Trying to keep the Titanic from sinking by re-arranging the deck chairs? It’s an old expression, I know, but pretty pertinent in my opinion. Let’s compare the Titanic to the US economy. The Titanic was made of the best possible steel available in 1912. Today, we know it was far inferior to today’s steel, but it certainly was adequate. There were sections in the hull which were watertight in case of a snag or puncture in its massive hull. There were life preservers, and a lookout was posted at all times. There was primitive radio in the form of Morse code, and the captain was experienced and the cream of the crop. All should have gone flawlessly…but it didn’t.
Icebergs were ahead, and the captain altered his course to avoid them, but he didn’t alter it enough. Night watchmen screamed that there was a huge iceberg ahead. The pilot house ordered a full reverse, but it was too late. The submerged part of that huge iceberg ripped a gash all along the hull of the Titanic, making the watertight compartments useless, as all were flooded and ripped open. It had to sink. In the confusion, many life boats were not used, and lots of lives which could have been saved, weren’t. SOS (Save Our Ship) calls were sent out, and a nearby vessel near them and proceeded full tilt towards the doomed Titanic. Rockets were fired to show its location, and thanks to that, many were saved from drowning or hypothermia in those icy cold Atlantic waters.
The dollar was secured by being backed by gold. Gold, the historic money in all nations throughout history, was pegged to the dollar to make it a good, stable measurement of one’s wealth. A gold backed dollar would mean stable prices, no inflation, and making saving in them a smart move. The coinage was made of 90% silver, which guaranteed its stability and actual value. No matter what government did, the money was safe, because it was backed by gold and silver. Gold and silver require no backing, because they are self backed. Gold and silver ores require expenditures of capital, energy, labor, exploration, machinery, and invention to be brought out of the ground, milled, smelted, and brought to market for consumption. Not cheap!
The plan was for the Congress not to spend more than it took in in taxes, so the budget would be balanced. The central government was to be subservient to its citizens, who would vote for its office holders. The Constitution told government what it could do, and for 150 years it worked out very well. It is said that nations on an average, only last about 200 years before they collapse from mismanagement, inflation, excess government, wars, and the like. We’ve made it more than that. The system of checks and balances could be compared, I suspect, to the safety devices on the Titanic. As long as the captain and his crew did their jobs and made good decisions, all would prosper. If an unfortunate accident or mishap occurred, there were devices and systems to save the ship.
America has the voting system to theoretically throw out bad politicians. It has two divisions in its legislature, and a President who can veto legislation he doesn’t want. It has the Bill of Rights, which allows citizens to protect themselves and the individual states to legislate for themselves. It has the Fifth Amendment, which protects a man from testifying against himself. Between those, the Constitution, and gold and silver backed money, how could it go wrong? It did, and like the Titanic, the American system began to take on water. The beginnings happened when FDR took office and enlarged the federal government to unheard of size. FDR formed new cabinet positions which are still with us, bothering and regulating everything they can get their bureaucratic hands on, acting as judge, law writer, and cop all rolled up into one outrage, which no one seems to want to stop or abolish. Volumes can be written on the absolute uselessness and cost of bureaucracies, but that is characteristic of declining nations.
The first nail was driven in our collective coffins when the income tax and Federal Reserve were allowed to come into existence. The 16th Amendment was never ratified as the Constitution requires, since Kentucky never voted for it. The Federal Reserve was done under extremely questionable methods. The second bad decision was FDR’s welfare, which allowed the poor people to eat off of the productive class efforts. Then, voting was allowed to everyone, rather than those literate and responsible enough to be granted the privilege of casting a vote for representatives. The result has been a stream of politicians who mostly should have been hung before they ever got into office. Nixon removed the last vestige of the gold backed dollar, and 1964 saw the last silver coin. The decline has proceeded at break-neck speed ever since. Wars without end, huge military, unlimited dollar printing, ever larger government, bureaucracy without end, and regulations ad infinitum as well.
The Titanic like US economy and even civilization, seems to some to be in its last phases. Look at us. Our cities have been lain waste by welfare recipients who trash everything they touch, causing white flight. White flight has caused pollution of our skies and enormous consumption of fuels because of endless driving. There are food stamps, public housing, and subsidies of every kind for those who are actually destroying us, as we feed and support them. Incessant foreign wars, bureaucracy, welfare, earmarks, corrupt legislatures, power grabbing, and all that has gone on with past crumbling civilizations, are happening right before our eyes. Most don’t recognize the absolute fact of our decline. Rather, to ’make things better,’ more and more laws are passed, and more and more bureaucracies are created to ’help’ and ’fix’ and ’regulate.’ The more laws passed, the worse it all gets. We’re taking on water people, and you are punching holes in the hull to let it out. That only lets in more.
All of our Constitutional safeguards have vanished, and the power center is in Washington D.C., which daily further destroys the former land of the free and home of the brave. Our phones are tapped, we can’t travel freely, and now the ultimate sign of failure is at our doorsteps, and that is hyper-inflation. It’s everywhere to behold. Prices increasing daily, upsetting every sector of the economy. Pizza stores seeing a huge increase in the price of flour, which they can’t absorb without raising prices and ruining their business. This phenomena is happening everywhere, and in all sectors of the economy. In a neighboring town, the cost of an improvement in a historic theatre has tripled in the last few months. It’s triple this, and triple that, as far as prices in just about every sector. Naturally, wages have not tripled. Prices of raw materials go up because of increase in costs, which are transferred to the consumers of raw materials, which then suffer because of a lack of funds to purchase the goods. All caused by ever weakening currency, caused by endless printing of it, thereby ruining its purchasing power.
People are broke or bankrupt, because of wages not keeping up with inflation, in debt with maxed credit cards, unable to meet mortgage payments and buy gasoline to get to work from the suburbs, which white flight caused them to move to in the first place. The entire system of cheap dollars, welfare, warfare, inept voting allowing pitiful politicians to gain office, ignoring the Constitution, ignorance from being educated in government schools, and the whole line of events, all happened as a chain reaction, which began over a hundred years ago. One little leak in our hull, unlike the Titanic, which had a massive leak all at once. One little leak fed another, and the leaks spread all across the nation. One after another, various sectors had a leak, which influenced another, and caused it to also leak. Finally, there is so much water, that the ship seems to be doomed, just like the Titanic.
Our nation has an underclass, which votes and sucks the wealth out of the rest of us, while taxing the police force at the same time. We have millions of illegals pouring across our borders, causing crime and demanding free everything. We have hundreds of thousands of layoffs, and government faking figures to try to convince that all is well. We have probably 13% inflation, with more exaggerated figures, causing most to save in declining dollars, thereby de-capitalizing themselves and ruining any chance of a comfortable retirement. This morning on TV, I saw a commercial from GMAC, offering a wonderful 3.9% interest on savings in dollars with them. A 10% loss per year of one’s capital?
Did all the current mortgage troubles happen overnight, because of shady appraisals, moronic loan officers, and high pressure real estate salesmen? No. It began with the Federal Reserve almost a hundred years ago, and FDR’s welfare system, plus Nixon removing the last backing of the dollar, and cheap base metal coinage. It began with a few small leaks, which could be pumped out, or covered up and not fixed. It began with voters who shouldn’t be allowed to, voting for the politicos who promised largess from the public treasury. It began with the poor and lazy, living off of the working and productive class. It began with wholesale confiscation of our money with huge taxes on everything we buy and eat. It has been a long chain of leaks in our once most wonderful system, which has been polluted by bad education, bad votes, and paying people to live, who should not. It began with the abolition of the death penalty, and forcing cops to make a report if they remove their gun from its holster. It began with government subsidizing everything at my and your expense, to the ultimate detriment of both sides. It has all come home to roost. There are those who say they’ll leave America, and move to Costa Rica or Panama, but that’s certainly not a solution, because America may have huge problems, but the rest of the world does as well, and maybe their ills can be traced to copying our mistakes, thinking they were wonderful.
It is high time to protect yourself by doing you know what, and by all means encouraging everyone you know to do the same. The bilge pumps are about to be overtaken by the leaks. It’s so sad that 99% of the world doesn’t know what’s happening to them. When the Titanic was sinking, and all the lifeboats had been launched. What else was there to do? Re-arrange the deck chairs, and sing “Nearer My God To Thee,” as it went down. What can government to do to try to ’fix’ the massive armada of things which have gone wrong? They can only do one thing, and that it print more dollars to act as futile patches, trying to save the ship. I’ll bet you know what good that will do. Your lifeboat awaits you in the form of precious metals.
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