Rome didn’t fall because of barbarians. It fell because the denarius lost 98% of its silver content over 200 years. They printed, debased, and begged. Now watch the M2 money supply double in five years while wages stagnate. The curve is identical. The only difference is we have screens to watch our purchasing power evaporate in real-time. Fiat is not an asset. It is a time bomb with a delayed fuse.

Print 40% M2 in 24 months and prices stick. It’s not magic, it’s sticky wages and long-term contracts. The Fed thinks they can inflate assets without touching goods, but credit expansions always leak. Look at 1999-2002. Money poured in, tech stocks soared, and when the bubble burst, the same liquidity dragged real wages down for years. Inflation isn't a spike, it's a slow poison. You can't unprint what you printed. The cost of living just moved to a different column on your statement. Fiat expansion is theft with a delay.

Negative real rates for over two years mark territory where soft landings are statistically extinct. Post-2008, the Fed chased yield into risk assets to force inflation, creating a liquidity trap that now snaps back with violent force. Every attempt to normalize policy distorts price signals, forcing deleveraging at the margin of solvency. The exit isn't a landing. It is a freefall from an altitude where the ground looks exactly like it should, until it doesn't. Fiat control implies control of time, but time only moves in one direction.