How nice of President Trump to not allow any tax on tips! Or for that matter, how many candidates for president have promised to cut taxes? Most. Why not? It’s merely a way of purchasing votes. Nothing wrong with that, is there? Sounds great, doesn’t it? Cutting taxes merely makes inflation greater, because the money is denied government the money to pay its bills. Cutting taxes makes the dollar presses go a bit longer, and candidates get elected, but that’s what has happened throughout history.
How about Medicaid, unsustainable Social Security, Medicare, and handouts for seemingly everyone and everything imaginable, and subsidies for everything else? Candidates as well as office holders, have decided that some voters need help, and help is always at hand by issuing handouts, known as welfare. How about the current war on Iran, which seems to have no end? Those ships and hundreds if not thousands of bombs and missiles, emitted from them? Imagine their costs! Maybe there is one simple reason not to do all of the above? Yes! And it is:
$40 Trillion
40 trillion? What’s that, you may ask? When government pays for all of the above, it has the money to spend, doesn’t it? Isn’t government supposed to help those who have needs? A succinct question is, “Where does government get it?”
A succinct answer is, ”They borrow it.”
“From whom?” (From the Federal Reserve, going on the books as ‘borrow’).
“From everyone.”
You might say that you never loaned government any money. All you do is pay your taxes. “Who gave them permission to borrow it?”
“President, Congress, and Senate, that’s who”.
“Is there any proof?”
“Yes, and it’s called one simple word, and that’s “Inflation,” shown by hundreds and thousands of prices on everything going up in dollars, such as $4.75 for a gallon of gasoline.”
“How can a $40 trillion debt ever be paid off?”
In all of history, regardless of which nation, or whatever they used as money, at least after they stopped using gold and silver, and substituted pieces of paper with fancy ink imprimaturs on it, “None of these loans were ever was paid off. Those nations went bankrupt, and took all of their citizens and their money with it.” Look at any nation which no longer exists for proof, and I mean all of them. Greece, Rome, France, Russia, China? They all collapsed economically, and arose from the ashes eventually. America? Not quite yet in America, but Trump’s flirting with it.
Just look at what the U.S. dollar buys now, and what it bought a hundred years ago, or even 50 years ago, for proof:
Consumer prices in 1976 (50 years ago)
Milk – $1.65 a gallon
Eggs – 69 cents a dozen
New car – $5,400
New Home – $45,000
Gasoline 59 cents a gallon
Gold – $250
Consumer prices in 1926 (100 years ago)
Gasoline 12 cents a gallon
New Car – $300
New hone – $7,000
Milk – 56 cents a gallon
Gold – $20.67
All consumer prices were paid by you and me, 50 or 100 years ago, if we were alive then, and paid with U.S. dollars, which have constantly lose value. In 1926, coins were made of 90% silver, and a silver quarter was worth a quarter. Silver was considered far too valuable in 1964, at a dollar an ounce, so coins began to be made with cheap metals, as they still are today. Just imagine! 62 years ago, dimes, quarters, and halves were made of 90% silver, at a dollar an once, which as I write this, is over $70 an ounce, and a silver quarter is now worth $12.59. As silver was no longer used to make U.S. coinage, all of the silver coins instantly disappeared into smart peoples’ hands. Silver and gold today, should go into everyone’s hands or safes.
As I have said in previous columns, at age 92, I still remember nickel Cokes, Hershey bars, my Dad buying a new 1940 Plymouth for $650, and a 40 acre retirement farm, with large house and two barns for $9,500. As a teen, I thought a thirty year old was ancient, as I am sure you remember!
I’m glad I began dealing on gold and silver in the fall of 1975, because until I began that, I never thought of anything but operating a few businesses with which I did very well, but never thought of retirement, since I always worked for myself, and never saved in anything but dollars, briefly, to get into another business. I’ve had a great life working for myself! Now? I have no life-insurance policy, and pay no premiums for it, since my life insurance is in my safe, and I have an alarm system with cameras, plus lots of guns, which I am good enough to shoot to kill, and not injure.
I have tried several times with a couple of sites, which give answers to questions, and when I ask the question, “How many federal agencies are there and what are their budgets?” I can get no answer, but if I could, and had the power, I could balance the budget instantly, and inflation would be over quickly. You try it, and if you can get an answer send it to me and I’ll gladly post it!
What is happening now, I am sure as it happened in all of history’s national bankruptcies, is that prices go up, and wages also, with interest being paid on all the debts. Sound familiar? The obvious then happens, and the debts are so huge than the interest is larger than it is possible to pay, so the presses go into overtime, till the currency becomes worthless. I have in my hand a Zimbabwe $20 trillion dollar piece of paper. As a kid, I had never seen a hundred dollar bill, but now I have a couple in my wallet. Had you told me when I was a youngster buying gasoline at 20 cents a gallon, that gas would be $4.75 a gallon a few decades later, I would have laughed. When I started doing precious metals in the fall of 1975, with silver at $1.25 and gold at $250, I knew there would be no limit on how ‘high’ everything would go eventually, but that was 50 years ago, and I guess beyond my capability to realize what would happen, and maybe when; even though I knew history would repeat itself many times over, as it seems to do.
Is a collapse near? I don’t think so, but I don’t know what will happen ten minutes from now. I think there is still plenty of time to protect yourself with gold and silver. Last Wednesday, a client called me when gold was down a hundred dollars, and he decided to buy three Gold Eagles. I asked him if he wanted to wait till Thursday to see what would happen, and he said ‘no’, so he bought three at $4495.20, and Thursday they went to $4805. No one knows what will happen in the future! But for sure, everything denominated in dollars, will go up slowly, quickly, by leaps and bounds, or any measuring device, but the sure answer is UP. Protect yourself with us at 1% over spot price, including delivery.
Want a prediction? I think that Ai is a fraud, and all the hoopla will prove to be nothing more than a million computers in huge buildings, which maybe will not be built, I hope. From where will the money come? What will Ai invent, and be nothing more than endless searches over what has already been invented?
-Don Stott don@coloradogold.com