But the essence of trade is differences in prices. If all prices were stable, enterprise would wither, as the effect of rent control on housing supply has demonstrated. If modern technology means anything it is to make goods cheaper. The secular effect of the policy of maintaining prices has been a steady increase in prices, with the increase steadily accelerating until it reached double-digit rates in 1980 and produced a voters' revolt. All the efforts to remove risk from banking, from livelihood, from enterprise have been, as we have noted, through the agency of money.
Money is the foundation stone in the wall of security.
But money, no longer a substance, like gold or silver, but an I.O.U. of the Federal Reserve System, a note without maturity, melts away like shifting sand under the cyclical rainfall of business. Since then, holding money has become the greatest risk of all. This has become evident in the rising interest rate demanded by lenders to offset the erosion of the dollars due them. This rise in interest rates has been going on for the past 40 years, generally unperceived until the last decade. The disappearance of financial stability has led inevitably to a surge of speculation and gambling.