There was a sea change in money and banking in the U.S. as a result of the Civil War. Government became the primary regulator. Metal coins gave way to paper. Mistakes of one bank infected others – it was contagion.

Inflation is a giant rip off, a stealth tax stealing purchasing power. Money is not neutral. The first receivers of new money benefit. Savers and those on fixed incomes struggle. From 1857 until the war was a period of “free banking” where the fed had nothing to do with the banks and the states...