Which is worse: the Department of Education or the Federal Reserve?

Want to hear something horrifying?

The U.S. dollar’s value has fallen by 94% since the creation of the Federal Reserve.

Do you want to hear something even more horrifying?

Most adults, and even most elected officials and so-called finance experts, have no idea why.

It’s the Federal Reserve, of course, but most people have very a limited understanding of—and give even less thought to—what the Fed does, and the very real impact that it has on each of our daily lives.

With “experts” tweeting things like this:

And politicians making entire videos aimed at “debunking” the idea that printing trillions of dollars and pumping it into the economy causes inflation, it’s easy to understand why a lot of people grow up without ever giving much thought to how our money works, and why everything costs twice as much now than it did a year ago.

They’re willing to believe people like Mr. Reich, and Senator Warren when they say that greed and unregulated capitalism is what causes prices to rise, and our dollar to have less purchasing power because that’s all they’ve ever heard.

Of course, that’s all they’ve ever heard because most people came up through an education system designed to create workers and malleable citizens who take orders willingly and look to authority to take care of them.

And because nearly everyone was educated in this system, most people never even question it or learn about its origin, and are therefore unlikely to take the steps necessary to learn how things really work.

To put it simply, they don’t even know what they don’t know!

Several years ago, I read a book that impacted me in a big way.

John Taylor Gatto was New York State Teacher of the Year when he penned his resignation in the Wall Street Journal. I share his beautiful takedown of compulsory education in full here, but suffice to say Gatto knew public ed inside and out and flatly rejected it.

After leaving his teaching career behind he spent the rest of his life lecturing and writing to help parents understand just how bad the system really is, and how it can’t be fixed because it isn’t broken.

It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do.

We based The Tuttle Twins and The Education Vacation on Gatto’s work. I’m grateful to him for all that he taught me. He was a gentle giant of a man, and he is missed.

It’s said that those who don’t know history are bound to repeat it. I believe this to be a fundamental truth. Last year, we took on the monumental task of writing a history book that tells the true story of America’s founding and creating an accompanying curriculum.

How can we expect to stop the plague economic ignorance if we don’t get to the root of the problem?

Americans are undereducated, and over-indoctrinated and it’s going to be up to parents to fix it.

The schools certainly aren’t going to suddenly start raising free-thinkers, and the government has no reason to encourage its citizens to become well-versed in all the ways their greed and corruption and disastrous monetary policy are to blame for most of the things that make us poorer and less free.

But fear not! Because we’re here to help.

We’re working on Volume 2 of America’s History, and it’s got some great content in the works to help kids (and parents!) learn about the history of our money and what actually causes inflation.

Don’t worry, we’ve already got some set aside to send to Congress.

So while things seems pretty dismal right now, with record inflation, clueless leadership, and a looming recession, the future has the potential to be pretty bright.

And we’re here for it.

— Connor