The consumer price index for last month was .6%. The CPI is a measure of inflation of the U.S. dollar. In other words, it means that on an annualized basis, we are losing 7.2% purchasing power of every dollar we earn.
I could rant with megabytes of tirade about this but in order to save bandwidth I have opted for a quote from one who articulated this travesty more succinctly than I ever could...
Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does no exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: 'Account Overdrawn.'
Ayn Rand
And who will declare our account overdrawn? The rest of the world who has been accepting U.S. dollars that we print at our leisure in exchange for their goods and services.
Ok, so at this rate a dollar next year is going to buy 7.2% less goods and services than it would today or, to look at it another way, it will cost $1.08 to purchase the same goods and services next year as a dollar would buy today. And that's if the rate of inflation doesn't rise further! What is one to do? As Ayn Rand said above, the destroyers seize gold...and so should you. I've posted this link before to Dr. Alan Greenspan's now infamous dissertation and it seems more relevant today than ever.
Govern yourselves accordingly.