At this stage "B" is still the possessor of $10,000, but it is "10,000 stock dollars." "C" is the possessor of $6,700, and "D," from whom the copper-mine was purchased, is the possessor of $3,300; but the two latter amounts make up the 10,000 real dollars, and The Bank remains where it was at the beginning of the transaction. The people, however, are no wiser; but they know, because they have been most carefully educated to such knowledge by "C's" agents, Wall Street, and the press, that their country is tremendously prosperous—that its great prosperity is evidenced by the $6,700 added wealth in the form of 6,700 new stock dollars. At the next stage the financial trick accomplished by the secret device is complete. "B," the farmer, who has contracted for new machinery and other necessities and luxuries to be paid for "next season," attempts next season to turn his 10,000 stock dollars into real dollars, and "C," the Private Thing, knowing their real value to be but $3,300, refuses to make the exchange, but instead, by proclaiming their real value, compels "B," who must have real dollars to meet his debts, to sell them for what "C," the Private Thing, is willing to pay. "C," the Private Thing, is willing to pay their worth, which he alone knows is $3,300; he repurchases them at that price from "B," that he may repeat the operation at the return of the next "wave of the country's prosperity."
By this operation "B," the farmer, has lost, as absolutely as though they had been taken away from him by a Government decree, $6,700 of his own making, and "C," the Private Thing, has "made," as absolutely as though the Government had allowed him to coin them for his own benefit, 6,700 real dollars, and The Bank, created, regulated, and controlled by law, and existing because of the people's deposits of money, has been the instrument by which "C," the Private Thing, has deprived "B," the farmer, of his savings, because "C," the Private Thing, is at one and the same time during the operation I have outlined, himself and The Bank.