I am reminded of the fact that “The Wizard of Oz” had political meanings, as I wrote in the past, but that a comic strip also was based on the artist-creator’s politics also, and that was “Little Orphan Annie,” created by Harold Gray in 1924, and which continued till 1969, when he died of cancer, but ‘Annie’ has been kept alive by film and Broadway productions. Gray was looking for a subject to write a comic strip about, and one day saw a little girl on the street with no home other than an orphanage. Her real name was Annie, and that was it. Most comic strips had boys and adult males as heroes, so Annie would be a new idea. It worked!
As the strip progressed, Annie is rescued from the orphanage by big, strong, rich, “Daddy Warbucks,” who lived in a big mansion with lots of servants, and had made his fortune making arms, tanks, and guns for WW I, so his name meant that he made bucks from the war. During WW II, Daddy Warbucks also made big bucks doing the same for America. Daddy Warbucks was married to Mrs. Warbucks, daughter of a plumber, and who obviously was beneath her husband in most aspects. Daddy Warbucks adored Annie, but Mrs. Warbucks despised her from jealousy, and constantly threw her out of the mansion when her husband was away on business. While she was out, she roamed the countryside, doing all sorts of wonderful things, until Daddy found her and took her home. Harold Gray, being a libertarian-conservative-Republican type, made Annie his workaholic, strong, forceful, do-gooder, and whenever labor troubles, gangs, or other things Gray found distasteful; his Annie solved the problems by rounding up the good guys to get rid of the criminals. America loved Annie.
Annie found a pitiful dirty puppy on the streets one day, and named him “Sandy,” who constantly accompanied her during her patriotic exploits. Later, an eight foot tall assistant named “Punjab” was created to help also. If you remember a wonderful film titled “A Christmas Story,” Ralphie delightedly got his “Little Orphan Annie secret decoder pin” in the mail, personally signed by announcer Pierre Andre! When I was a kid listening to the radio in afternoons before dinner, I always listened to not only “Jack Armstrong the All American Boy,” “Terry and the Pirates,” and “Captain Midnight,” but also “Little Orphan Annie,” sponsored by ‘Ovaltine,’ which I never liked.
Gold
As proof of what I constantly say about foreknowledge or predictions, and the utter impossibility of accuracy of either, consider the following. A client of mine sold a piece of property and wanted a hundred ounces of gold with part of the proceeds. Gold was at $1512. I told him that I thought gold would correct, and look for a spot price of under $1500. It went to $1492, and he bought a hundred ounces. It then went up to $1500, and then down to $1466 where it is now. If I knew what was going to happen, or if he did, obviously he would have bought today. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT WILL HAPPEN EVEN TEN MINUES FROM NOW. He is out of dollars, which makes him happy, and there is no question but that the dollar will continue to go down and gold go up in dollars, because the presses turn out un-backed dollars to pay government bills when taxes don’t cover expenses. That is a sure thing over time, without question. A year ago gold was $1220, so $1466 is only a brief setback. Get out of dollars and into real, beautiful, historic money in the form of gold, and now seems to be a good bet, and long term it surely is. don@coloradogold.com