Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

$274,000,000-an expensive year, as we resumed paying specie for the Greenback

Inflation, $346,700,000 of fiat money.

What would Will Rogers think of a budget of $300 billion and up?

(Figures quojed from THE STATISTICAL HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, Prepa red by the

U.S. Aureau of the Census)

Fed. Employees Fed. Receipts

Census State & Local Fed. Expenditure

Year Population JPub.E~p. Surplus/Deficit Fed Public Debt

1910 91972,266 388708 0675,51 2000 01,146940,000

693,617,000

(-/018,105,000

1920 /05,710,620 655,265 06,648,898,000 024,299,321,000

6,357,677,000

$291,221,000

1930 /22,755,046 601319 $4,057,884,000 016,185,3/0,000

2,622,000 3,320,211,000

3.223,3/9 0737,673,000

/940 131,669,275 1,042,420 06,900,000,000 050,700,000,000

3,206,000 9,600,000,000

4,248,420 (-/02,700,000,000

1950 150,697,361 1,960,708 040,900,000,000 0256,900,000,000

4,098,000 43,100,000,000

6,058,708 (-)$2,200,000,000

1960 178,464,236 2,398,704 $92,500,000,000 $290,900,000,000

6,083,000 92,200,000,000

8,481.704 0300,000,000

/970 203,235,298 2,981,574 $193,700,000,000 $382,600,000,000

9,830,000 196.600,000,000

12.811,574 (-/02,900,000,000

(/980) (222.000,000) (3,600,000) ($300,000,000,000)

($525,000,000,000)

(14.500,000) ($310,000,000,000)

(18,100,000) (-)($/0,000 000,000)

(1980 figures are extrapolations = wild guesses) (Too timid?) Much too

timid!-as you knew when you read them, as I knew when I prepared them. I plotted all

of the above figures on graph paper, faired the curves, suppressed what I knew by

memory (even refrained from consulting World Almanacs to bridge the 9 years since

the close of compilation of THE STATISTICAL HISTORY) and extrapolated to 1980 by the

curves-not tangent, but on the indicated curve.

By the best figures I can get from Washington today (20 Nov 1979) the budget

is $547,600,000,000; the expected deficit is $29,800,000,000; and our current

Federal Public Debt is estimated at $886,480,000,000.(!!!)

The end of the Federal fiscal year, September 30, is still over ten months

away. In ten months a lot of things can happen. Unexpected events always cause

unexpected expense.. . but with great good luck the deficit will not increase much

and the National Public Debt will stay under $900,000,000,000.

In case of war, all bets are off.

What is happening is what always happens in fiatcurrency inflation: After a

certain point, unpredictable as to date because of uncountable human variables, it

becomes uncontrollable and the currency becomes worthless. Dictatorship usually

follows. From there on anything can happen-all bad.

The Greenback Inflation did not result in collapse of the dollar and of

constitutional government because gold backing was not disavowed, simply postponed

for a relatively short time. The Greenback Party wanted to go on printing paper

money, never resume specie payment-but eventually we toughed it out and paid hard

money for the Greenbacks that had financed the Union side of the war. From 1862 to

1879 gold and silver were not used internally. Our unfavorable balance of trade for

1861-65, which had to be met in gold, was $296,000,000. Hard times and high

taxes-but we made it.

The French Revolution inflation was unsecured. Between April 1790 and

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February 1796, 40 billion livres or francs were issued. New paper money (Mandats)

replaced them that year; the following year both sorts were declared no longer legal

tender (waste paper!)- and 2 years later Napoleon took over “to save the

Republic.”(!)

We could still keep from going utterly bankrupt by going back on some hard

standard (gold, silver, uraniurn, mercury, bushels of wheat-something). But it would

not be easy, it would not be popular; it would mean hard times for everyone while we

recovered from an almighty hangover. Do you think a Congress and a President can be

elected on any such platform?

One chink in the armor of any democracy is that, when the Plebs discover

that they can vote themselves Bread & Circuses, they usually do . . . right up to

the day there is neither bread nor circuses. At that point they often start lynching

the senators, congressmen, bankers, tax collectors, Jews, grocers, foreigners, any

minority-take your choice. For they know that they didn’t do it. The citizen is

sovereign until it comes to accepting blame for his sovereign acts-then he demands a

scapegoat.

I used official figures without comment to show

where we have been the past 70 years. . . and how we got into the mess we are in.

But, while I think our government is more nearly honest than some others (see INSIDE

INTOURIST Afterword, page 439), there is a lot of hanky-panky in those official

figures. Example:

Social Security taxes go into the general fund and are spent. If Social Security