I cannot resist the milk commercial. Sorry! Ireland is bust, as is Greece, who is trying to sell bonds at 11.6% interest. Portugal and Spain are broke an can’t pay their bills. America is on the verge of printing $600 billion, and as usual, government lies about the cost of living here. They say it is only less than a 1 % increase this year, but of course this excludes food and fuel. Lies, piled on top of more lies by governments around the world.
Actually, the Europeans and Americans are trying to solve their various bankruptcies, in the only two ways they possess, and they are: (1) Bluff and lies, and (2) Printing money. Neither of these will solve the problems. In France, the retirement age has been raised to 62, and riots continued for weeks. School kids, who had no idea of retirement or what it is all about, were rioting, probably for the fun of it. The world wide red ink is caused by foolishly supporting the inept and lazy, at the expense of the worthy and producers. In America, industry has been taxed, regulated, and greened to death, so the jobs went overseas, leaving 25 million unemployed. OSHA has disrupted even two man businesses, barging in, uninvited, and finding sawdust on the floor, or some absurdity, and levying huge fines. Own or build a business or apartment, and have to have everything wheelchair and blind friendly? I owned a two story building a few years ago, and in order to keep an established, operating insurance business in one of the units on the second floor, I would have had to install an elevator! The business went, and I sold the building. No one needs that!
The banks have plenty of money to loan, but only a fool would borrow to start a business. Start a business, when the regulators and bureaucrats would make it impossible to operate? Start a business, when you will be forced to supply health insurance, unemployment insurance, workers comp insurance, and also act as the tax collector to boot? Try to start a business or build a building, and have to put up with a zillion building, electrical, insulation, sheet rock, sign plumbing, zoning, and other codes? All administered, forced, fined, and harassed by bureaucrats who haven’t a farthing of knowledge about the real world of business or common sense.
If governments try to correct their previous foolishness, riots will surely follow, as they did in Greece and France. California is a basket case economically, and hundreds of thousands of foreclosures in America occur daily. Few can produce a deed, so foreclosures are iffy at best, which could possibly drive already weak banks into bankruptcy. I am trying to say that the entire world is in a state of virtual economic chaos, and all the kings men can’t put it back together again, a-la Humpty Dumpty. It is broken beyond repair, everywhere, and the lies and paper scrip won’t keep the riots down, or repay the debts. I repeat: If possible, get out of the big cities.
Stocks? GM is issuing 478 million more shares, and of course Uncle Sam owns most of GM anyway. Want to own a trillionth of GM? Put your dollars into a CD, and earn a percent or two, while the inflation is three times that? Or do you believe the lies emanating from the D.C. Gang, that all is well, and they’ll correct it? The Tea Party influence is wonderful, but the debt is still unpayable, and the dollar is a storage place for wealth, as a leaky bucket is for water.
Got Gold? You should, if you want to preserve your wealth. Malcolm Forbes once wrote, “Why then, is gold the unmentionable, four letter word of economics? The Answer is threefold: A misunderstanding of the role of money; a misreading of history, and finally, a visceral revulsion to the notion that a metal can do a better job of guiding monetary policy than a gaggle of finance ministers, central bankers, and well degreed economists.” If you believe government pronouncements and place your trust in its “full faith and credit,” keep on your current path, and I’ll have no pity when your hundred dollar bill buys a gallon of gas, a few years from now.
P.S. All the hullabaloo about full body scans, which expose one to harmful x-rays, or intrusive feel-ups by drunk with power TSA goons, who are best suited to drive taxicabs or pick up the trash, ignores one basic fact. All carry-on luggage is closely inspected, as are passengers, but NONE OF THE LUGGAGE WHICH IS PACKED AWAY UNDER THE PLANE! If someone wanted to blow up a plane, why wouldn’t they place the bomb in a suitcase which wasn’t a carry-on? If they begin examining every piece of luggage stored away under the plane, you might have to get to the airport six hours before flight time. I still say that if we weren’t continually invading their lands, they wouldn’t want to harm us. Apologize, and get out of Afghanistan, would be my campaign promise, were I running for Congress.