The increase of over thirty billions in the money of the world (outside of Russia) is, as Austin says, "more in its face value, than all the gold and all the silver turned out by all the mines of all the world in 427 years since the discovery of America."
It is a common impression that wars always raise prices. But a study of index numbers in the belligerent countries, during the Napoleonic wars, War of 1812, Mexican, Crimean, Civil, Franco-Prussian, Spanish-American, Boer, Russo-Japanese wars and the World War indicates that war seldom raises prices except when, and to the extent that, the costliness of the war forces recourse to inflation as a fiscal expedient of governments or their people.
The conclusion toward which the foregoing arguments (and others which might be added) lead is that, in the past, the chief disturber of the peace, so far as the purchasing power of money is concerned, has invariably, or at any rate almost invariably, been money itself, not the goods which money purchases.
11. Money Illusions
The attraction which inflation policies have for so many people grows, in part at least, out of what may be called the money illusions.
The general public finds it hard to admit that there can be too much money. Money, however abundant, always seems scarce.[1] Each individual wants all the
- ↑ Cf. Bullock's Monetary History of the United States, N. Y, (Macmillan), 1900, p. 38; see also Irving Fisher, "The 'Scarcity' of Gold," Cotton and Finance, New York City, February 15, 1913. The recent attempts of the gold-mining interests in England and the United States to secure a Government subsidy utilized this illusion.
