Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) Terry L. sent me the essay “Fiscal Armageddon in the USA” by C. Banesh, who reminds us that “Sometime between now and 2012 the US debt will equal the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the total market value of all the goods and services in our economy for an entire year.”
[Read more...]Beware the Demon of Inflation
The 5-Minute Forecast came to me in an email with the subject line reading “5-Minute Forecast – Everybody Panic.”
Naturally, as a guy who is always on the verge of panic because of the fact that all the monstrously excessive amounts of money that the Federal Reserve is creating will cause inflation in prices, this affected me greatly.
[Read more...]When the Government Should Do Nothing
Gary North in his Reality Check newsletter penned the essay “Gold vs. Guns and Badges,” wherein he notes that “There are only two conceptual options in monetary theory: a full gold coin standard in which the citizens hold the golden hammers or a system of economic planning in which elite members of the planning bureaucracy hold the digital hammers. There is no third choice.”
[Read more...]Salivating at the Upside Potential of the Gold Market
Not long ago, as I recall, a pension fund in some foreign country, one of those Scandinavian ones I think, was ordered to invest no more than about 3% of its custody assets in gold, meaning that the fund had too much gold, and to sell part of its gold holdings in order to comply.
Personally, I think that the 4,500-year historical record shows that being 100% invested solely in gold over the long-term is almost always a Very, Very Good Idea (VVGI), while the 4,500-year record of being solely invested in stocks, bonds and housing over the long-term is almost always a Very, Very Bad Idea (VVBI).
[Read more...]
The US Federal Reserve: A Rich History of Financial Folly
Ehow.com relates a piece of history in that “Since the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913, the money supply had increased 240 percent from 1913 to 1920, because of a relaxed gold standard, and prices had risen by an identical amount.”
Gaahhh! Prices rising 240%! In seven years, the money supply increased 240%, meaning it more than doubled, as did prices! No wonder they had a recession!
[Read more...]