MONEY: What will money be worth during the hard times foretold by ancient and modern prophets?

Prophetic Statements

Brigham Young

The time will come that gold will hold no comparison in value to a bushel of wheat. ¹

Ezra Taft Benson

The Saints have been advised to pay their own way and maintain a cash reserve. Recent history has demonstrated that in difficult days it is reserves with intrinsic value that are of most worth, rather than reserves the value of which may be destroyed through inflation. It is well to remember that continued government deficits cause inflation; inflation is used as an excuse for ineffective price controls; price controls lead to shortages; artificial shortages inevitably are used as an excuse to implement rationing. When will we learn these basic economic principles? ²

Vivid in my memory are the people who got on trains each morning with all kinds of bric-a-brac in their arms to go out to the countryside to trade their possessions for food. At evening time, the train station was filled with people with arms full of vegetables and fruits, and a menagerie of squealing pigs and chickens. You never heard such a commotion. These people were, of course, willing to barter practically anything for that commodity which sustains life—food. ³

Let us not be dissuaded from preparing because of a seeming prosperity today, or a so-called peace. I have seen the ravages of inflation. I shall never forget Germany in the early 1920s. In December 1923 in Cologne, Germany, I paid six billion marks for breakfast. That was just 15 cents in American money. Today, the real inflation concern is in America and several other nations. ⁴

Supporting Statements

J. Reuben Clark, Jr.

When we really get into hard times, where food is scarce or there is none at all, and so with clothing and shelter, money may be no good for there may be nothing to buy, and you cannot eat money, you cannot get enough of it together to burn to keep you warm, and you cannot wear it. ⁵

1. Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, p. 250, 1943 ed., p. 298.
2. Ezra Taft Benson, “Prepare Ye” October Conference, 1973; also Ensign, November 1973
3. Ezra Taft Benson, “Prepare for the Days of Tribulation,” Ensign, Nov. 1980, 32
4. Ezra Taft Benson, “Prepare Ye,” Ensign, Jan. 1974, 68
5. President J. Reuben Clark, Jr. – Church News, November 21, 1953, p.4.