people (lawmakers) think money grows on trees and you have the power to “issue currency” (Article 34-d) out of thin air. But at whose expense should you “issue currency” out of thin air?
Printing more money out of thin air and without a corresponding increase in your economic output also mean that you’re stealing other people’s life savings! How?
Because with more money in circulation, prices of goods and services will definitely skyrocket! Many people life savings would not be enough to buy a loaf of Fanti bread to feed their family or buy access to Speaker Tyler’s office! For all practical purposes, the Liberian people would’ve been robbed, big time by the stupidity of their own leaders!
But the Liberian government won’t be the first to have stolen their people money this way. For thousands and thousands of years, elected leaders have been stealing from their own people–from Nero in ancient Rome to Doe in Liberia to Mugabe in Zimbabwe!!
If you don’t believe what I just said, look at what happen to Zimbabwe: In 2007, President-for-life, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, ordered his Central Bank Governor to print an additional Z$1 trillion to pay for civil servants’ and soldiers’ salaries that were hiked by 600% and 900% respectively! Of course that made Zimbabwean soldiers and civil servants millionaires and zillionaires, but at whose expense?
Every Zimbabwean, poor and rich, saw the value of their money vanish because of hyperinflation! People needed a wheelbarrow full of money (Zimbabwean Dollar) just to buy a loaf of Lebanese bread!
Today, the Zimbabwean dollar is useless and worthless! Many business owners do NOT accept Zimbabwean dollars — instead, they request U.S. dollars or South African rand for their goods and services!
What lesson must we learn from Zimbabwe? Don’t print more money, you idiots!! Why? Because the most insidious way to destroy a country is to destroy its currency (John Maynard Keynes)!
Martin Scott,
Atlanta, Georgia
[email protected]