America's Samson Syndrome

You have to wonder about the thought process' of the American people and their leaders. Are they so deluded they believe this stuff? The child king actually thinks it is a credible economic response to high oil prices to release 30 million barrels of oil from the emergency reserve. The lapdog press actually reports this with a straight face. The American people actually listen to this announcement with a straight face. The only unstraight face is OPEC, which is laughing hysterically at the impotent imperialists.

Saddam has lost the war, but won the peace. If he stops his three million barrels per day, his hated enemy the United States is economic toast. If he continues producing, he is allowed billions of dollars to fund his military and terrorist weapons of mass destruction programs. Now Saddam is making threats against Kuwait again, and Yugoslavia's madman is going to be voted out of power. Get real. We could have a synchronized dustup in both Iraq and Yugoslavia within days. What will happen to the price of gold then?

For the record, the United States uses 19 million barrels per day. The child king's "response" is to release about 36 hours supply. Nothing to do with the election campaign of Al Bore mind you and nothing to do with the likely doubling of heating oil prices by November mind you. The child king is merely playing his favorite game of let's pretend. Let's pretend I have an energy policy for instance. The United States middle and upper class elite has had a pretty good economic run the last seven years. The working poor got screwed but who cares? The elite just can't seem to admit that the fun is over. They can't seem to understand that the Europeans are serious about challenging the dollar. Americans have listened to economic experts tell them that a $400 billion trade imbalance doesn't matter. They have listened to the experts tell them a negative savings rate doesn't matter. The national debt of six trillion doesn't matter. Personal debt doesn't matter. Personal integrity doesn't matter because political and business integrity doesn't matter. And if Firestone, Ford and the government combine greed and stupidity to cause 80 deaths due to exploding SUV tires, well even that's a matter of playing the odds.

This isn't the goldilocks economy, it's the Samson economy. Samson was an Old Testament judge who was noted for his great physical strength. This strength was used mostly in killing the Philistines who were grinding Israel into the dust. Unfortunately, Samson was also a creature of great sexual lusts and fell in love with a Philistine woman named Delilah. Samson and Delilah has become a synonym for a foolish man and a cunning woman out to destroy him. The story goes that Delilah made a deal with the Philistines to betray Samson. She kept whining and nagging Samson to tell him the secret of his great strength. Samson thought is was all good fun and teased her with various ways to weaken him. One day, he got tired of it and actually told her the truth-his physical strength was in his long hair. Delilah waited for Samson to sleep and then cut his hair off, went and got the Philistines who then waited for Samson in the front yard. Samson got up, didn't even realize he was weak and promptly was blinded and then imprisoned. Eventually, he saw the error of his way and pushed on two pillars in the Philistine temple, collapsed it and killed three thousand Philistines.

I think America is like Samson in a lot of ways. We have assumed that our economic prowess is invincible for one thing. We imagine that the Chinese can steal our nuclear weapon technology and nothing will happen as a result. We think that sure the child king was bad, but now he's going and politics will become civil again. But I think it's in our economics that we most closely resemble Samson. Like Samson our strength is obvious and unchallenged by our enemies. Like Samson our strength causes our enemies to hate us and plot against us. Our enemies, who cannot face us head on, use cunning and treachery to destroy us. I will leave it to the reader to come up with his own Delilah to the American Samson. The list is endless I think. The bitter irony of it all is that our own leaders have betrayed us more than our enemies. In many ways, our own cultural, political and business leaders have played Delilah to the American people. At least that is my opinion.

As for the American people, they have played Samson to the hilt. The preening arrogance of the permanently rising stock market. The acceptance of corruption at all levels of politics, business and cultural life. No, we have no one to blame but ourselves for the looming disaster. I wonder if the American people would even realize if the economy had tanked? Or would we be like Samson waking up and not even realizing our economic strength had left us? Don't we understand the implications of the Euro? There are only two credible alternatives to the fiat dollar, the Euro and gold. We will be like Samson, blinded and weak, wondering what happened the day the fiat dollar collapses.

The dollar exploding into hyper inflation cannot be we are told. Really. If I were an OPEC producer and I was being paid in dollars, I might be wanting to be paid in either gold or Euros. Samson didn't even realize he was impotent until it was too late. Will the American people and economy face the same fate as Samson?