Showing posts with label housing bubble. Show all posts
Showing posts with label housing bubble. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Bringing Down the Roof


Ordinarily, the agreement between China and Russia to abandon the dollar might be met with a certain skepticism and seen as just another poke in the eye, all in good fun, by our traditional irritants. Today, however, I don’t see it so.

For months now, both China and Russia have been begging the U.S. to get its economic house in order. No response. In fact, we’ve been doubling down on destroying our own currency, claiming that it’s all the others’ fault for the world’s economic malaise. We’ve already forgotten that it was we who exported toxic financial instruments all over the globe after our housing bubble burst. We’ve forgotten that the still spreading financial mess started right here in America.

I don’t have to go into all the details. Others have done so far more effectively than I ever could. And it’s not, as the Soros-sponsored documentary “Inside Job” suggests, that all our nation’s bankers should be frog-marched to the wall and shot. Rather, that it was the result of left-leaning politicians who, in a concerted effort, succeeded in deliberately bringing our economy down in order to elect their own.

China and Russia are not stupid. They know perfectly well what’s been going on here, and they’re simply protecting themselves. The dollar is heading toward worthless and the world has lost confidence in it. They see no attempt being made to rescue it. In fact, they see just the opposite.

Politically, economically and militarily our nation is in steep decline. It no longer makes sense for anyone to align themselves with us. We have ceased to be reliable partners. Even our enemies are torn between euphoria and fear. We’ve always been able to project ourselves as a worthy opponent. Under Obama’s leadership, our nation is seen as rogue and unpredictable.

The world looks ahead and see no change in our crazed suicidal stance for at least the next two years. They rightly assess that, at our current pace, two years is quite enough to bring down the roof.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Thursday, November 19, 2009

The Dollar: That Great, Big Sucking Sound


When the housing bubble was in the process of waxing, I kept watching the value of our house going up and up. All the while, its size and the quarter acre on which it stands remained the same. Nevertheless, we felt good about it and felt ourselves to be inordinately fortunate and well off.

When Argentina experienced serious inflation back in the '70's - when a carton of American cigarettes cost the equivalent of 30 cents - they pegged all their financial transactions on the value of a gallon of gas as defined by the American dollar (which was seen to be the bedrock of fiscal integrity).

Inflation in a currency is a sign of 'value' being sucked out of it. Only the productive sector of an economy produces ‘value’. Government and government-sponsored entitlements (directed to the undeserving) dilute the value of the currency - as does money printed on government printing presses. As you're watching things costing more and more, don't think of it that way. Think of it as the dollar buying less and less. Though it comes out to the same thing, there's a significant distinction in how we look at it. The former engenders visions of greed and corruption - a failure of the private sector; capitalism - whereas the latter points to a failure of government policy.

Excesses in the private sector will always diminish in the course of normally occurring cycles. Government excess can seldom be slowed; never reversed. Once voters decide to abandon their civic duty with regard to voting in elections (or casting their vote lightly), government excess spreads like a cancer unchecked throughout the system - and the system dies.