A while back a reviewer dismissed the idea of a dollar collapse by asking “Collapse against what?” His argument was that the other major currencies are a mess too, so in relative terms the dollar will be fine. This of course misses the point, but in a useful way because it illustrates how words that […]
Irony: Andrew Jackson On a Federal Reserve Note
Karl Golovin, a retired customs agent and security director for Ron Paul’s presidential campaign, just forwarded a transcript of Andrew Jackson’s farewell address. It’s pretty amazing. Here’s Karl’s intro, followed by an excerpt: “During his presidency, Andrew Jackson viewed as his crowning achievement that he “Killed the Bank,” the 2nd Bank of the U.S. Our […]
Health Care: Here Come the Unintended Consequences
As a general rule, DollarCollapse.com doesn’t get involved in public policy debates. Not because they aren’t important, but because the damage has already been done. The U.S., along with Japan and most of Europe, has passed the point where policy fixes are possible. There’s no magic marginal tax rate or Fed Funds rate or immigration […]
The Difference a Printing Press Makes
Contrast how the best-run U.S. states are responding to the recession — cutting services, laying off workers, raising taxes, and generally making hard choices — with how the Federal government simply writes checks to any and all (while being praised for its “flexibility” and “creativity”) and you begin to understand the power of a printing […]
One Decision Per Decade: Three Choices
A few years ago the trust department of a major bank decided that it would be good to know where its profits were coming from. So they had their accountants run the numbers and found that, notwithstanding their army of highly-paid stock pickers, more than 75% of their investment profits came from sector choices. In […]
“The Last Time That Happened Was During the Great Depression”
Until a few years ago, running a U.S. city was pretty easy. You added services when voters asked, you hired more workers (who were likely to vote for you come election time) to provide the services, and you promised lavish retirement benefits to cops and teachers who weren’t going to retire until long after you […]
To Borrow or Not to Borrow
I just got off the phone with a friend who’s buying some commercial real estate but isn’t sure how to pay for it. Should he use cash and own it outright, with no worries about making payments? Or should he finance it and pay off the loan with ever-cheaper dollars — in effect going long […]
Half-Way to Dumb Money
Everybody, it seems, now has a price target for gold and a scenario to get it there. This is fun on a lot of levels, but the price target thing is a bit of a distraction. Gold, like every other bull market, will peak when the dumb money starts piling in. So to recognize the […]
Can You Afford Fries With That?
This showed up in my mailbox this morning: THE ECONOMY IS SO BAD………. The economy is so bad that I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail. It’s so bad, I ordered a burger at McDonalds and the kid behind the counter asked, “Can you afford fries with that?” The economy is so bad […]
Long Bonds and the End of Our World
Nouriel Roubini warns that an asset bubble is building as money chases commodities. Asian countries are considering capital controls to stem the inflow of hot money. The Wall Street Journal reports that rare coins are soaring at auctions, with a single penny recently breaking the $1 million barrier. U.S. stocks and oil are up 60% […]
Well-Written, Well-Timed: The Dollar Meltdown
Charles Goyette is a veteran radio guy and sound money advocate who supported Ron Paul before it was fashionable. Now he’s written his first book, The Dollar Meltdown, and from beginning to end it’s a pleasant surprise. Goyette writes as smoothly as he speaks and his perspective is unapologetically libertarian. So he gets it right […]
Reasons to Worry About Gold (In the Short Run)
Let’s start with a lesson that every investor eventually learns: Short-term trends are almost impossible to play consistently. I base this on both common sense (lots of smart people are trying to do the same thing so unless you have inside information you shouldn’t be playing their game) and painful personal experience: Every time I […]
The Super-Rich Are Spooked
A couple of seemingly unrelated articles in Friday’s Wall Street Journal illustrate how life is getting more complicated for the super-rich. First, it seems that the UBS debacle was not just a U.S./Swiss disagreement. Far from it. Now that the IRS has shown other high-tax countries how easy it is to pierce the veil of […]
“America and Britain Must Be Very Worried”
It’s been obvious for some time that America’s trading partners are caught in a financial catch-22: If China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia keep accepting dollars in return for their cars, toys and oil, their currency portfolios become even more unbalanced and their foreign exchange risks more extreme. But if they sell some of their dollars, everyone else will feel free to […]
Paying Off The Past
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal ran a great, sad article on the effects of the credit bubble on low-income people. A few excerpts: The ‘Democratization of Credit’ Is Over — Now It’s Payback Time Karen King owes nearly $36,000, more than she’s ever earned in a year. All day long, bill collectors call. She hunts for a second […]
