central banking

The central bank is an institution of the most deadly hostility existing against the Principles and form of our Constitution.... I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American People ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the People of all Property until their Children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered.... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the People, to whom it properly belongs.
-- Thomas Jefferson (1802)

inflation confiscation

"By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens."
-- John Maynard Keynes