Classic Essays

The Almighty Dollar

by Thomas W. Handford and Robert G. Ingersoll

AINSWORTH SPOFFORD — says Col. [Robert G.] Ingersoll — gives the following facts about interest: “One dollar loaned for one hundred years at six per cent., with the interest collected annually and added to the principal, will amount to three hundred and forty dollars. At eight per cent., it amounts to two thousand two hundred and three dollars. At three per cent., it amounts only to nineteen dollars and twenty-five cents. At ten per cent., it is thirteen thousand eight hundred and nine dollars, or about seven hundred times as much. At twelve per cent., it amounts to eighty-four thousand and seventy-five dollars, or more than four thousand times as much. At eighteen per cent., it amounts to fifteen million one hundred and forty-five thousand and seven dollars. A twenty-four per cent., it reaches the enormous sum of two billion, five hundred and fifty-one million, seven hundred and ninety-five thousand, four hundred and four dollars.” One dollar at compound interest, at twenty four per cent., for one hundred years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt.

The Farmer in Debt

Interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows. The farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it gnaw. If he owes nothing, he can hear his corn grow. Get out of debt, as soon as you possibly can. You have supported idle avarice and lazy economy long enough.

Own Your Own Home

There can be no such thing in the highest sense as a home unless you own it. There must be an incentive to plant trees, to beautify the grounds, to preserve and improve. It elevates a man to own a home. It gives a certain independence, a force of character that is obtained in no other way; A man without a home feels like a passenger. There is in such a man a little of the vagrant. Homes make patriots. He who has sat by his own fireside with wife and children, will defend it. Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defense of a boarding-house. The prosperity and glory of our country depend upon the number of people who are the owners of homes.

* * *

Source: an excerpt from Ingersollia (1899)

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Mike Mann
Mike Mann
11 August, 2021 1:00 am

Don’t forget those property taxes. If you stop paying your property taxes, you will lose your home. How can we say that we truly own something if that something can be taken away from us if we don’t pay that annual tax?

When I think of owning something, I think of owning it outright without being indebted to someone (the government, in this instance) in order to maintain ownership.

PrinzEdelhart
PrinzEdelhart
Reply to  Mike Mann
11 August, 2021 8:27 am

Exactly. I’ve read that the ‘real’ in ‘real estate’ comes from the Spanish ‘belonging to the King’, which means one CANNOT ever actually OWN land or a permanent dwelling such as a house. You’re pretending not to rent. Mobile homes can be owned, but they’re sort of a hybrid between houses and vehicles.Pretty difficult and expensive to actually move one.
I think the Amerindians have the correct idea when they say that we are stewards of the land, the concept of land ownership is completely alien to them.

Patrick Pappano
Patrick Pappano
11 August, 2021 7:25 am

At archive.org, read The Red Dragon, The London Money Power, by L.B. Woolfolk, 1890. “These Fixed Principles of Political Economy ARE now Violated in Every Particular by the facts of the business world, in our time. We call attention especially to four points : — The Principles of Political Economy are Violated : — 1. In the abnormal condition of prices; which are no longer regulated by the amount of currency, and by the law of supply and demand ; 2. In the abnormal condition of business ; in which New Men who started poor have taken possession of everything; 3. In the unheard of aggregation of wealth in the hands of New Men, who have sprung up from poverty into unprecedented wealth ; and 4. In the anomalous fact… Read more »

Rockwell's Ghost
Rockwell's Ghost
12 August, 2021 12:43 pm

It’s the JEWS…….. case closed.

Ted Truewil
Ted Truewil
12 August, 2021 11:19 pm

Good luck trying to buy a house today. If you cannot outbid Jewish financial giants like Blackrock, which have trillions of dollars to spend, you will have to rent.

William W Williams * National Alliance Chairman
William W Williams * National Alliance Chairman
Reply to  Ted Truewil
13 August, 2021 4:36 pm

More about the Yids in the Blackrock fuel supply, here: https://whitebiocentrism.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=4963

Old Aardvark
Old Aardvark
14 August, 2021 12:30 am

Mortgage rates in the US have been on a forty-year decline — which is a wonderful thing for working people. I recall back in the late 70’s and early 80’s mortgage rates were at rates well over 15 percent a year, which were crushing. Now you can get a 15-year rate at around 2.0 to 2.5 percent, so during that time period the amount you pay in interest is almost negligible. The reason houses built today are so much larger than they were 45 years ago is because with the lower rates you can buy three-times the house for the same final price with the much lower interest rates. But back in 1980 a retired person who had a hundred-thousand dollars in the bank could live off the interest he… Read more »

Travon Martinberg
Travon Martinberg
Reply to  Old Aardvark
14 August, 2021 9:32 pm

The quality of homes on the market now is higher than I’ve ever seen. When prices were depressed, like in 2017, half the reasonably-priced homes were fixer-uppers or drab looking. You had to get to prices approaching today’s, e.g. $250k to see nice homes in move-in condition. This is from looking in NC, east TN, VA, and central PA.

David
David
Reply to  Travon Martinberg
16 August, 2021 10:18 pm

I’m sorry but you must be looking at Zillow pages from 7 years ago. The supply of houses is at historic lows with prices at record highs. They are using the housing market to hide inflation. Stuffing the mattress so to speak. Rusted out trailers that sold for $5,000 in 1999 are selling for $60,000 in Florida AND you’re paying a “land lease” and “lot rent”. You’re literally paying $60,000 for a tin can. You don’t even own the land anymore. A “developer” does. It’s a complicated discussion, nonetheless I had all I could stand. I rented and saved up enough to buy a house in a foreign country. They had it down to a science with the rent increases. Always keeping up under or equal to the cost of… Read more »

Walt Hampton
Walt Hampton
Reply to  Old Aardvark
15 August, 2021 6:34 pm

Excellent Mr. Aardvark! In addition to the
above, no one is paying attention to the
too-big-to-fail banks’ exposure to both
domestic and foreign derivatives – estimated
to be anywhere from $200T to more than
$500T. They are so well-hidden, no one
knows exactly how much they are – not
even by the banksters themselves. They
are constantly being packaged and re-
packaged into various financial instruments,
and sent to financial institutions all over
the world.

Mencken's Ghost
Mencken's Ghost
14 August, 2021 7:24 am

What’s the better investment for let’s say 200 grand, dividend-paying stocks or your “own” home? The wealthy choose the first, the poor the latter. And it’s the reason the poor will never be wealthy.

Old Aardvark
Old Aardvark
Reply to  Mencken's Ghost
14 August, 2021 1:31 pm

Here is a short article about the only things holding the US together now are government welfare payments to the people and unreasonable paranoia over imagined foreign threats. Already about half of the people polled are open to the idea of their own states succeeding from the federal government. The main thing preventing the empire from breaking apart are all the people receiving direct government payments. Once the empire has to suspend these payments, due to bankruptcy, things will unravel quickly. This is a big reason the Soviet Union collapsed, and by comparison to the present US the old Soviet Union was a model of prudence and common sense, so the coming economic collapse of the US is a certainty followed by the political disintegration and likely civil war. Read… Read more »

Old Aardvark
Old Aardvark
Reply to  Mencken's Ghost
14 August, 2021 1:39 pm

Knowing that the federal government wants massive inflation as a means to liquidate its debts, the last thing you want is to hold large amounts of cash. Invest in productive farmland, as Bill Gates and the Chinese are doing. Invest in commodities and precious metals. Borrow money now while they are practically giving it away and invest in things with true value, because in the fairly near future the money will become almost worthless.

David
David
Reply to  Old Aardvark
16 August, 2021 10:28 pm

Physical Gold and Silver will be useless. Food, weapons, water, ammo, solar cells, gas, generators, UHF radios, is what people will need more than gold during Balkanization. These are better investments at this point. Real Estate has to go down at some point. It always does. I was going to buy 100k in Silver during the toilet paper runs and am glad I didn’t. The price would have to rise 30% just to break even on commodity broker commission, armed shipping, insurance. It’s not what it appears to be. Investing in Gold and Silver as future currency isn’t a viable option IMHO.

PrinzEdelhart
PrinzEdelhart
Reply to  David
17 August, 2021 8:34 am

Lead and steel will be the most precious metals in the not-too-distant future. The cow will regain her status as the family’s savings account, the horse or donkey as the family car, the dog as the home security system and the birds as the perimeter alarm.

Old Aardvark
Old Aardvark
Reply to  David
18 August, 2021 1:22 am

I did not limit my recommendations to gold and silver, David. I mentioned farmland and anything that has real enduring value. The present mindset among investors in this country amazes me. You see billions of dollars pouring into worthless enterprises like Bed Bath and Beyond, and even bankrupt businesses like AMC Theaters. People invest tens of thousands of dollars into useless — and worthless — crypto currencies. Meanwhile things like valuable commodities and productive businesses that produce essential things like oil and copper are rejected as worthwhile investments. When Joe Biden’s fantasy of totally electrifying the country runs smack into the reality that we do not have the mines to produce the the metals needed for such an undertaking — and will not have those mines in the future because… Read more »

David
David
Reply to  Old Aardvark
19 August, 2021 11:29 am

How can gold and silver be practically used in everyday purchases, online purchases etc., in a 21st century civilization?

Old Aardvark
Old Aardvark
Reply to  David
19 August, 2021 2:06 pm

OK, David. In your previous post you are speaking of surviving in a Mad Max world, “Balkanization,” where guns and ammo and survivalist items are the urgent necessities. And now you have shifted to buying stuff from Amazon in the high-tech future. I suppose the world I grew up in was somewhere in between. When I was 13 I spent my Saturdays pumping gas and servicing cars at a nearby service station. People would pull in and ask for five gallons of gas and pay for it with five quarters. If they needed a quart of oil, that was another quarter. They might step inside on a hot day and buy a couple of Cokes and a pack of nabs, a pack of peanuts and a pack of cigarettes for… Read more »

whistledick
whistledick
17 August, 2021 8:51 am

Apparently a white man cannot “own” a home unless he pays tribute to the jew “property Tax” extortion. Don’t pay it and see just who owns your home. It’s the jew Whitey.

Jim
Jim
19 August, 2021 2:00 pm

You need too take a lesson from Jimmy Swaggart. On Auguust 19 he already raised in his “share-a-thon”over 2.5 MILLION bucks from his white followers from all over the white world. He usually raises over 5 million each month from whites. can’t us white racists come up with a few million to save the race? Lucky if you get 100 dollars from our sorry lot.

cas
cas
21 August, 2021 2:54 am

Do you pay “tax” on the land? Therefore do you “own” it?
A couple useful links i will pass on.
https://sedm.org/
https://theloresociety.com/