The Real Danger of Inflation

I filled my gas tank yesterday and realized it costs 33% more to do so than when I bought the car five years ago. 

A lot of the price increase has come recently.

I'm as wary of inflation as the next guy.

But the real danger of inflation isn't to our pocketbooks.

It's to our republic.

As columnist David Brooks observed this week, run-of-the-mill, white-shoe Republicans are in a lather over federal spending, and will vote for Trump simply to damper it.

They're unaware of the evil Trump and his followers embody.

To these naïfs, he's just a good Republican. 

If inflation becomes chronic, they'll rally to him.

You'll recall from your history books a troubled time in Germany after World War I. 

The government had been forced, by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, to pay war reparations to the Allies.

To fund that debt, the German government printed money—tons of it—sparking runaway inflation.

At one point, German housewives burned piles of Reichsmarks, because they were worth less than firewood.

The inflationary spiral gave rise to extremist political leaders and movements, in particular Hitler and the Nazis.

Burning money soon gave way to burning books and, eventually, to burning people.

Don't think for a minute it can't happen here.

It can.

Inflation—and pocketbook-issue voters—can return Trump to office.