George Floyd - The Fifth Year Anniversary

Today is the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's death. I have views about his death that I believe exist far outside the realm of Mr. Floyd himself. At the time and now, I view Floyd as an almost inconsequential figure in a much larger story about society and public policy.

The life of Mr. Floyd was tragic -Filled with chaos, drug use, criminality, under court or jail supervision for much of his adult life in and out of prison. Floyd's final months would be particularly tragic, losing his job due to COVID-19 lockdowns and ultimately dying face down on Minneapolis asphalt on May 25, 2020.

A counterfeit $20 bill is the prop in this story that would lead to Mr. Floyd's early demise. Looking to buy a snack and a pack of cigarettes at Cup Foods in Minneapolis, a 19-year-old black male clerk spotted what he (correctly) believed to be a fake $20 bill and called the police on Floyd, allegedly per store policy.^[1]

The police arrived shortly thereafter, and the rest is, of course, well-known public history. So often, in legal cases, political debates, social issues, and the like, the discourse gets caught in the weeds, and people focus on immaterial facts and fail to grasp the larger issues in play. In all of these years, I've never seen anybody ask why George Floyd was pulled out of a car, handcuffed, and thrown on the ground while Janet Yellen remains a free woman - a person who should have been treated like a dangerous criminal destroying society.

"I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take." - Janet Yellen to CNN.^[2]

"Well, I am concerned about fiscal sustainability, and I am sorry that we haven't made more progress. I believe that the deficit needs to be brought down, especially now that we're in an environment of higher interest rates," Yellen said.^[3]

Yellen pointed to the interest cost of the nation's debt, which she described as "one of the largest items responsible for the increase in the budget deficit."

Yellen has been involved in high-level monetary policy since the Clinton administration. She served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, Chair of the Federal Reserve, and the United States Secretary of Treasury. Yellen has participated in some of the largest inflation jumps and dollars printed in the past 25 years, with a 7% increase in 2021 and 6.5% in 2022, YoY. Roughly 6-11% of US Dollars are physical, with 90% being digital.

In 2000, about 500 billion, or half a trillion dollars, were in circulation; in 2025, there are about 2.3 trillion dollars, a difference of 4.6x.

Back to Mr. Floyd, why can people like Yellen create trillions of dollars out of thin air, never to the benefit of the typical American, while George Floyd was thrown on the ground in handcuffs over $20?

There is a certain absurdity to this that is lost on most people.

Floyd, an extremely flawed character, perhaps unaware his twenty-dollar bill was fake, is dead. Derek Chauvin, another extremely flawed character who did what he was directed to do and trained to do, is in prison. Billions of dollars in property were damaged or destroyed, and people were beaten and injured during the BLM riots that would follow. All were initiated by policies set years ago by forces much larger than those two men.

Regarding Chauvin, Minneapolis Police Department rules permitted "neck restraints" on suspects. Under 18 U.S.C. § 472 / 480, if a person knowingly possesses, uses, or creates counterfeit money with the intent to defraud someone, they may be guilty of a Federal felony. With this in mind, what was his crime? Was Chauvin not merely doing precisely what he had been trained to do and enforcing the law to a professional and exacting degree? And his life has been ruined too.

And what about us? The hapless Americans caught in between this intense disorder? Think of the political regimes in place that had to lead to this. Somebody in China eats a bat or lets a virus escape from a lab, or whatever; open borders allow the free flow of people to and from China (indeed the entire planet), the virus makes people ill 7,000 miles away, politicians order extreme lockdowns, people lose jobs (including Floyd), inflation is out of control as official monetary policy, Floyd comes across as fake $20 at some point, tries to buy a pack of smokes and a delicious banana, Chauvin gets a call from a clerk, arrives at the scene to investigate, as the state has an interest in being the only group who may devalue the dollar, restrains Floyd who is overdosing on drugs that came into the country promiscuously due to open borders (again), and then for the entire summer, every major city in the USA was covered in broken glass.

In a way, these two characters are tragic in a Shakespearean manner. Fatefully brought together on a hot Minneapolis day at the end of May, destined to make history in the worst way.

The borders that allow for foreigners, foreign viruses, and foreign drugs to flow unabated into the United States are still open. The Federal Reserve is still making it so the common American watches the price of everything outrun their incomes. And it is still more illegal to knowingly pass a fake twenty-dollar bill than to print several trillion dollars - one is considered fraud, the other public policy. If you print $20, you're a criminal; if you print trillions of dollars, you're among the highest-ranked appointed officials in the country.

Floyd, Chauvin, and the fake twenty-dollar bill are avatars for things larger than themselves. They all speak to me in their odd way and what they represent. I find it regrettable that Floyd is dead, or at least that he died under such circumstances, panicked, disoriented, on drugs, pleading for help. Sadly, Chauvin was left holding the bag for the logical conclusion to policies he had no part in creating. He was almost a fall guy for something much more criminal.

And the fake twenty that kicked it all off -- like Excalibur or The Holy Grail, took on a life of its own. The MacGuffin would kick off two billion dollars in riot damages that summer. Arguably, it's the most expensive fake $20 of all time. The ultimate symbol of a liberalized America and the warped sense of justice we have come to accept.

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^[1] Nicholas Bogel-Burroughts and Jack Healy. “George Floyd: Inside the Minneapolis corner store whose worker made the 911 call that led to his killing.” Independent. March 27, 2021. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/george-floyd-news-cup-foods-minneapolis-911-call-reopen-a9567971.html [https://archive.is/5x2Bh]

^[2] Tom Howell Jr. “Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen admits she was wrong on inflation.” The Washington Times. June 1, 2022. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/jun/1/treasury-secretary-janet-yellen-admits-she-was-wro/ [https://archive.is/wcbUc]

^[3] Aris Folley. “Yellen ‘sorry’ more progress wasn’t made on deficit.” The Hill. December 11, 2024. https://thehill.com/business/budget/5035194-yellen-budget-deficit-biden-administration/ [https://archive.is/twwts]