"One of the biggest, and one of the oldest, taxes is inflation..."

"One of the biggest, and one of the oldest, taxes is inflation. Governments have stolen their people’s resources this way, not just for centuries, but for thousands of years....
    "If you put $1,000 in your piggy bank in 1960 and took it out to spend in 2000, you would discover that your money had, over time, lost 80 percent of its value....
    "Income taxes only transfer money from your current income to the government, but it does not touch whatever money you may have saved over the years. With inflation, the government takes the same cut out of both....
    "It is bad enough when the poorest have to turn over the same share of their assets to the government as the richest do, but it is grotesque when the government puts a bigger bite on the poorest.
    "This can happen because the rich can more easily convert their assets from money into things like real estate, gold or other assets whose value rises with inflation. But a welfare mother is unlikely to be able to buy real estate or gold. She can put a few dollars aside in a jar somewhere. But wherever she may hide it, inflation can steal value from it without having to lay a hand on it."

~ Thomas Sowell, from his op-ed 'Inflation can tax the poor as well as the rich'