______________________________
I’m sitting here in my bunker having given up all hope for the country. Pass the cheeba. Pass the wine. Pass the Ritz crackers. We’ll be here a while, so relax a bit.
I must admit I’m amazed at the resiliency of humanity. I’m amazed at the tendency for things to right themselves through natural and perhaps quasi-divine processes. I guess, like physics, economics have laws that cannot be contravened, though perhaps they can be more easily bent for a period. We can rest assured, however, that like gravity’s effect on a rubber ball bounced off the tarmac, we are assured of a rebound by nature.
One true economic law is you will get what you incentivize, if you will forgive me that vulgar neologism. When this country was formed it was a haven for the oppressed and those seeking a new start, true. But it was also an immediate draw for those whose nature tended towards the burlesque, the hustle, and even the long con. The rule of law was late to the game and sometimes absent, so those who survived even in the great cities of the 18th and 19th centuries did so on wit, courage and often times some manner of guile. That formative chemistry served us well for almost 150 years and provided us not only with the capital, but the innovative drive to subdue the wilderness and become traders on a scale never before seen in history. Our frontier justice and hustler’s creed, in a sense, turned a soup of opportunity into a civilization whose standard of living surpassed those of the wealthiest Romans and Turks at the apex of Empire. All of that success a result of incentivized behavior.
After less than 150 years, we turned to the Age of Statism. It is no modern age, of course but rather one visited and revisited by mankind numerous times over the course of his recorded history, and now so again in America. The draw of Statism reflects man’s nature — his desire to consolidate power and impose his will upon the many. Dressed as chivalry and noblesse oblige prior to the Enlightenment, this will to control comes dressed in similar patronizing robes today — first for your children and later ensuring your eternal childhood.
The statist door, cracked by Wilson, thrown open by FDR and later Johnson and Nixon, is now blown off it’s hinges by Obama and his club of cronies. The Constitution, once the citzenry’s protection against such thuggery, now lies in tatters, largely ignored if not openly mocked. Where our originating culture had once incented hard work and innovation, our new state insinuated the easy out of the dole and the forgiving excuse of eternal victim-hood. Corruption became not some invasive element to be combatted, but a necessary institutional tool as it has been for centuries in lesser governments the world over.
What lies ahead for us, amidst the foundering bread and circuses, as the microcosms of statist corruption– the Detroits, Chicagos, and San Bernadinos — silently implode under the weight of their diseconomic burdens?
Are these municipalities harbingers of a greater collective future?
Will the country split?
Or will we reform under a renewed interest in localized solutions and community building?
I can only hope for the latter as I prepare to cope with an increasingly sclerotic and burdensome, top-down authoritarian system that will be punctuated by misery, increasing poverty and failing infrastructure. Compound interest can be a terrible thing when arrayed against your interests. And that interest is coming due, one way or another my friends.
_______________________________________
Ben said he wasn’t going to allay his QE moves today. “Surprise Suprise!” as Gomer Pyle was wont to say. Apparently, Ben is prepared to go out with a bang. Let’s hope it’s smaller than the Big Bang, eh? Concentrate on the high quality stuff for now. I was buying more AEM, RGLD and SLW today. Everything else will be increasingly risky, so you may want to just stick with the ETF’s. If you buy NUGT, make sure you have a call selling plan firmly in place. Same goes for AGQ. Best to you all.
_______________