The Political Septic Tank is Overflowing

By Grant Davies

When something goes wrong, even if it is an accident, the question is always the same. Whose fault is it?

There certainly is no dearth of contestants for the blame game. In fact, if it were an Olympic sport most of us could vie for a medal.

So where do we begin when we want to list the starting line-up for the finals of the contest called "whose fault is it that the country is disappearing into the political sewerage system?"

The obvious place would be with some of the all star players like the fat guy with the microphone or the comedian who pretends to be a news anchor. Those two might be appointed the captains of the opposing squads, but the teams wouldn't be hard to fill out from either the left or the right of the "entertainment" world.

Maybe a better place is the "news" world. MSNBC or FOX would be rich pools of talent from which to recruit. But that's no good, because they have melted in with the above group until there is very little distinction between them anymore.

Politicians would be the third place to look. They have taken the blame game from a sport to an art form. And the "new" media, blogs like this one, or those on the left or the right can't be overlooked either. I plead guilty as charged for my part in the crime.

Republicans blame Democrats, liberals blame conservatives, and Obama blames everybody.

TV pundits tell us that everyone, or at least most of us, want the politicians to be less partisan and "get things done." But even if that's sometimes true, it's only if it's what we want done.

The most overlooked group to scout from for the "blame team" is the same group who actually deserves the blame. Curiously, it's the same group who is to blame for all the incompetent dolts who have been elected to represent us, and by extension, all the problems we have. You might hazard a guess on who is in that group. A mirror might be helpful if you get stumped.

So whose side are you on? What team do you belong to?

Are you one of those who blame "Dimocrats" because "they can't think logically and just want to take things from some people and give it to others in the name of fairness?" "And everyone knows that Democrats/liberals think that everyone else is too stupid to run their own lives." Right?

Or are you one of those who believes that anyone who is a Republican/conservative is a knuckle dragging moron who just wants to control your life with their version of morality while enriching the already rich with the labors of the poor and downtrodden? Oh, and they are racists too.

Liberals are "for the little guy", while conservatives are just for big businesses and rich people who don't pay their fair share of taxes. Right? "Obama is going to fix things that George W. Bush screwed up." "And he's a black guy (sorta) and I voted for him, so I must be an enlightened person who wants progress!"

Conservatives are for America while liberals hate our country and think we should be just like the enlightened Europeans. "Bush was fighting the bad guys and Obama is surrendering our exceptionalism and trying to make the USA into a socialist utopia." And anyone on any form of government assistance is a lazy slob who wants nothing more than the fruits of someone else's work.

Of course none of those attitudes apply to everyone on either team, nor does it describe what you or I think. After all, we are above all of that, it's only the other fellow who is so petty and ignorant. At some point, commonsense needs to prevail over the childish distractions all of us have fallen for at one time or the other.

One thing is certain however. The time for all that stuff is coming to a fairly rapid end, at least temporarily. It will be pushed aside at some point in the near future as our currency collapses under the weight of the state and national debt. When monetization causes everyone's money and savings to be worthless, all bets are off and the game is over. Both teams lose, and the other guy's attitudes don't matter much anymore.

A little math and a dose of commonsense will tell anyone (who abandons the above notions for a while) that even if we confiscated all the wealth of all the rich people we couldn't sustain the current system and its overwhelming costs. We need to spend less, a lot less. And we need to start right now (not in a few years or over a decade) before Greek style riots, or worse, begin.

If we don't, surely we will drown in the political sewerage we all have contributed to at one time or another.

Obama Printing Millions of Paper Coupons, Good for One Gallon of Gas

April 10, 2011 by Dan Mitchell

The next time you decide to go on a trip or vacation, consider getting a bunch of these Gas Coupons.

I didn’t realize it, but these coupons are good for one gallon of gas at most retailers. I have seen them around, but until recently never took advantage of them, I never realized their actual worth.

You probably have one or two just lying around somewhere, now is the time to use them before they lose their value, and it’s too late!!

These coupons can be obtained at most banks and retail stores across America.

Reposted by permission of the author.

Inflating the Money Bubble

Image courtesy of http://immobilienblasen.blogspot.com/

There has been much talk about bubbles lately. One was the bubble in the real estate prices. Another was the bubble of consumer debt. And stock market bubbles were all the rage just a few years ago when (then) Federal Reserve Chief Alan Greenspan made a comment about "irrational exuberance" after investors used his easy money policies to bid up the price of any company even remotely connected to the "dot com" industry. (His remark was quite premature when he made it, but the warning proved correct after a time.)

No one minds Bubbles too much as long as they own some of the assets on the "up escalator."
During one such ascension in stock prices, my former colleague and close friend on the exchange floor, "Geo", used to wear a badge on his trading jacket that said, "Never confuse brains with a bull market." Good advice, but rarely taken.

The problem with bubbles, of course, is that after they inflate too much, they tend to burst. The bigger the bubble, the bigger the bust. And when that happens even those not chewing the gum can get sprayed with the residue. Witness the last few years, when most of us got hit with financial debris as the value of our homes imploded after a real estate bubble with which very few of us had any connection.

As bad as that situation is, the next implosion may make it seem like a smallish pop by comparison. Absent any meaningful action to correct the expansion of the money supply, our once great experiment in democratic republicanism is headed for the laboratory trash can faster than almost any of us can imagine. And since no such action is yet on the radar screen, the Republic we live in threatens to become the banana variety in a historical blink of the eye.

The current President, like the last, is in denial. Just yesterday he essentially declared that the "stimulus" pork spending and big business bail-out preceding it saved the world. Nothing personal, but if he actually believes that, he is a buffoon. If not, well, let's just say he is worse than any of his critics actually realized. My hope is that  it is the former. That way he can just blend in with most other politicians.

So, a refresher course in "inflation 101" is in order for all of us. In fact for many, it may actually be a primer since they have been misinformed for so long about what inflation actually is. It's not a text book concept, it is an "up close and personal" theft of all of your savings.

"Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output".- Milton Friedman.

What this means is that rising prices themselves are not inflation, they are the symptom of it. In other words, when your nose runs, it's because of the cold you have. That's why Kleenex and NyQuil don't correct the problem. The rising prices are the sneeze, inflation is the virus which caused it. People don't die from colds, but countries often die from inflation.

And that is why having a slowing economy can't regulate inflation. Decreased spending can stifle rising prices when they are caused by high economic activity, but since inflation is caused by devalued money (not increased demand) restrained spending can not work against it. 

In the initial stages, inflation lags somewhat as the newly printed money takes a while to work through the economy, and this time around is no different. The vast amount of new spending by the economic illiterates running this country has hardly begun. And there is very little demand for new "stuff" when much of the country is unemployed. That is the reason we haven't experienced the pain as of yet. (I know it's hard to stay awake during these dissertations, but our future is at stake here.)

So it might be time for alert level one when you should "get a helmet" as comedian Ron White advises, because the time is approaching for alert level two, when you should "put the damn helmet on." When the current inflated money balloon bursts you will need one with a chin strap.

People my age still remember the 21% interest rates of the 70s quite vividly. This time around the bubble is exponentially larger, so go figure. Trillions of dollars of deficits have the presses at the treasury printing Franklin's faster than the "hope" is fading, so your retirement budget may need a few changes. Maybe a "cat food" category to replace the "cabin at the lake" category.

If you have read this far perhaps you will read the essay which will follow shortly. That piece will deal with the personal consequences of continuing the insane policies which are rendering the US dollar worthless. As a bonus, I'm going to tell you how to make the Social Security and Medicare funding problems disappear, the "Chicago way."  Stay tuned.

Living in Neverland

Back when we were children, we had many childish notions. It’s part of being a child.

For instance, if you ask a four year old, where does money come from? Many will answer, "from mommy’s purse". What a delightfully childish response. And it is true as far as it goes.
By the time a child is about ten years old, If you ask the same question, they will say that it comes from the "country". Also age appropriate and also true, as far as it goes.

As for myself, as a youth, after finding out that the government "made" the money, I began to wonder why there were poor people. After all, I reasoned, if the government makes the money, and people are poor because they have no money, why doesn’t the government just make more of it, enough so that everyone will have enough.

As I grew to adulthood, I came to understand that it just doesn’t work that way. I guess I was about twelve or thirteen when I figured out that the government only prints the paper it's made of. I still wasn’t entirely sure of what money actually was, but I knew enough to understand that my notion was childish, that is to say, adults knew better.

But much to my amazement, it came to my attention at about fifteen that many actual adults still hadn’t figured it out.
And now that I wear an older mans clothes, it causes me pain to think that many adults still think that. In fact, most of the people who are in charge of the government and the Federal Reserve Bank think that.
They also hold a lot of other notions popular with children as well.

For one, they think that someone would actually loan their own money to people who cannot pay it back with the expectation that those people would repay. Only a child would think that. I have never met such a person. (or a group of such people) In fact, they don’t exist outside of Congress.

Another is the notion that if the bully at school beats you senseless day after day he will stop if you just ask him politely. Even thirteen year olds understand that won’t work. Outside of Neville Chamberlain, I have never heard of an adult who believed that in their heart of hearts. More childish wishful thinking. (Or hopeful thinking, in the style of the day)

Here’s another, if you asked a child if the nice man who was just elected President would be the best person to operate a large automobile company, the child would probably say yes.

Or this question; For a long while the lawmakers have set the minimum amount that people can be paid by other people for doing work. If that concept is as good as we are told it is, children might wonder why the amount isn’t set so high that everyone who worked for someone else would be wealthy. Good question, for a child.

And finally, children are used to the concept that they cannot make good decisions for themselves and that it’s always best if adults make the decisions for them. They may not always agree, but they are used to it. On that issue, the children finally get it right.

Like Peter Pan, many people never really wanted to grow up. Seems like a lot of them got their wish.