The Native Americans knew the truth eons upon eons ago and that truth was that you cannot base a system upon greed; upon profit alone, you cannot seek a monetary gain if that monetary gain becomes so superfluous to you that you lose your very soul in that endeavor. But, we, the white European settlers, did not listen to a word from the “savages” that we found upon the tropic and not-so-tropic shores that we landed upon and we introduced a system that they knew wouldn’t work but we forced it upon them until they “accepted” it; and they only “accepted” it because our system was one that made it mandatory to have “money” to live and, eventually, we used money as an "end all and be all," in our lives, in other words we judge ourselves and others by the content of our bankbooks and possessions instead of character.
They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one: they promised to take our land and they took it. — Mahpiua-luta (Red Cloud)
One does not sell the earth upon which people walk. — Tashunka Witco (Crazy Horse)
Gold is up and we are down; along with our American dollar. Why? I have an opinion on that and this is it: Capitalism.
At its very core Capitalism encourages greed; it is a system whereby a man (or business) capitalizes on his position of strength to take advantage of one in a weaker position, thereby using his capital to overcome, to buy or take over, by paying off the weaker person (company’s) creditors and thereby capitalizing on his position to become stronger himself. The big eats the little; the strong overcome the weak and both declaim the spirit.
I am not arguing religious beliefs here but, in a country that defines itself as a Christian one, if you think about it, this is the exact opposite of what Jesus Christ preached. That’s all I will say concerning religious views.
"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity and both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists." — Ernest Hemingway, 1932.
$100,000 of cash in 1932 is now worth $2,000 in purchasing power but $100,000 worth of gold bought in 1932 is now worth $4,500,000 in purchasing power.
"By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens. By this method, they not only confiscate, but they confiscate arbitrarily; and while the process impoverishes many, it actually enriches some. The process engages all of the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner that not one man in a million can diagnose." — John Maynard Keynes, 1920
The dollar continues its decline, having just made a new 12-month low last week and is dangerously close to plunging to new record lows, even while Ben Bernanke’s policy is to simply let the dollar be devalued in such a way that it will inflate away the financial crisis.
This behavior simply gives more credence to creditors who may very well be asking for a new world currency at the upcoming G-20 meeting this Thursday in Pittsburgh, even while many countries holding an enormous amount of our debt, like China, simply declare a novation on all the toxic waste of ours that they hold and declare the mortgage-(asset)-backed securities that they are holding to have no asset and therefore to be worthless.
Inflation has to return, as it did in the late 70’s and early 80’s and we have to use the same monetary controls as we did then, under Paul Volcker, if we are to have any chance at all at avoiding the total devaluation of the dollar around the world. We had a crisis in the late 80’s of the savings and loans that closed almost 1,000 banks and today it is much worse because it is, in effect, all the banks, it is the Federal Reserve, the so-called central bank, that is attempting to keep the World’s Capitalist financial system from collapsing and it is not doing a very good job.
This is akin to the politician who preaches family values winking at his mistress, who is sitting in the front row, as he gives his hypocritical speech. The Obama Administration is telling the general public what needs to happen even as they are winking at the banks, who are taking the bailout money and paying themselves huge bonuses while keeping the rest of it on their books, to invest it on short-term T-bills, while they gauge the financial climate.
In the past four decades it has been only the wealthiest 10% of America’s population who have seen any growth rate in their wages that would equal or surpass the average rate of productivity growth and the problem is now at, or very close to, its crux, because if the credit crisis continues to drive the dollar so low that our debtor nations, having a choice of their financial survival or losing the American market, all cash in their dollars we, America, are heading towards the end of the World, as we know it, anyway, because Capitalism will, in its present state, have to fall in order to be totally restructured.
Today, all the “experts” are saying to invest in gold or silver, or better yet companies that mine for gold or silver, even though the price of gold is just over $1,000 per ounce, which means they think it will go even higher and that the dollar will sink even lower, as they totally ignore the global warming alerts and concentrate on one thing: money and its valuation and devaluation.
The circle has 360 degrees and we are probably now somewhere approaching the 300-degree mark; Obama has to begin to make good on his promises; he has to think of others besides himself and his political circle of cronies, he has to realize that “spin-control” will not work in this situation; you cannot “make” the consumer spend money that he doesn’t really have and Obama has to think about shutting down banks and insurance companies, conglomerates that are draining money from consumers pockets, while rewarding themselves, to the total detriment of the consumer and the economy.
And, his administration will have to consider actually returning some money to the consumer and not the big banks and the conglomerates that have been running this country for so long. Obama said it wouldn’t be him or Hillary that was hurt in a recession but that we needed him because he knew how to “fix” the problems we are facing. I liked that when he said it and I believed that if he became president he would get his chance at actually doing something meaningful and historic; which is where we presently are. Well … oh, while we're waiting, yesterday, at the UN Summit on climate change the World’s leaders expressed a “will” to combat global warming and then everyone, including Barak Obama, got up and made their speeches and not one of them, not one, said anything at all meaningful or concrete. Apparently we have to have a sinkhole implode in the middle of D.C. or Beijing before anything meaningful happens; at which time we'll need some concrete of another kind.
May our friends respect us, trouble neglect us, angels protect us and heaven accept us.