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of human rulers for political power
and their desire to curry favor with
their citizens by trying to provide
them government services without
honestly taxing to pay for them.
Biblically, inftation is the product of
the human heart that is opposed to
God's law (Romans 8:7), specifically,
God's law against covetousness (Exo–
dus 20:17, Mark 7:22; Hebrews 13:5)
and tbeft (Exodus 20:15, Luke 18:20,
Ephesians 4:28). In principie, infta–
tion is a means by which human
government vio1atesGod's lawagainst
diverse weights and measures (Deute–
ronomy 25:14-15) as well as God's
instructions to human government not
to enrich itself at the expense of its
citizens (Deuteronomy 17:17).
Because its roots 1ie deep in the
nature of human beings to want to
get something for nothing, inftation
seems to be an intractable fact in
what the Bible calls "this present evil
world" (Galatians 1:4). But inftation
leads to more tban evil economic
consequences. What it does to human
moral character and society at large
is far, far worse.
Grlndlng the P"oor
lnflation hits everybody differently.
The people whom inflation hits the
hardest are the poor and the elderly.
They hurt the hardest because they
have less ftexibility on what they can
spend their money on. For example,
if inflation forces heating costs up, a
young healthy person can turn his
thermostat down to 65 °. But an
elderly person with arthritis suffers
real pain at that temperature.
Because they spend more of their
income on necessities, the poor have
little or no room to economize when
the price of food, or housing, or heat
inflates. They simply do without.
Even more painful is the fact that the
current round of world inflation has
forced up the price of necessities
more than other goods.
After years of inflation during
which many old and poor people
suffered painful hardship, most gov–
ernments around the world have "in–
dexed" government pension and wel–
fare plans to the price index. As one
goes, so does the other.
However, the results are still pain–
ful and t ragic for countless millions
of retired people who
re/ied on
prí–
vate pension plans to supplement
32
their government pensions. Many
private pensions are fixed and cannot
be "renegotiated." The result of
inflation is to destroy substantial
portions of the life savings of millions
of elderly people who, after a lifetime
of work, thought they had enough
money put away for a reasonably
comfortable retirement.
The pain of the elderly is dramati–
cally illustrated by an incident dur–
ing the great German hyperinflation
of 1923. One elderly man, named
Max Bern, withdrew his entire life
savings and spent it all on one sub–
way ticket. After his las·t ride, he
locked bimself in his apartment, and
starved to death.
The Bible prophets squarely con–
demn the infiationary sin that causes
such tragedy. Amos deplored those
who make "the ephah [quantity]
small and the shekel [money required
to buy something] great" (Amos
8:5). I saiah prophesied of God's
wrath on those who "grind the faces
of the poor" (Isaiah 3: 15). Inftation
unquestionably does both.
Rlght Values Desecrat ed
Saving money, instead of consuming
it all on yourself, is a true value. (See
James 4:3.) When you save money–
when you forego sorne pleasure or
make sorne sacrifice-and put mon–
ey away in the bank, it is an act of
serving your fellow man. The money
will be lent out for a purpose such as
business expansion. Businessmen will
order moregoods, employ more work–
ers, produce things that other people
want. More goods a nd services will be
produced-the world as a whole will
be less poor. Moreover, the extra
money you save will increase the
supply of capital available for invest–
ment, and that by itself will help to
hold down interest rates.
By contrast, inflation
demora/izes
savers. Inflation penalizes thrift,
hard work, savings and sacrifice. The
money you save is worth far less
when you eventually spend it. It is
almost as if infiation turned savings
into "riches kept for the owner there–
of to their hurt" (Ecclesiastes 5:13).
lndeed, Austrian economist Hans
Sennholz says infiation "perpetrates
a gri evous fraud upon all savers."
This was illustrated less than two
years ago, when an elderly lady
paraded with a sign outside a San
Francisco, California bank , pro–
claiming "savings deposits may be
dangerous to your wealth."
Inflation destroys the very hope
for financia! security and economic
independence. The Bible principie is
"Let him that stole, steal no more,
but rather Jet him labour, working
witb his hands the thing which is
good, that he may haveto give to him
that necdeth," (Ephesians 4:28) . By
relentless erosion of the value of
savings, inflation destroys the desire
to have the financia! independence to
be able to be on the giving end of
personal economic matters.
Wrong Values Encouraged
But where inflation penalizes the
"old virtues" of hard
wor~
and thrift,
it rewards gambling and speculation.
lnfiation rewards chance instead of
effort.
This effect is largely the result of
the increasing unpredictability of the
economy as inflation takes hold.
Inftation is
not
uniform.
lt
causes
wide fluctuations within the econo–
my. It makes planning for the future
much harder.
Moreover, individuals vary enor–
mously in their situations and how
inflation atfects them. But it often
does so in a way unrelated to their
personal effortsor that often seems to.
Thus, as the links between reward
and effort become tbinner, people
view wealth as something that hasn't
been earned legitimately (Ephesians
4:28) but mere!y as the result of luck.
They certainly don't .view it as the
result of following God's financia!
laws (Proverbs 22:4).
Often, the
temporary
winners in
the inflationary roller-coaster are
those who get sorne economic bene–
fits first. Being the first to buy gold,
or soybeans, or real estate or what–
ever, becomes the sum and substance
of economic activity.
Thus inflation encourages a "get
yours and get it now" attitude. Being
first gets exaggerated importancc.
Borrowing money becomes "wise"
because when a loan is to be paid off
there are more dollars in circulation.
The borrower is likely to have a
"higher" income. People pay interest
rates to have something
now
rather
than patiently save for it.
Because inflation makes it so hard
to plan, it discourages the desire to put
The
PLAIN TRUTH