Silver This Fall

I agree with this from the point of view of industrial demand slacking off as the economy recedes. Investors, on the other hand, are likely to sell off paper assets and buy gold and silver. Seems like a tug of war to me and I do not know which group will have the better pull. Added to this, Asian demand for both gold and silver is strong and is propping up the $27-28 price that we now have. Each time that silver has tried to fall recently Asian buying has come in and propped the price back up. This could be a wildcard in all this.



Agreed. I am reminded of the saying that some people use that goes like this... "The biggest force for good in your life is... YOU!". If more people took this to heart and refused to wait for someone to help them or save them, we would all be better off.



Yes, in large part I would agree with that. Free men can never compete with slave labor on the basis of price. I'm not saying that those workers in China and India are slaves but they are often treated as such and paid very poorly.

Many years from now, if we can avoid killing off the species, humankind may reach a point where virtually everyone on and off Earth will be paid about the same and also have a similar standard of living. Until that time comes, however, there will always be someone trying to exploit low cost labor for their own benefit. We are going through this process now and it can be painful.

My solution to returning jobs to the US would be to have a 2 tiered tax system wherein a lower tax is applied to money made from manufacturing in the US than outside the US. This does not impose a new tariff on anyone but achieves about the same effect.

We need jobs in this country that do not require advanced training or skills and we are critically short of them at this time. People who aren't studious need to have real jobs where they can earn their way in life. Not nearly enough attention has been paid to this, IMHO, and it is important. Going to college is not necessarily the best answer for everyone. It was for me but it may not be for many others.

Some economists say that we should have about 20-25% of our population college educated and that the economy really can't absorb any more than that. If true, then a lot of time and money is being wasted on college degrees that may never be used but that DO have to be paid for.

Sadly this is so true. My son went to work part time, while going to college as an IT assistant right out of high school. He was making only a buck or 2 less than his boss. I only have a high school education and have a guy with a masters and 2 with bachelors working under me right now. They had to go into another field where their degrees were worthless in order just to find a job.

I would add that I think PMs have been tied at least to an extent to spending. As long as the debt keeps creeping up for how much of the GDP it accounts for people will stock PMs just in case. If either we can create a better market for business expansion and raise the GDP or lower federal spending or both we could see the PMs settle down a bit from just in case investing and be back closer to their industrial values.

With another 4 years of the same policies I see a PM rise over time as people come to realize the approaching situation. Disability as its stands runs out around 2016 and will be forced to tap into social security to pay for it accelerating its demise. We could also see a bump from the initial shock of how much the health care bill will cost fully implemented.

Perhaps this is a cultural difference between the USA and the UK but I and most people I know think the point of going to college/university is to study a subject in greater depth than is possible at school along with others rather than getting a piece of paper that might boost your career.

However, I think there will be some people who think that a degree is vital for career growth and there are certainly people in university who don't have the ability for intense study and critical thinking or are not interested in their subject.

Indeed. We all have. Stories about cab drivers with Ph.D. degrees is not unheard of. Sad but not terribly uncommon.

Some jobs, usually those of a technical nature, require a degree in that field. I wanted to be a chemist and for that one must have a college degree if one wants to get very far in it. Same for nurses, physicians, scientists of all kinds, lawyers, CPAs, etc.



It happens and there is no doubt about it at all. A lot of people go to college, don't really know what they want to do, and come out 4-5 years later with a lot of bills and a generalist degree in not much at all. Since the demand for such people is minimal, so are the job opportunities and pay.



Social Security may well be tapped out itself by then. Notice that about every other year they recalculate the end of the SS "fund" and it is always 8-10 years sooner than the last time they calculated it. Translation: the SS "fund" is shrinking at an accelerating rate!



Yes, I do as well. I believe that everyone in this country should help pull the wagon and not just spend their entire life riding in it as others do the work of pulling it. A flat tax is the perfect answer. If one makes little, they pay little. If they make a lot, they pay a lot. There is nothing whatever wrong with everyone paying the same tax rate. I do not care if Warren Buffet pays the same or even a lower rate than I do because unlike some I appreciate the fact that he pays more dollars in tax each year than I will earn in my entire life.
That said, I also would like to see a single standard deduction of $25k or so (indexed to inflation) that everyone gets but which is a lot more meaningful to those on the lower end of the economic ladder.

SHHHhhh!

The media and others of like mindset don't want people to know this!



Sad, but true.

Yes, I definitely agree with this. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are reversing their previously held positions, not because they now believe that they were wrong but because the folks on the other side of the aisle have adopted those positions! Good grief, already. Will some adults PLEASE get elected!



Oddly enough, changing the counting method when it produces an undesired result is EXACTLY what the commies used to do when confronted by an uncomfortable truth. As old Joe Stalin once said, "It matters less who votes than who counts the votes". Unfortunately for those who believe that perception is reality, reality is not nearly as flexible as they believe it to be. It is what it is and no matter what else they choose to call it, it is still just plain old reality.



The media is pretty much owned by TPTB, so whatever they want said as the truth is said on the air and in print. Their problem is that people can only be lied to so often before they just stop listening to these lies. Mark Twain once said something like, "If you don't read the papers you will be uninformed. If you do read the papers you will be misinformed"... and that was 150 years ago!



I believe that the US Treasury keeps track of a lot of data like this. They even publish most of it so that those who work with financial numbers can track trends, write reports, and sell their research to governments, retirement systems, hedge funds, etc. Charles Biderman runs a research company that does this and he has mentioned it a number of times on his video blog. Check out the Trim Tabs blog site for details.