Ben Bernanke Press Conference

Bernanke and the Obama administration have MUCH in common with the wizard in The Wizard of Oz. They are the men behind the curtain, pulling the levers. They have monkeyed with the real numbers of inflation and unemployment to the point that their versions have no basis in reality. That anyone actually pays any attention to their blathering on these topics is probably a result from the leftist-controlled public education(?) system. Only when large numbers of the public have been sufficiently "dumbed-down" can there be people who actually swallow this nonsense and think that it is in any way related to the actual truth.

Don't worry too much about current Fed. policies. The current crop of them may make some mistakes in detail, but most of the important guys there got their Phd's in their student days by learning from the mistakes made pre and post Great Depression, and are asking themselves 'How can we do it better?'

This time around, there is a huge sovereign debt, but that has paid for not allowing the U.S. to slide into another great depression. The U.S.sovereign debt did increase in the early 1930's, but nothing like the increase this time around.

In 1932, 31% of the entire U.S. workforce was unemployed. I see now, eventually, there are signs that the current unemployment rate is getting smaller, and the stock market is reasonably healthy. That means that business is slowly recovering to have more money to invest the expansion of their activities again.

The recent rise in the value of commodities in U.S.dollar terms is not expressed so obviously in terms of other currencies. Six months ago, the Aussie dollar would buy you 90 U.S. cents, now it buys 108 U.S. cents. The AUD has not appreciated all that much against other currencies.

And just why not? I mean, it's not as if any of us actually HAS to buy food or fuel, is it?

You know... I keep hearing that word "hyperinflation" all the time but I never see a definition of it. Because of that, I have no idea what constitutes hyperinflation. Does anyone really know? Is it when prices increase by 10% per year? 20%? 50%? 100%? More? I have no clue. I do know that it can be really bad... think Weimar Republic, WW I era, or Zimbabwe, in more recent times. Their currencies were devalued right to zero. Poof! Gone! Are these hyperinflation or just the worst possible examples of it?

Just remember, folks... gold and silver are VERY unlikely to become inflated. They are true stores of value and have been recognized all around the world for thousands or years. Their success is due to the fact that no government can wave a pen and create so much as a single gram of either one... unlike fiat currencies that can be created without any limit whatsoever. The difference between gravel and gold nuggets is that nuggets are pretty and rare. As a currency becomes over-printed, it begins more and more to resemble gravel and not nuggets.

Back in the late 1950s, I was living in El Paso, TX. We often went on shopping trips into Juarez, Mexico. The shops there were selling many things, some of them quite nice, and all very well priced. The shop keepers called the US dollar "Oro". To them, it really was as good as gold. Compare that to what is going on today. I don't think that anyone is calling the dollar "gold" anymore.

Because that's exactly what they're doing. A cheaper dollr encourages other countries to buy American.

Eat beans.

Capitalism works, however when it is corrupted and manipulated like the way our elected officials have been doing for so long....well, you probably can see what happens.

It's too bad too. Because the generation before the baby boomers was probably the greatest generation of Americans. Since then, we've been a collective failure.