Wednesday, March 14, 2012

The Secret of Oz

   I just saw an informative and inspiring documentary about monetary reform called 'The Secret of Oz'. I'm sure many people have seen it or heard of it before. The guy who made it, Bill Still, also made 'The Money Masters'. Both films are available on YouTube.

   This blog, of course, advocates investing in gold and silver (among other things), but Bill Still makes the argument that we should not have a gold standard - rather we should have our money created and issued by the government, not borrowed from international bankers. Instead of being comprised of debt, it would be backed by the good faith and credit of the state.

   I've become convinced he is right, and the litany of historical luminaries (Jefferson, Lincoln, Jackson) who have argued for this monetary system makes it extremely compelling.



Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Other Things to 'Invest' In

   I think it's unwise to simply buy gold and nothing else to weather any coming economic storm (let alone the one we're currently in). In addition to insane money printing, a problem in our world that won't go away is how we are going to feed so many people. This is a huge challenge not only because there are going to be more people, but because we are so heavily dependent on oil to produce and distribute food. If oil slowly increases in price due to the creeping scarcity of Peak Oil than food prices must increase correspondingly. Another very long-term issue is that humans have historically destroyed their farmland, as all traditional agriculture does, so the environment will be increasingly strained by the industrial farming methods we depend on to feed so many.

   In addition, as mentioned above, our food not only requires oil for the production side, but also the distribution side. Food is transported over long distances due to the industrial, centralized nature of modern agriculture. An inevitable shift our children will perhaps take for granted is that food production should be more local.

   It is because of these considerations that I would make the somewhat unusual 'investing' recommendation that you should learn how to grow a garden.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Why I'm Bearish

   I have actually been bearish for over 10 years. I was pessimistic even back in the 90's and the reason is simple :

   Industrialized economies have below replacement birthrates. In Japan this simply means there will be fewer Japanese years from now then there are today (and that there will be insufficient workers to pay for the huge number of old people). But in the West, the insane solution to below replacement birthrates has been to bring in unskilled people from poor 3rd world countries. So the West not only has a problem with birthrates, but the 'solution' that has been pursued ensures that Western countries will be burdened by new populations which are either a) not sufficiently productive to keep the economy expanding, or b) are actually net consumers of resources. An added twist to this is that diverse societies are fraught with ethnic conflict so social/political stability in the West will be largely destroyed by this immigration and the political and intellectual charlatans that make a living off it.

   You don't need a spreadsheet for this stuff.
 
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