Over at Forbes there is a great article bearing directly on our current national penchant to print more and more money (called euphemistically 'qualitative easing') and it's inevitable result.  It draws attention to a book written about the same thing that happening in France back in the eighteenth century, and what it did to their economy.

Today, we here in the US, and indeed in most other countries, are issuing more and more fiat money, divorced entirely from the traditional measures of value in the form of gold and silver.

This same thing happened in France, and we would do well to study their experience to see what will likely happen to us.

From the article:

“Still another troublesome fact began now to appear. Though paper money had increased in amount, prosperity had steadily diminished. In spite of all the paper issues, commercial activity grew more and more spasmodic. Enterprise was chilled and business became more and more stagnant. Mirabeau, in his speech which decided the second great issue of paper, had insisted that, though bankers might suffer, this issue would be of great service to manufacturers and restore prosperity to them and their workmen. The latter were for a time deluded, but were at last rudely awakened from this delusion.”

Sound familiar?   It goes on to point out what happened next:

“But this history would be incomplete without a brief sequel, showing how that great genius [Napoleon] profited by all his experience. When Bonaparte took the consulship the condition of fiscal affairs was appalling. The government was bankrupt; an immense debt was unpaid. The further collection of taxes seemed impossible; the assessments were in hopeless confusion. War was going on in the East, on the Rhine, and in Italy, and civil war, in La Vendee. All the armies had long been unpaid, and the largest loan that could for the moment be effected was for a sum hardly meeting the expenses of the government for a single day. At the first cabinet council Bonaparte was asked what he intended to do. He replied, “I will pay cash or pay nothing.” From this time he conducted all his operations on this basis. He arranged the assessments, funded the debt, and made payments in cash; and from this time—during all the campaigns of Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, Friedland, down to the Peace of Tilsit in 1807—there was but one suspension of specie payment, and this only for a few days. When the first great European coalition was formed against the Empire, Napoleon was hard pressed financially, and it was proposed to resort to paper money; but he wrote to his minister, ‘While I live I will never resort to irredeemable paper.’ He never did …”

So, we should stop to think about what will happen once Bernanke and his Keynesian buddies print us all into the poorhouse.  

In France, it resulted in the Dictator Napoleon, who immediately plunged the entire continent into war.  We should wonder what might be our fate once the economic collapse we currently are plunging toward meets us head on.

Jim Rodgers discusses this very thing over at Zero Hedge:

Throughout our history – any country’s history – the people who save their money and invest for their future are the ones that you build an economy, a society, and a nation on.

In America, many people saved their money, put it aside, and didn’t buy four or five houses with no job and no money down. They did what most people would consider the right thing, and what historically has been the right thing. But now, unfortunately, those people are being wiped out, because they are getting 0% return, or virtually no return, on their savings and their investments. We’re wiping them out at the expense of people who went deeply into debt, people who did what most people would consider the wrong thing at the expense of people who did the right thing. This, long-term, has terrible consequences for any nation, any society, any economy.

If you go back in history, you'll see what happened to the Germans when they wiped out their savings class in the 1920s. It didn’t lead to good things down the road for Germany. It didn’t lead to good things for Italy, which did the same thing. There were plenty of countries where it wiped out the people who saved and invested for their future. It’susually a serious, political reaction, desperation in some cases, and looking for a savior and easy answers is usually what happens when you destroy the people who save and invest for the future.