According to the internet, US inflation since 1793 is such that the 1793 dollar is worth $31.88 in today's dollars. Or, put the other way, today's dollar is worth $0.031367 in 1793 dollars.
Important Message: Inflation is always and everywhere caused by governments. The inexorable rise in prices for all goods and services does not cause inflation, but rather is the inescapable effect of inflation. It is the money supply that inflates (i.e. swells), not the prices.
Governments cause inflation by creating money from nothing. In prior ages, this was done by diluting the purity of the precious metals coinage, while insisting by deadly force that the populace treat the new coins as having the same monetary value as the old coins. In the modern world, this is done by printing more fiat notes ... or by flipping digital/virtual switches.
The reason that governments cause inflation is that they want to "live above their means" ... and because they control lethal force, they are able to do it. For a time (Hint: inflation eventually undermines, and then destroys, the governments causing it.)
(I know of only one historical exception to inflation being intentionally caused by government. And that is the 17th century inflation in Spain, and eventually all or Europe, caused by the massive and sudden influx of New World gold and silver into the European economy.)
You young'uns won't have experienced this, but at one time, our dimes, quarters and silver dollars were actually made of solid silver. And, get this: our pennies were actually made of solid copper.
Ah, the good old days! But, now to the point of this post.
It's in the news recently that the DOGE team are recommending cessation of minting pennies, as now it costs more than two cents to mint each cent. This sort of recommendation is not new: it has periodically been floated for most of my adult life. The reason that the penny is no longer made of copper was to put this day off, to "kick the can down the road."
Because -- due to the nature of governments -- inflation is inexorable, it is inevitable that all US coinage will eventually be eliminated. And, truth be understood, the world-wide push by the globalists to implement CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) is aimed at eliminating all physical money... and, importantly, at better controlling the tax milch-cows.
But, I have a radically different suggestion: rather than eliminating the penny (and eventually all the coinage), why not "rehome" the dollar? Since our US currency is decimal, rather than surrendering to inflation in the typical manner, why not manage the surrender in the opposite direction, by shifting the decimal point? That is, why not spend 2025 preparing for January 1, 2026 (*), at which time all physical dollar bills and digital dollars will be re-valued as $0.10 in "new" dollars? The way I envision this, we'll "save the coinage" by maintaining the current nominal value for all then existing coins.
Yes, this would mean that if someone happened to have coins with a nominal of $1000 lying around the house, those coins would then be worth $10,000 in terms of today's money. But, remember that we have already surrendered to inflation: trying to "solve" the problem is going to be messy, and is going to benefit some people more than others, no matter what we do. The "typical" way of dealing with inflation always benefits the politically-connected, intentionally. If my suggestion benefits anyone, it's unintentional/undirected, and is generally a relatively minor benefit ... and mostly will go to the non-rich for a change.
By the way, Israel did something similar in 1986, but at the ratio of 1000:1, rather than 10:1 as I suggest.
(*) Or, for the symbolic value of it, and to allow more time to prepare, on July 4, 2026.
