Away back in 1977, when I first began brokering precious metals, I sold some gold to Charles Goyette. His first gold, he informs me. He’s a tall (6’4″) handsome guy with a great deep voice, which I wish I had. He was smart, quick, and knew about the ultimate dollar meltdown. He was also interested in a job doing what I was doing. He came into the firm, and we both did well at North American Coin and Currency, getting people out of dollars, and into gold and silver, at what we now think of as absurd prices. In the early 1970’s, they were absurd…for a while anyway. What happened in the next three years was really quite simple. All hell broke loose and scared people out of their wits. Good ole Jimmy Carter was in the White House, the hostages were being held in Iran, America was paying to give away the Panama Canal, and the prime rate was over 13%. Mortgages were going for 21%, and gold and silver naturally went up. Finally, gold hit $1000, and silver $50. People were selling their jewelry, flatware, candlesticks, and any item of value they could find. At the same time, Bunker Hunt was trying to corner the world’s silver supply. “Good Grief,” as Charlie Brown might have said at the time. Ronnie Reagan won, and brought sanity back to America, even though he did quadruple the national debt. Carter, the hostages, and the Panama canal debacle were nothing, compared to where America is now, with no sign of changing. Obviously, gold and silver are reflecting America’s and world conditions.
I left North American because I knew it was going down into bankruptcy, due to lack of management. Charles left soon after me. Charles did the next logical thing, and that was to use his great voice and mind and begin a very popular talk show on Phoenix’ most popular radio station. I left Phoenix and went back to Colorado, where I have been ever since. Charles is still in the Phoenix area, and can talk and write extremely well. His new book, which I have titled this column, is “The Dollar Meltdown.” I had sort of lost contact with Charles over the past few years, but I heard him interviewed on Art Bell’s all night talk show, and I e-mailed him to get in touch. I ordered the book and read it last weekend. We’ve since talked about old times and had a blast remembering those trying times in the 1970’s and early 1980’s.
The book, (and I have nothing to gain from this, except I have read it and urge you to consider it), tells it like it is from the point of a person who has never bought gold and is stuck in dollars and dollar mentality. Every possible reason for getting out of dollars is gone into with exacting detail. Charles tells of other ways to get out also, and I disagree a bit with a couple of them, but if you have been trying to get a relative or friend out of dollars, and into gold and silver, this is the book you must buy and give to them. No one reading the book can possibly stay in dollars, and dollar investments after reading it, if they have even a modicule of brain power.
I got mine from Amazon, but it’s in all book stores, and Charles seems to have scored a home run with it. He, like all of us, know that the Federal Reserve has caused it all, plus idiot politicians, and he says so. From page 81: “The U.S. dollar’s preeminence in the world is not what it was…and why should it be? Ninety-six cents of the value of every dollar has vanished on the Fed’s watch, and we’ve seen the worst depressions and the worst bank failures in the nation’s history, massive malfunctions in the credit markets, bubbles and busts, all under the great money and credit engineers of the central bank. It’s been a costly affair, and the infatuations of nineteenth-century intellectuals notwithstanding.” He goes into Freddie and Fanny, housing busts, and naturally, the dollar’s meltdown. Good book for all, and especially those you wish to convert to economic sanity.
Meantime of course, the Obama gang is attempting to enlarge D.C. control over our lives in any possible way. Now it wants to control the subway lines. The New York subway system, literally hauls millions of passengers daily, and is virtually 100% accident and trouble free. The cars are sleek, clean, fast, and safe. I love to ride New York subways, and being a railroad nut, I always ride in the front car and look out the window as the train plows through dark tunnels and bright stations. Why can’t DC curb itself? Why can’t we throw out our representatives and senators from voting wrong on virtually every bill? Hopefully we will in 2010. Must we repeat history and watch the greatest nation on God’s green earth go down into perdition due to irresponsibility, fiscal insanity, and war making without end? I have heard that if Cap and Trade passes, you will not be able to sell your house unless you bring it up to bureaucratic standards of efficiency. Isn’t that total control? Is this a copy of the Gestapo, which proclaimed itself the “friend of the people?”
I’ve ordered the bumper strips which say “Perry/Palin in 2012.” Texas Governor Rick Perry and Sara Palin would bring DC to its knees, I imagine. Perry has actually threatened to secede Texas from the Union if the D.C. Gang doesn’t behave. Texas has oil, sunshine, water, land, guns, patriotism, and of course, “Don’t mess with Texas.” We know all about Sara, and I just ordered her new book. We’ll see.