What to Do

Life is full of decisions to make. No matter what the situation is, be it serious, comical, or dire, there's always a decision to make as to what to do to remedy or solve a problem. Examples are myriad.

House a bit grungy? Needs paint? Well, there are many ways to solve that. Strip off the old paint, scrape the loose paint, use oil or latex paint, spray or brush, change colors, make trim a different color, etc. All are possibilities as far as painting one's house is concerned. Make the choice and live with it.

I saw a fellow in a quarter car wash once, and the high pressure wand was peeling the paint off of his car. He had just had it painted at a cheapie car body works such as…well never mind, but you know which ones there are which do paint jobs for very small fees. He made a decision to go to Earl S…. and the paint was peeling off like a banana. Wrong decision. Penny Wise and dollar foolish? Sure, but he had a decision to make and it was the wrong one. You can think of lots of situations I am certain. Which church to go to, how hard to discipline your kids, how fast to drive, which brand of car to buy, which restaurant to go to, or how to protect yourself from flood, inflation, fire, or calamity.

The poor D.C. Gang! Don't you think they know their days are numbered? Don't you think that "Helicopter Bernanke" knows his goose is cooked? Is it even remotely possible that all the Harvard educated 'economists' and pooh bahs that teach economics to gullible students, don't know that the buck is merely a piece of paper with grand engravings and various Presidents pusses on them, and which notes have absolutely no real value? They all know, but will never admit it. When one gets caught with one's finger in the pie, one usually tries to deny it, cover it up, or blame it on someone else.

President Ford, who is the oldest living President at 93, had a bunch of buttons printed which said that they were "fighting inflation," as if a button worn on one's lapel would stop inflation. They love to blame the retailers or manufacturers for inflation, because they raise their prices. What choice do they have when raw materials, labor, taxes, fuel, rent, insurance, utilities, transportation, and repairs go up in price? Blame anyone but themselves, when they have caused it. Nice idea if you can get away with it, and they seem to have succeeded so far. Those nasty unions are at fault, the auto executives love to say, or it is those crooked steel workers maybe. 'We try to keep prices down, but they just keep going up.'

"I've tried to loose weight, but I just keep on gaining," as he drinks a few more beers or ingests another milkshake or pizza.. Life has a lot of mysterious things which no one can explain, be it crop circles, flying saucers, ghosts, or mental telepathy, all of which seem to exist, but no one can adequately explain, it seems. Inflation's easy. One only has to look at a dictionary to learn what inflation is, and it is simply an increase in the currency supply. Look it up, and you'll see. Stott's law, in other words, which says that the more of anything there is, the less they will be worth. Dollars included.

The Gang at Babylon on the Potomac, has had their finger in the pie for so many decades, and have ballooned the currency supply so much, that the poor old dollar is worth about two percent of what it was worth when I was born…if one can count back that far. Think about it, and weep. It isn't just that the dollar has slowly crashed, but the debts have escalated to the heavens. From being a creditor nation just a few years ago, regardless of the dollar's value, America has become the largest debtor nation in history. America owes everyone! Now the rest of the nations are lowering their dollar holdings and switching slowly to the euro. Gradually, so there is no panic, but it is happening. I doubt that a panic can be avoided, just like everyone rushing to an exit when the fire gong rings.

If you always went to Joe's gas station, and always seemed to get water in your gas, you'd stop getting filled up at Joe's, I imagine. At least eventually. The world has been buying our debts for decades, and as the instrument in which the debts are figured…namely dollars…go down in value, purchasing power, or worth, no matter how it is figured, the buyers might act as you did with Joe's gasoline, mightn't they? They are in fact doing just that. Surprise! The buck as its value is measured in a 'basket' of world currencies, isn't looking too good now. Why? Because people, nations, and investors are slowly shedding themselves of dollars, just like a snake sheds its skin every year. The old skin is of no value any longer, so nature gets rid of it. Likewise, as dollars lose value, they are no longer of value, so they are shed. Slowly, like a buffalo sheds its fur every spring, with shreds of it hanging on till the last. The dollar is a snake skin, or buffalo hide. It is becoming no longer needed, so wise people are shedding them.

As the debts mount, faith decreases in the dollar, no Maggie Thatcher is on the horizon, and the boobs in Congress are unable to stop spending, guess what decisions are being made? "What to do," as is the title of this? What possibilities are there? Only one, as far as I can see. Remember the fad expression of a few years ago, of "Keep on Truck'n?" Well the new one is "Keep on Print'n," but it will never be a bumper strip. Please tell me what other solution there is, other than to keep on printing? Keeping on printing, is not only the only solution, but it is the one which has been practiced for hundreds of years, back to Roman times, with variations. The end result has always been the same too! It has never failed, be it in George Washington's time, Abe Lincoln's, Caeser's time, or currently.

They print to pay their bills, and at the same time can't stop spending, so they have to print ever more. The more they print, the more they need, and the more they spend, so as to keep their constituencies happy. The only difference now from Roman times, is that Christians aren't thrown to the lions to keep the voters happy, and since there were no printing presses then, they clipped the coins and made them smaller and diluted with cheap metals. Same thing goes on today, and all the old tried, trite 'solutions are being practiced. Keep on printing, is the only choice. No, it isn't the only choice, actually. The correct choice would be to turn D.C. into a ghost town, get rid of about 90% of the political pirates and plunderers, back the buck with gold, and make silver coins once again. Will that ever happen? Will pigs ever learn to fly?

Ever wonder why, in all of history, the majority is usually wrong? Think about it, and you will have to agree. They are utterly wrong in placing their trust in paper dollars with which to store their wealth. The buck is like a measuring device. We measure our net worth or wealth by the number of dollars we have. If a measuring device shrank every year or month or week, manufacturing would stop dead in its tracks. If the inch, mile, centimeter, pound, acre, square foot, volt, ampere, or watt shrank in value, civilization would collapse. Our wealth measuring device, dollars, is constantly shrinking in value, and no one seems to care or want to protect themselves from it. Amazing but true. All of them are shrinking, but as far as the major currencies are concerned, the buck is sliding faster than the rest, because they have to keep on printing. The D.C. Gang has no choice but to keep on printing. It's what they have to do, but you don't have to participate. Get out of their mess, by getting out of their dollars, like other nations are now doing. Get into another denomination. Pounds of butter, barrels of oil, cords of wood, tons of copper, etc, will be a different denomination than dollars. They are far too difficult to store though, so why not get into ounces of gold and silver? No refrigeration required, and easily stored and gotten rid of when you need to switch back to dollars to buy something. It's all so simple! Protect yourself.

December 14, 2006

Don Stott has been a precious metals dealer since 1977, has written five books, hundreds of columns, and his web site is www.coloradogold.com