Karandhara: Charge card. Bank Americard.
Prabhupada: Ah. So you simply show the card, you get the goods. So to exchange, it has become very cheap. So cheaply you can purchase. Therefore cheaply you can purchase sinful things also. The people are becoming sinful. The modern economy is, “Engage people in hard working to produce, and by artificial cheating, secure the goods, commodities.” This is modern economy. So a worker is getting three thousand dollar per month, but he is getting paper. But he is thinking that “I am getting money.” He is giving his labor, and things are being produced. This is the policy. “Cheat him. Without giving money, give him paper, and get his labor, and produce goods.” This is modern economy. Is it not? A laborer, a worker, is given high salary, high wages. So what he is getting? It is paper. And he is very enthusiastic to give his labor. So production is more. And when you go to purchase the products, then you have to pay again. Whatever you have earned, you have to pay everything, pay to the bank or pay to the man. Simply cheating process is going on. There is no solution. People are cheaters. They have been taught how to cheat. Everyone has got a cheating propensity. That is conditioned life. Four defects: to commit mistake, to become illusioned, to cheat and imperfectness of the senses. So cheating propensity everyone has got. So that cheating propensity is being encouraged more and more. Instead of minimizing it or stop it, it is being encouraged.
Bahulasva: So unless they become Krsna conscious, then there is no solution.
Prabhupada: No. Harav abhaktasya kuto mahad-gunah. There cannot be any good quality in human society unless accepts Krsna consciousness. This is the... This dog is thinking that we may not cheat him, from the back we may not attack him. Just see. Therefore he is stopping.
Bahulasva: He doesn’t know that you are the ever well-wisher, Prabhupada.
Prabhupada: So you are going to carry the message to the government?
Prajapati: Yes. Srila Prabhupada. We’re working on a...
Prabhupada: That issue metal coin and the problem will be solved. But they will not take your advice.
Prajapati: This is part of our platform. To even run for political office, we need solutions to the problems to offer as a platform. We will draw up various bills, ready for legislation, show them that we are serious.
Prabhupada: So how you’ll present it? The cheating process is going on. Unless you become God conscious, the cheating process will not stop. So there is no solution.
Prajapati: So therefore we introduce bill into the schools to introduce God consciousness to all the children there.
Prabhupada: Yes. God consciousness. Then everyone will be honest, and everything will be adjusted. Everyone can understand this is pure cheating. I give you a hundred dollars, a piece of paper. That’s all. And you accept it. You want to be cheated. You thought, that “I have got now daily, hundred dollars. So let me work very hard.” He does not consider that “I am not getting a hundred dollars. I am getting a piece of paper.” So people have no brain to understand even. “This is not hundred dollars. Give me cash, hundred dollars.” Then everything, solution will be... There will be no inflation. Because I know that paying you a piece of paper, I can cheat you, therefore I am printing notes, to cheat so many people. Therefore inflation. But when there will be no possibility to cheat you, then there will be no inflation. Here I have got the opportunity, because I know that pushing forward a piece of paper, I can cheat so many people. So there must be inflation. Is it not? This is not psychological? If I know that I can cheat you by this instrument, so why shall I not increase that? That is inflation. What do you think, Karandhara?
Karandhara: That’s the basic principle, yes.
Prabhupada: Yes. I am cheating you, and people accepting my cheating.
Karandhara: The governments actually started the whole thing. They instituted paper money and they instituted it because it is a cheating process. But everyone is participating. So it is just going on and on. That is the real cause of inflation.
Prabhupada: Yes. That’s it. They are getting encouragement in their cheating business.
Bahulasva: They won’t let you have any gold.
Prabhupada: Now they have made law that you cannot store gold?
Karandhara: That’s been since 1933.
Prabhupada: Just see.
Karandhara: Americans cannot own gold, store gold. Pretty soon they are going to pass the same law for silver.
Prabhupada: Just see. Even they cannot have ornaments.
Karandhara: Well, you can have ornaments, jewelry.
Prabhupada: So by law they are cheating. So how you can stop?
Karandhara: Now they have introduced a law that even the penny, which is the smallest denomination, it used to made out of copper, so now they are going to make it out of aluminium, because copper is too expensive.Prabhupada: Just see.
Bahulasva: It will be worth less than a penny when it is made out of aluminium.
Prabhupada: Why not cement? (laughter) Because by law everything will be acceptable. Make it cement.
Bahulasva: Srila Prabhupada, what can we do to curb down these rascals?
Prabhupada: Chant Hare Krsna.Bahulasva: That will curb them down.
Prabhupada: Yes. They will be purified. The more you chant Hare Krsna, they will be purified. This is... All problems are there on account of misunderstanding. What we are distributing? We are simply moving misunderstanding and bringing them to knowledge. This is our propaganda. So Mr. Theologician, is this suggestion appealing to you?
Prajapati: It seems all right for ordinary dealings, Srila Prabhupada, having this money, what’s going on, but for large scale transactions it might be very difficult.
Prabhupada: Huh?
Prajapati: And as the practical basis, transactions of thousands and thousands of dollars, would be...
Prabhupada: That will be good for the people. Because large scale transaction is there, therefore the capitalists hoarding. Capitalists hoarding. Goods are there, everything is there. You pay black price, you get it. Then, when somebody’s hoarding, he is not giving to the market. So if the large scale industry and trade becomes stopped, that is good for people.
Jagajjivana: Does that mean the same amount of gold is here?
Prabhupada: No, larger scale... Suppose if you want to store, say, thousand kilos or a thousand bags of rice, so you have to pay me gold. But you have no such gold. Therefore large scale industry will be stopped. Just see.
Karandhara: Then the price of rice would go very low.
Prabhupada: Yes. Then you get actual price and actual value. Goods are there, any part of the world you..., there is enough commodity. But these rascals, they are hoarding, and they are not giving in right time. So people are suffering.
Karandhara: Yes. There’s a... They buy now. They buy the goods before they are even grown, from the commodity market.
Prabhupada: Yes, because they can pay in this paper, the bank will advance. So as soon as you... You have to introduce this metal coins, value. The whole cheating scheme will fail.Jagajjivana: In the past there was a lot of gold on the planet. What has happened to it? There used to be a lot of gold on the planet?
Prabhupada: Yes. They used as utensil, as household pots. Just like now you are advanced, using plastic, because you have become very advanced. So you are using plastic. They were using gold.
Jagajjivana: So what has happened to that gold?
Prabhupada: What happened? If you keep utensil at home, what happens? You eat nicely on the plate. That’s all. Why you are concerned, what happening? It is in your store. That’s all. And gold is such a metal, any part of the country, any part of the world you go, you get immediately value.
Karandhara: Yes. Whenever there is an economic depression, then gold remains valuable. Just like when the stock market crashed in 1929, if you had gold you could still purchase goods. No matter how bad the economy was, people would accept gold as barter, but not currency.
Prabhupada: Yes. Indian economy was that if you have got extra money, you get gold ornament for your wife. So then your money is stocked there. Or purchase some utensils, silver utensils. That was Indian economy. This depositing in the bank and thinking that I am getting good interest, that is another cheating. It is another cheating. If things are not available, what will you get by getting interest? Therefore I am advising that purchase land and produce our own food. There will be no problem.
Karandhara: The inflation rate is higher than the interest rate. If you earn 5 3/4 % interest in a year, the inflation has gone up 6% in a year. So actually your money, at best it’s kept the same.
Prabhupada: The money is to be kept in cattle and grains. That is Indian economy, cattle and grains. If you have got many cows, you get milk. Milk preparation. And if you have got grain, then where is your problem? You prepare your foodstuff at home and eat and chant Hare Krsna. Where is your problem? You want to eat and live peacefully. So if you have got grains and milk, you have got enough food and there is no problem. You haven’t got to go fifty miles for your work, and then you require a tin car. So many problems. But if you get your food at home, then eat them and chant Hare Krsna and go back to home, back to Godhead. Simple thing.
[Morning Walk with Srila Prabhupada -- December 31, 1973, Los Angeles]
