Lemme ask it this way.
If I were to hand you a dollar, how would you tell whether it was worth a dollar or not?
Folks need to start thinking of the dollar priced in gold/silver, rather than gold/silver priced in dollars. Once one does that, all confusion is generally cleared up. Gold and silver are relatively constant in value, while the dollar constantly changes in value (i.e., how much gold and silver it can buy), almost invariably downward.
That's the way it should be but that's to confusing for most people. Economics is one of those arts/science that is way to confusing for 99% of the people. I've seen that up close and personal.
That's one of the things that's nice about the Austrian School. Austrian economics is much simpler and clearer than any other kind I've ever seen. Under the Austrian analysis, the very same things that are bad for individuals are bad for large groups, and the very same things that are good for individuals are good for large groups. You know from experience what's good and bad for you; therefore it's pretty easy to understand viscerally what's good and bad for the country as a whole and why.
Keynesians, on the other hand, have to explain why it is that for an individual, continuing to spend money when you're deep in debt is disastrous, but for a nation, continuing to spend money--preferably at an increasing rate--when deep in debt is the only hope for salvation.
You have to put together a pretty big pile of BS to be able to hide an explanation like
that behind it.
