Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Open letter to Republican Incumbents

You may have noticed that there is a wave of angry voters out there. If you are in danger of losing your job, you may believe it's unfair; that your voting record demonstrates you are not part of the problem. I believe many of you still don't understand what all the fuss is about. Let me try to clarify.

The frustrated masses are not just Tea Party members. There are also frustrated individuals who prefer not to march under anyone's banner (myself included). We believe that this country is facing not only fiscal and economic disaster, but social disaster. Every time the government passes a new regulation, mandate, fee, or takes on some new role with respect to individuals, companies or organizations, we lose a little more individual freedom. We don't want you to take care of us. We just want to be able to interact with one another in the absence of force. We don't want you to make change painless. We want you to do the right thing.

Perhaps your voting record is immaculate. Maybe you've said and written all the right things during the course of your career. What were the results? We don't have time for another group of well intentioned politicians to do their very best and come up short...again. We're not interested in politicians that want to appease those who want less government while also appeasing those who want more government. It's not enough to be opposed to toxic policies. Stop them. When two sides advocate diametrically opposed philosophies of the role of government, you can't ride the fence. Pick a side and play to win. I don't know what you can do between now and your next election to convince the voters that you will reduce the size, scope and cost of government, but that's what we demand. As the great philosopher, Yoda, said "Do or do not. There is no try."

The Tea Party is not your enemy. Reality is.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Is sovereign currency about to go out of style?

Gold has been doing very well lately. As people lose confidence in global currencies, they hedge their bets by buying gold. Gold isn’t patented to any one country and so isn’t dependent on the competence of any government. The drawback is that it isn’t widely accepted as currency. That may be about to change.

in 2009, Thomas Geissler, the chief executive of TG-Gold-Super-Markt in Germany, rolled out a vending machine that dispenses small gold bars and coins. He’s since upgraded it to be able to update the price of gold every two minutes and has installed one in the prestigious Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi on a day when gold reached another all-time high.

The trouble with world currencies is that the only difference between a dollar bill and a Treasury bill is that one has an expiration date, and you get an interest premium to compensate for it. So when a government issues new debt (which they’ve all been doing a lot of lately) they are essentially creating new money. They’re adding new supply while demand is waning.

Central banks have been able to keep currencies relatively stable with respect to each other by buying and selling one another’s currency to achieve specific target ranges. They have not been able to hold their own against gold. While production does increase supply, demand is strong and growing. It may hit a tipping point if and when some major company or organization starts accepting, then demanding gold as payment.

A convenient way to acquire gold currency, such as Mr. Geissler’s “Gold to Go” machines, might just be a catalyst to creating a new global currency, which would be terrible news for existing global currencies.

Monday, May 10, 2010

Defending the Euro

I just sent this as an email FoxBusiness.com. I thought it would make a good post as well.


Wouldn't it have been better in terms of the value of the Euro as a currency if they had let Greece default (or restructure)? A country's currency is only as valuable as the world perceives it to be. A lot of that has to do with supply control.

I would be more impressed if the Euro-zone had told Greece "No, you can't have more Euro's, find another way." Even had Greece been forced to restructure its debt, that would demonstrate a failed business model, not a failed currency. In fact, the currency was too valuable to just give away.

I would think that would have increased the value of the Euro in the longer term. They haven't propped up the currency. They're trying to prop up a nanny state. I assume because they just don't want to believe it doesn't work.