The latest BullionBuzz Newsletter is available. This issue re-publishes some of the best articles of past years by authors like Jim Puplava and Richard Russell. Here is an excerpt from on by Jim Puplava: "In April of 1779, Benjamin Franklin said: "This currency, as we manage it, is a wonderful machine. It performs its office when we issue it; it pays and clothes troops, and provides victuals and ammunition; and when we are obliged to issue a quantity excessive, it pays itself off by depreciation."

Fast forward 230 years and we find Ben Bernanke poised to take charge of America's money, with a philosophy remarkably similar to his predecessor's: "Like gold, US dollars have value only to the extent that they are strictly limited in supply. But the US government has a technology, called a printing press, which allows it to produce as many US dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost. By increasing the number of dollars in circulation, or even credibly threatening to do so, the US government can also reduce the value of a dollar in terms of goods and services, which is the equivalent to raising the prices in dollars of those goods and services. We conclude that, under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and hence positive inflation."

For the most part, inflation is a poorly understood phenomenon. Many believe it results from OPEC raising oil prices, businesses seeking higher profits, or unions looking to enhance union work benefits and pay. The truth is that government is the source of all inflation – an increase in the quantity of money stands behind rising prices. Today, inflation, not deflation, is inevitable, and the link between the past and the present is in the shared philosophies of the two Bens: both are enamoured of the printing press." Read more here: BullionBuzz