The above Norman Rockwell painting, Tipping the Scales, has a humorous quality to it, and appears benign, but is it? If we’re talking a 1 gram difference in weight as regards gold, that’s approximately $170 today! Readers of this BLOG are already familiar with this writer’s vehement objections to fiat currency, but what about other false weights and measures?

Let’s take for example the Consumer Price Index (CPI) which used to incorporate steak in the analysis of food costs. Well in order to make inflation (increase in the money supply by the Federal Reserve and Congress) appear reasonable, they substituted stead into the equation in order to bring down prices. Imagine you’re used to driving a new Ford pick up truck every other year, and all of a sudden, you have to settle for a used truck, which you’re being told is new. You might resist that – especially when they tell you it’s the same price!

And, then there’s the unemployment numbers. Unemployment, they say, is not as bad now as it was in the 1970’s! The difference is, if you were unemployed in the 1970’s, you were counted as unemployed. Today, if you get discouraged and stop looking after four weeks, you are no longer counted among the unemployed.

What about banks that wish to appear solvent. Did you know that a mortgage on the banks books (even if it is a non- performing mortgage that has not received a payment in 6 months) is considered an asset? In the meantime, the moment the bank recognizes the non-performing mortgage, and turns it over to foreclosure, that same asset becomes a liability on the books! That’s why in hard economic times like 2008, the banks waited well over a year to foreclose on properites. They did not want to appear in trouble. Some of them did anyway!

More examples are out there, but you can now see how insidious false weights and measures are, and the devastating effects they can ultimatley have as they affect people’s decision making in evaluating an investment, or holding a bank account, or seeking to expand a business, or whatever. Fa;se weogjts amd measures deceive, and therefore manipulate people into making bad decisions.

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