We live in the age of rampant (monetary and price) inflation, more frequent economic crises, chronic deficit spending, unpayable debt, and massive financial bubbles. That’s not accidental. That’s consequential.

This fact and the many economic, social, and even cultural consequences of our fiat money system remain largely unknown to the majority of people. The US dollar became a fiat currency by deceit and not due to the merit of fiat money or by free choice.

Many readers will already know that Ludwig von Mises considers the Nazi economy to be a form of socialism. In the Nazi system, private property in production goods existed in name only. The ostensible owners were merely managers bound to follow the government’s directives. Rainer Zitelmann, the foremost authority on Adolf Hitler’s economic policies, has fully confirmed Mises’s analysis in Hitler’s National Socialism, which will be published next month. (The book is a revision and expansion of Zitelmann’s earlier book Hitler: The Politics of Seduction).

Markets reacted badly last week to Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s statements outlining the Fed’s initial forecast for the coming year. With inflation clearly no longer being “transitory,” with the Consumer Price Index accelerating to 7 percent in December, Powell has turned increasingly hawkish.

I was surprised to see a tweet from President Joe Biden showing the gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States for 2021 compared to the average GDP growth under other presidents. The tweet stated, “This didn’t happen by accident. Because of the actions we took, last year we achieved the fastest economic growth in nearly four decades.”

It looks increasingly like inflation is here to stay. The Federal Reserve economists admit this one day and deny it the next. In the hallowed halls of monetary orthodoxy – from New York to San Francisco to DC – confusion is setting in.

Until now, orthodox monetary theory has had an easy time of it. Since the articulation of inflation targeting in the 1980s and 1990s, rates have been tending in one direction: down. They fall, fall, fall, then rise a little – only to fall some more.

In response to the argument in favor of closing loopholes, Ludwig von Mises once noted that “capitalism breathes through those loopholes.”

In many ways, special economic zones (SEZs) are the ultimate loophole. But, like all loopholes, they benefit the politically connected few who know how to take advantage of them as opposed to the masses.

Since the beginning of this year, the entire world has seen a rise in prices which caused panic and surprise among people; however, the inflation we are observing these last months is not a surprise to those who have seen the monetary and fiscal policy of the governments around the world since the pandemic started. With the excuse of the virus, States have implemented huge spendings which were financed, at least in part, by printing money and other expansionist policies and the results are clear now.