Inflated Money, Egos and Government: Cheating the People of Venezuela

Money & Politics

The Inflation Game Hansadutta das

Inflation means the government is printing paper money [or issuing bonds] without sufficient gold in reserve. During inflation, money is abundant, but it is worthless. If we buy something at a fixed price this year, 10 years from now, if money has inflated 20 times, we shall have got the same thing for practically nothing. more

Tamal Krsna: So printed money should have gold behind it.

Prabhupada: Yes, that is the theory. What is the rate of economy?

Tamal Krsna: What is the idea...

Prabhupada: That is called...

Tamal Krsna: Gold standard.

Prabhupada: Not gold standard, but there is a technical name. That means if you print notes, currency note, immediately you have to keep stock of gold in the reserve bank. Reserve. Therefore it is called...

Tamal Krsna: The gold reserves.

Prabhupada: Gold reserve. Gold reserve, yes. At least forty percent.

Tamal Krsna: What's the idea behind that?

Prabhupada: What is that? The idea is cheating. The cheating business begins from the government. And why people will not learn to cheat? This is cheating. I am giving you one paper, one hundred rupees, dollars, and you are happy: "I have got so many ..." I am giving you check, ten thousand dollars. You got ten thousand dollars. Now I give you a paper. But it is going on. We have made machinery in such a way that it will go on in hundred rupees or ten thousand rupees. Just like this fixed deposit. I am giving actual money; they are giving a receipt. And it will increase. What increase? The same paper. And gradually inflation is going on. They'll pay at the inflation rate.

Tamal Krsna: Well, they say they're paying at the investment rate.

Prabhupada: That is, mean, their plea. Really, today... Just like in our childhood my father had three hundred rupees, and that three hundred rupees is now ten thousand. So if my father would have deposited three hundred rupees at that time, automatically he has become ten thousand... So if you pay me instead of three hundred, say, six hundred or eight hundred, what is your loss? It has already become ten thousand.

Tamal Krsna: Well, it's practical also, because supposing I have a cow...

Prabhupada: But it may be... This cheating is going on.

Tamal Krsna: But is it... What I'm asking is this: Supposing you have a cow, and you give to me a cow, so from that cow I get from you...

Prabhupada: That I understand, that in twenty years you get another..., same money. That is another. But another side is the money is gradually losing its purchasing value.

Tamal Krsna: That's a fact. That's a fact.

Prabhupada: My father with three hundred rupees, he was... What he was doing? If you want to do that thing now, you'll require ten thousand.

Tamal Krsna: That means some cheating is going on.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Tamal Krsna: Government, through the government.

Prabhupada: Somewhere or other. Things are there. The rice are there, the dal is there, the cloth is there, but what he purchased at three hundred rupees, now you have to pay ten thousand.

Tamal Krsna: That means they've introduced more and more notes without any gold in their banks. Very dangerous.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Tamal Krsna: Cheating. That's cheating.

Prabhupada: Yes.

Tamal Krsna: What is the implication of this cheating? What are the ramifications, the results?

Prabhupada: Result is that as we say always, that conditioned soul has a tendency to cheat. So they are utilizing this conditional qualification.

Tamal Krsna: With which result?

Prabhupada: Result is nothing. Therefore we say it is dogs' race, imagination that "We are becoming happy." He's becoming implicated in karma, cheating karma, and losing the opportunity of human life. Instead of applying his energy and intelligence how to become Krishna conscious and get out of this, he is becoming expert in cheating and suffering. Then you become mouse. Unless you cheat, you cannot eat even.

Tamal Krsna: So the leaders of government, they are encouraging like that. Instead of encouraging honesty and work according to the varnas, catur-varnyam [social orders], they are doing like this to become...

Prabhupada: There is no honesty all over the world. It is a forgotten. "These are primitive," they say, "Now, the honesty, to become pious, to become religious. These are simply primitive idea." We have to open this. That is a specific subject matter of that... But we have to write very nicely. Everything is based on tatha dehantara-praptih [Bhagavad-gita 2.13].

Tamal Krsna: The rascals also argue that... The materialists argue that we're being cheated.

Prabhupada: Hm?

Tamal Krsna: The materialists' argument is that we are being cheated by being promised something imaginary.

Prabhupada: We are not discussing that, but you are cheating—that is practical. You are cheating. Your government is cheating, giving a piece of paper, cheating me that "You get hundred rupees."

Tamal Krsna: And their cheating in so many... Just like they were paying ninety rupees for a vasectomy, to make someone impotent, to make them sterile, they're giving ninety rupees. They're saying "This ninety rupees is worth... It's worth it to become sterile if you take this ninety rupees."

Prabhupada: That is paper.

Tamal Krsna: Now, that's cheating. A man can produce a son. A son has got real value in so many ways, but instead they'll give that paper worth...

Prabhupada: Cheated with ninety rupees, and he's no more...

Tamal Krsna: Just like the foreigners bought the island of Manhattan for twenty-four dollars from the Indians, the native Indians in New York, twenty-four dollars' worth of trinkets. And they purchased.

Prabhupada: No, the land was there. Just like Bhaktivinoda Thakura purchased Mayapura at eight annas a bigha.

Tamal Krsna: Now...

Prabhupada: Two thousand rupees.

Tamal Krsna: And they want five thousand. Same land.

Prabhupada: Land value has increased.

Tamal Krsna: Yeah, they say that land, buying land, is better investment than putting your money in the bank, so much increasing.

Prabhupada: And they'll not allow. Rather, I cannot purchase land instead of keeping in the bank. They will not allow.

Tamal Krsna: No, they won't.

Prabhupada: You can purchase, at most, sixty bighas. That's all.

Tamal Krsna: Right. Then you get to... But what about the cheating going on, big cheating, international cheating about the space flights?

Prabhupada: Everything is cheating because so long you are a conditioned soul, out of four defects, one of the defects is cheating propensity, karana patava, er, vipralipsa. That is a qualification. And in this material world, the more you are expert cheater, you are considered very able man. All over the world, so many expert cheaters are going on.

Devotee (4): Are these people consciously cheating or raised in cheating so that they don't know the difference?

Prabhupada: That is another thing, but they are cheating. That is a fact. How we have learnt it, that is another thing. But you are cheating. That's fact.