The politicians in Europe, the US, and elsewhere are facing financial problems so bad that, in my judgment, they are long past the point of no return. That means that there is no easy or comfortable way to undo the existing market distortions and adopt sensible long-lasting solutions. Some kind of financial catastrophe is inevitable. It will hurt many more people that you might think and completely devastate far too many. The longer it takes to crash markets, the worse it will hurt people.
Why have politicians let things get so bad? And why are they continuing to add to the existing problems rather than take positive actions? The reason is that most Americans and a lot of people around the world are their own worst enemies!
Here is a good demonstration of that point. Around mid-April, McClatchy-Marist conducted a poll of Americans. Of the respondents who identified themselves as conservative, 78% agreed that the country “is going in the wrong direction.” Of these conservative respondents, 68% identified reducing the federal budget deficit as the top priority.
Yet, when the pollsters asked people which segments of the budget needed to be trimmed to reduce the budget deficit, conservative respondents contradicted their overall convictions. On a cash flow basis, the US government reported that pension and welfare payments (including primarily Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare) accounted for 60% of total fiscal 2010 expenditures. However, 68% of conservative respondents were opposed to cutting spending on either Medicaid or Medicare. The military budget accounted for 24.5% of cash expenditures, yet 72% of conservative respondents objected to any cuts in military expenditures. Even respondents who identified themselves as either liberal or moderate mostly agreed with the conservatives, though to a somewhat lesser degree.
That’s the problem! Americans think that federal expenditures are too large, yet are opposed to reducing any of the categories that account for the lion’s share of the total. That is the dilemma that the politicians face. People are clamoring for lower government spending, but are against reducing it in the categories where the bulk of funds are being spent! One thing is for sure—the politicians don’t want to ruin their careers by seriously cutting spending. As a result, the prospects for fiscal restraint are almost non-existent—even though the US government is close to financial collapse.
As for how bad the financial problems are getting, I described last week how the major governments, central banks, and multinational banks have effectively declared financial war on the people of the world.
Even civil liberties are at further peril. In November, Sen. Carl Levin introduced S. 1867, which was the annual military appropriations legislation. It passed the Senate by a vote of 93-7 and is awaiting compromise with the different version that passed the House of Representatives. Buried in this 925-page bill on pages 425-427 (Sections 1031-1033) are provisions to permit the US military to seize people around the world who might aid or support those who are opposed to US military actions or to actions of “coalition partners.” This is vague enough to include people who generally are opposed to actions taken by any of these governments. The bill further suspends the right of habeus corpus under US law so that people seized under these provisions could be held indefinitely without trial. American citizens and legal registered aliens who are on US soil when committing such acts, if they are constitutional, are exempt from being treated this way—for the time being.
It used to be that if Americans in other countries broke the laws of those nations, it did not constitute a violation of US law. This bill, if enacted as is, would further expand the US government’s ability to unilaterally apprehend anyone around the world and hold them indefinitely without trial, even if they were innocent of the charges or even if their actions otherwise broke no US laws.
It would only take a few insignificant changes in US law to expand the reach of the US military to include US citizens and legal resident aliens on US soil. Once a government begins expanding its scope, it rarely retreats. In fact, it does tend to expand the scope even further.
Resistance to budget cuts are the same kinds of problems are facing governments in Europe, which is why it will be incredibly difficult to find agreement on adopting major austerity measures and fully implementing them.
Now, as bad as the world’s economies are getting, there is all the more reason for the US government and its allies and trading partners to want gold and silver prices to be suppressed. Guess what, that is exactly what is happening right now. Today, I took advantage of what I expect to be a temporary opportunity by adding to my personal holdings of precious metals. The markets may not yet have hit bottom, but I expect to be smiling by next spring at the latest.
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By the way, my column last week was written in strong words. I intended to wake people up to what is happening now and what is coming in the future. Usually, when someone writes or speaks so forcefully, many people would have a natural aversion to taking the message to heart. To my surprise, I have received overwhelming compliments on what I wrote. There were a few comments posted on last week’s article that tried to belittle the message I proclaimed.
First, rather than attack the message, one writer attacked my motive for writing my column. By pretending that I was only writing to scare people, that would give him or her an excuse to ignore the message.
The second comment agreed with much of what I wrote but questioned my motives as well. In effect, he or she said I only wrote it as a means to sell more gold and silver bullion. This commentator probably has not read my previous columns where I explained that selling gold and silver bullion at competitive prices generates so little profit that it really isn’t worth advertising to do so. If my motive were to increase profits of my companies, I would either be advocating the purchase of numismatic coins or that people sell their bullion. Yes, I seriously hoped that people would step up and purchase silver and gold, but hoping to make a financial killing by doing so was not part of my motivation.
The third commentator stated things I did not put in my article, namely that I advocated that people buy gold at the last major market peak in December 1979 (actually the peak occurred in January 1980). When the market was peaking back then, my companies not only did not advocate that people purchase gold and silver, we suggested that people sell their trading positions, as I did personally.
The second point of the third comment actually confirms a point I made in the column. At the peak in January 1980 (remember, the price of gold back then only closed above $700 for four days), a purchase of gold proved to be financially better (actually, less worse) than buying silver. From the peak, the price of gold only fell about 2/3, while silver dropped more than 90% (this all ignores the effect of inflation of the currency). Therefore, if someone just had to buy precious metals at that time, my recommendation to acquire gold and not silver on the basis of the gold/silver ratio at the time was correct. The third commentator went on to make other sage observations, as do most of those who comment on my columns.
Patrick A. Heller owns Liberty Coin Service in Lansing, Michigan and writes “Liberty’s Outlook,” a monthly newsletter covering rare coins and precious metals. Past issues can be found online at http://www.libertycoinservice.com/ Pat Heller is also the gold market commentator for Numismatic News. Past columns online at http://numismaster.com/ under “News & Articles”. His bimonthly columns on collectibles can also be read at http://www.lansingbusinessmonthly.com under “Articles” and “Department Columns.”His radio show “Things You ‘Know’ That Just Aren’t So, And Important News You Need To Know” can be heard at 8:45 AM Wednesday mornings on 1320-AM WILS in Lansing (which streams live and becomes part of the audio and text archives posted at http://www.1320wils.com.
Pat,
You misconsrtued my first comment. I did not say that you recommended buying gold in 1979. I said that by your use of the gold:silver ratio to determine when to buy one or the other, one would have bought gold throughout the waning weeks of 1979. And that would have been disastrous for the purchaser of gold, as it was for those who did and did not unload it really soon thereafter.
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As for this article, you are completely off base. The source of your error is your failure to distinguish between general and segregated funds, your assumption that macroeconomic issues can or must be dealt with through microeconomic realities and that economic laws are somehow as immutable as those of Newtonian physics of large bodies.
Your first comment on Social Security is so egregious as to be either dishonest or completely ignorant. Social Security is not a component of the US government’s general fund. It is funded quite separately by the FICA payroll tax, which has created a Trust Fund surplus well in excess of $2 Trillion. Cutting Social Security under the guise of balancing the general fund is fundamentally dishonest and completely counterproductive. Social Security retirement benefits are the only thing keeping most Americans over 65 out of poverty, the same poverty that that same group almost universally suffered from prior to WWII. Those benefits (being among the most effective government dollars spent) contribute significantly to the functioning of the economy, and cutting them will work against economic vitality, therby rendering the cuts counterproductive.
Your inclusion of Medicare in your broad brush comment is only mosty off base. Like Social Security Medicare is funded by a separate payroll tax. Unfortunately, it is not completely funded by its separate source and does draw some small portion of its revenues from the general fund. Having said that, your assumption that this program must be cut back to reduce deficits is likewise completely counterproductive. Medicare is the single most effective and efficient, despite abuses by the medical profession and scam artists, means of paying for healthcare we have in this country and likewise makes a significant contribution to the smooth functioning of the economy. Since healthcare costs are the greatest long term threat to budget deficits, greater efficiency and effectiveness will be required. Medicare and enhancements to it will be required, no matter what your philosophy demands.
Medicaid is a drain on budgets, federal and state. However, if they decide, as they recently have, to cut back or even to eliminate the program, those expenses will still be incurred if the normal recipients get care at all. If they get care, those expenses will still be a drain on budgets. If they don’t get early care, two results are likely: they will die far too early or they will get far more expensive care later (an ounce of prevention foregone). If Medicare is enhanced and expanded, Medicaid is a non-issue.
The truth is that your inclusion of these programs is pure ideology. It is completely unhinged from any connection to reality.
Your mention of defense spending is distorted by inappropriately throwing Social Security and Medicare into expenditures from the general fund. If you appropriately exclude them, military spending about doubles to half of all, and by far the largest component of, general fund expenditures. BTW what sense does it make to continue buying and deploying weapons systems designed to defeat the nonexistent USSR? Why do we continue to protect Western Europe from the Soviet Union? Why do we pay mercenary contractors six figures and their firms billion more to do the work of poorly paid soldiers and/or to provide our troops with spoiled food in centralized mess halls that invite attacks, build facilities that leak excrement from electrical fixtures and showers that electrocute soldiers, skim millions more by charging ridiculous amounts for fuel, etc., etc., etc.?
As for the Defense Appropriations bill, why did almost all the conservatives vote down the amendments that would have deleted 1031 and 1033? And for that matter, why did they vote for the Patriot Act and its extensions?
The US government is nothing like your coin business or any other business. When your business receipts are down, you have a limited number of responses available: you can cut expenses, sell assets or change your marketing plan, depending on what caused your reduced revenue. You cannot, by yourself, change the market in which you are operating. You cannot print your own currency.
The same is not true of the US government. It has more and far better options available; even though, you deny or ignore the existence of those options. The current problem is a shortfall, decline in revenue due to decades of unwise tax cuts, an unwise provision of the the prescription Plan D (the major source of Medicare drains on the general fund), two wars and an ever increasing security state, and this little recession thing that has put tens of millions out of work and many into underemployment.
The solution is to remedy these issues in the order most critical. Employment is the most critical. Because private industry cannot (insufficient demand due to far too high unemployment) or will not (banks won’t lend because they are seeking profits from virtually interest-free loans from the Fed and buying risk-free Treasuries), the federal government will have to do the hiring directly or indirectly.
As for short term shortfalls, one must look for revenue enhancements where they will do the least damage to the recovery. That place is also where you refuse to look, hiding behind ideological nostrums that are completely ahistoric and demonstrably false.
I’m sure that this critique will cause a massive epidemic of teeth gnashing, hair pulling and throwing of crockery among conservatives as well as more ideological nonsense from the followers of simple-minded monetarists like Milton Friedman and deluded supply-siders like Arthur Laffer.
Radwriter obviously spent a lot of time composing his pseudo intellectual monologue. It is a shame he wasted his efforts by throwing out a lot of statements unsupported by facts, instead choosing to spout the kind of bland nonsense that populates socialist websites these days. His frustration at his inability to build a fact based logical argument is evident in the way he uses his last paragraph to insult those he disagrees with. If Marx were alive today he would be very proud.
Better use Bernard von Nothaus’ NORFED Liberty Dollar Gold and Silver Coins and certificates. Unfoutunately Bernard von Nothaus was convicted of crime he never committed, that why we cannot use these inflation proof currencies and coins!
@radwriter:
A trust fund??? Really????
The government has “more and far better options” like printing money?????
Government needs to hire MORE workers and spend MORE money it doesn’t have????
AY!!!!
You equate Republican with Conservative. Wrong again. You think Gingrich and Romney are “Conservatives”? Hardly. They’re big government liberals is disguise, as was (is) John McCain.
The reality is that we have one party rule in this country. Two wings of BIG GOVERNMENT SOCIALISTS.
Mr. Heller’s observations about everybody saying “cut spending” but then being unwilling to actually cut anything is spot on. And the people in Congress and the President know it. So they put on a dog and pony show and make a pretense of cutting, but in reality, only cut the increase over last years spending. And they keep putting the country further and further into DEBT. A debt we will NEVER be able to pay off. Not with “austerity”. Not with “revenue enhancement”. Not with a combination of the two.
There is only two means of getting rid of the debt. Straight out REPUDIATION or else, the much easier to disguise, MONETIZATION. All of which means the Dollar continues to lose value. Prices continue to rise.
The inability or the unwillingness of some large segment of the population to read the writing on the wall is very dismaying to me. Until, and unless, people wake up to REALITY and disabuse themselves of such foolish notions as there is some Social Security Trust Fund vault loaded with $2T ready to pay for your retirement, NOTHING WILL CHANGE.
I fought off panic yesterday and an urge to run out and sell my gold. But after some reasoned self-debate, all the reasons I bought gold are still there and even MORE PROBLEMATIC NOW than they were. We have MORE DEBT, HIGHER SPENDING, A LARGER MONEY SUPPLY, EVEN MORE INSANE IDEAS COMING OUT OF WASHINGTON and the EU and EUROPEAN BANKS AND SOVEREIGNS ON THE VERGE OF COLLAPSE.
If I’m wrong, I’m haven’t lost anything. But, quite frankly, I don’t see HOW “normal” times are going to return without some kind of economic calamity occuring. There is no “fix” for the EU. And trimming U.S. budget DEFICITS (which STILL INCREASE DEBT LOAD) without even being willing to look at the untold trillions of dollars which will be needed to pay off Social Security and Medicare isn’t going to accomplish ANYTHING.
For the record, THIS conservative would whole-heartedly support cutting 50% of the Defense budget without batting an eye AND would think that even more could be cut while still adequately insuring our safety.
I for one thank Mr. Heller for his independently VERIFIABLE information about the financial markets in general and the Comex in particular.
You, radthinker, should do some reading up on the concept of “normalcy bias” and find out why you can’t face what’s almost certainly coming down the pike.
Radwriter’s statements about social security are partially correct. Technically, it is a program that operates outside the general budget. There is a accounting surplus that was, until recently, stated to be sufficient to last through the mid-2030’s before it is fully exhausted. (That estimate didn’t take into account the social security tax cut of 2011 or the reduction in tax revenue due to the current bad economy.)
What Radwriter failed to mention is that the “social security trust fund” has already been spent by the U.S. government, and the “social security lockbox” now contains a pile of paper I.O.U’s. Effectively, this means that social security assets enjoy the same status as other U.S. government debt, that it must be repaid (with interest) using future tax revenue, just like the bonds sold to Japanese, Chinese, and Arab investors. But we can be confident because generations of politicians, most of them no longer in office, have promised that this money will be paid back. Those depending on social security can sleep well at night knowing that politicians always keep their promises, right?
Radwriter argues that U.S. government debt will always be paid back because the federal reserve can print unlimited quantities of money as needed. Technically, this is correct. In fact, there is a high probability that this will happen. But there are serious consequences to large scale creation of money from thin air that are being blissfully ignored with this argument. Every beginning economics student learns that printing money causes inflation, and that massive printing causes massive inflation. (Of course, these days the “printing press” is only symbolic, with money creation actually done via keystrokes on a computer.) Technically, debt get repaid, but repayment with dollars worth far less than the dollars originally loaned is not full repayment. Also ignored is the fact that the U.S. government has already accumulated debt levels past the point where there can be any reasonable expectation of full repayment at current dollar valuation, and that new debt continues to pile on at over $1 trillion dollars per year. (The exact figure varies, depending on whether it is limited to officially issued debt, or whether it includes the more honest number that also includes accrued long term liabilities for items like pensions which are left out of the official government budget.) The problem expands rapidly while politicians twiddle their thumbs and do nothing.
Socialists like Radwriter have gleefully embraced this idea that inflation resulting from monetary expansion will solve the debt problems of the U.S., with the side benefit of wiping out some of the wealth of those much hated “1%”. In this world of blissful ignorance, it is OK to keep running massive deficits because these new debts will be repaid at pennies on the dollar with heavily deflated currency.
But even slow thinking investors will eventually figure things out and demand substantially higher interest rates for risky government debt, and will eventually stop buying altogether. At that point the party ends instantly, much like the effect a police raid has on an illegal gambling establishment.
To illustrate, Interest payments on debt already run just under $500 billion per year, this while interest rates are at record low levels. In comparison, the 2011 defense department budget for military spending (excluding defense department spending on veterans, foreign economic aid, and foreign military aid) is $706 billion dollars. Annual spending for interest on the national debt is expected to increase steadily, to be the 2nd largest budget item within 5 years, surpassing even military spending. Keep in mind, this is at current interest rates.
But interest rates are expected to rise. Even allowing for the fact that most government debt is issued at fixed interest rates, so that increases only affect newly issued debt and bonds with inflation adjusted rates, the amount spent on interest payments will increase each year at an accelerated rate. Annual interest payments will grow quickly until they surpass even social spending to become the single largest item in the budget. With larger interest rate increases payments on the national debt will crowd the budget until politicians are forced to choose between spending or defaulting on debt payments.
There isn’t enough money in the world to bail out the U.S. government. At some point, the attempt to pay off debt with printed money will cause hyper inflation, effectively wiping out the debts of the U.S. government, as well as the assets of people with savings and investments denominated in U.S. dollars. Hyperinflation and default have the same result for investors.
If this were some far off problem expected to hit 50 or 100 years down the road we could all bury our heads in the sand and ignore it. This is what politicians have been doing for decades. But the problem has grown so large that investors around the world can no longer ignore the financial irresponsility of the U.S. government. For now, they are waiting to see if our government can somehow get our financial house in order, not because they believe it will happen, but because they are afraid of what will happen if we don’t. The U.S. is aided by the financial problems of Europe. Our government is the slowest sinking large ship in an entire fleet of sinking ships, so investors come here to hoping to delay the inevitable.
Many in the world have already begun taking steps to protect their own interests against eventual default. Nations such as China are demanding that the U.S. dollar be dropped as the world’s reserve currency, and leaders in places like Russia and China lecture us about irresponsible spending. Nations around the world are buying all the gold they can get their hands on, setting new records for gold purchases. Some nations are also advising their citizens to stock up on gold and silver.
We are living on borrowed time. The U.S. is so large and so powerful that many in the world believe (or hope) we are “too big to fail”, not because they can’t see the facts, but because they refuse to believe facts that are plainly in sight for everyone to see.
Interesting discussion, but I thought this was a column on precious metals. Radwriter eloquently and accurately laid out the issues, and the facts actually very much support what he says. I say this as someone who has worked at the top of the private and public sectors as a decision maker. I also have written hundreds of articles for all kinds of top-rated publications on both sides of the ideological spectrum. I am no Marxist, and anyone who suggests radwriter is one is not very familiar with Marxist theory. He’s obviously a Democrat, and like him, I am proud to be one and don’t take kindly to Republicans who try to bully instead of making a coherent argument.
I think Mr. Heller’s PM analysis is often very useful, but when he gets into politics and economic theory, he is way off base. Moreover, while I am well aware of the small buy-sell margins in the metals trade, the largest dealer in MI surely makes a nice profit with all that volume of transactions. I do not think everything he says is motivated by the desire to drum up more business esp. since bullion in recent years has basically sold itself, but it seems dishonest not to admit that profit motive plays some kind of role. What bothers me, and I am a bull on pm’s like Mr. Heller, is that no matter what happens, he almost always reaches the same conclusion: buy more gold and silver! Well, that can’t always be the best recommendation. Even those with a long-term position should periodically sell. I know he has periodically recommended trading silver for gold or vice versa, but how many times have you heard him say take some profits now esp. if you need the money?
Radwriter, I could nitpick a couple of your comments but those comments are insignificant. A very well thought out & composed dissertation.
Mr Heller, sad to say but you are an all too common American… one more consumed with protecting his stash of precious metals than in really examining an trying to understand the current economic crisis. Enjoy your metal, hope it digests well for you.
Hey, if Social Security and Medicare really ought to go… be honest to your intent and humane and do it right and don’t extend their suffering, just euthanize everyone over 65! Poof, big part of the problem solved!
Republicans continue to attack and chip away at EVERY program that was designed to help out people in need. You want to cut out the frauds, FINE, ABSOLUTELY YES DO IT!!! But don’t make cuts just to satisfy the holy grail of no new taxes on the backs of people who for no major fault of their own, are in distress.The imbalance of wealth is so overwhelming in this country, it’s time for those that have to pony up more to help out those who in many respects contributed to their success and wealth.
Merry Christmas to all and especially to those living on the brink, while the inertia of government persists!
One does need to be a socialist, as I am not, to understand the difference between junk economics and political propaganda on one hand and what actually happens in the real world on the other. It is unfortunate, that so many spend so much time throwing epithets around that they do not understand and never bother themselves to look up in a dictionary.
Truth Seeker is correct in stating that the Trust Fund has been raided. In fact it was always intended to be raided by those who sold the public on increasing FICA taxes beyond the current revenue need. The surplus was created to mask much of the huge deficits run up by the Reagan administration. Thanks, Ronnie and Alan. However, simply stating that does not deal with what alternatives could have been found for the surplus. That money had to be put somewhere. Those funds were replaced with an asset, the most sound asset on the planet (US Treasuries), the most sought after asset during this time of turmoil. The alternatives were to buy other countries’ debt, corporate debt, martgage-backed securities, commodities or corporate equities. All of the alternatives offer far greater risks and most have over the past several years or decades offered far more inconsistent return, some of them negative. What should have been done is to, along with the separate accounting, keep the funds completely separate from the general fund, but that would not have fulfilled the objectives of Greenspan’s panel.
You assume that once debt is created, it lasts forever. That did not happen after WWII. The debt was paid down to almost nothing. It can be paid down again with reponsible taxation. Carter twice reduced the debt in his 4 years. The total, accumulated over 200+ years, US govt. debt was less than $1 trillion when Ronald Reagan was inaugurated. It was almost exactly three times that large when he left office 8 years later. Poppy Bush added another $1.5 trillion in his 4 years. Bill Clinton, thanks to a real surplus in his last year, only increased it about $1.5 trillion in 8 years and left his successor with the very real possibility of eliminating the accumulated debt in about 12 years or so. Unfortunately, George W Bush reversed that and added almost $5 trillion more and left his successor, not with a surplus, but the deepest recession in 65 years and the deepest budget hole since the Great Depression. Thus the Obama administration has, thus far, added an inherited $1.5 trillion to the debt that will undoubtedly go much higher. But debt can be repaid, as it was in 1969, 1978, 1980 and 2000.
It might also be important to note the following if one wishes to get all partisan: Over the last 40 years, GDP growth has increased 3% annually during Democratic presidencies and 2.5% during Republican presendencies. Federal debt has grown 1% yearly during the times Dems held the White House and 7+% while Republicans lived there. Spending has grown a bit under 2.5% annually while Dems lived in the WH and 3% while Repubs did. From my perspective, neither of them have done very well.
BTW, I did not confuse conservatives with Republicans. I deliberately used “conservatives” to include Dems. But to suggest that someone who is merely not as conservative as you are as not being a conservative is, well, silly and lacking in perspective as well as a basic understanding of political philosophies. Not one Republican in Congress in either house is anything but one or another shade of conservative on both economic and social issues (maybe not your shade but conservative, nonetheless). A significant minority of Dems in both houses are also conservative, especially on economic issues, particularly in the Senate. One characteristic of both parties’ less conservative conservatives is their utter spinelessness and unwillingness to buck their leaders’ and their funders’ demands. No matter what one thinks about their positions, the only consistently honest members are Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich.
But then, as another poster mentioned, this is not supposed to be about politics, generally; although, it is almost impossible to talk about anything that goes on in the real world without it having been impacted by political decisions.
It is not republicans or democrats spending and robbing, it is both. The SS trust fund is empty replaced by “the most sound asset on the planet (US Treasuries), ” paper. Historically debt has destroyed more nations than most anything else. My answer would be to roll the congressional trust fund into the SS trust fund and eliminate congresses self voted retirement benefit. Social security is a rip off TX was one of many places that opted out of SS when you could and created an alternate retirement fund. It pays 3 times as much for the same payroll deductions. If people were not robbed by the SS and they put the same funds into a retirement account and paid for death and disability ins. with the same amount they would have far more money for retirement and if they died their beneficiaries would receive what they worked for. So the main question is what do you choose? Freedom or government? Our Constitution was written to limit the power of government to protect the rights of the people. The same all powerful government you want to grow to “protect us” is the same one sending in SWAT teams over milk. Harassing people curing cancer and using herbs, invading country after country and killing people in your name and robbing you to do it. Obama the “peace” president has invaded Libya a country where the gov provided health care, education, housing etc for all its people with oil revenue. Bombing Yemen and basically acting like Bush on steroids. Ron Paul is our only chance to avoid total collapse.
Della,
All money, by definition, is an artificial abstraction, whether paper, stone, shellfish, gold, silver or anything else. Your apparent denigration of paper as opposed to other media of exchange is utterly irrelevant and superficial.
Your attack on government is both well-founded and equally superficial. The problem, in my opinion, is concentrated power arising from concentrated wealth. Power diffused and administered without bias or corrupting influences is not a problem. But with concentrated wealth and the power it bestows, governing power becomes corrupted and biased in favor of the wealth and power behind it.
When that power is based on the debt of others, yes, that is destructive of nations. The current level of federal debt, if allowed to grow indefinitedly, will destroy the country. But it need not do so as high federal debt did not in the years after WWII. Conservatives built up federal debt over the last 30+ years for one purpose. That purpose was to neuter the government’s ability to right the wrongs wrought by powerful interests: eliminate the ability of those interests to prevent or correct “externalities” — shoving costs created by their irresponsible practices onto communities and taxpayers; eliminate their attack on conservation and protection of national treasures from resource expolitation and despoilage; eliminate their opportunity to exloit child labor and all labor; etc., etc. The method was to make servicing the debt so expensive that it would crowd out all “discretionary” expenditures, leaving essentially only military and police functions.
Ron Paul’s positions on the use of the military appear to be heart-felt and are a huge improvement on the status-quo; however, he has no widespread support in Congress that would put those policies in force. His only ability to act on his beliefs would come by cabinet appointments, vetoing bills and issuing executive orders, all of which could be helpful but none of which are likely to be transformative any more than would be possible were Bernie Sanders to be elected.
The reality is that no one candidate, absent a strong organization behind and alongside him or her, will generate transformation. It is a plague upon the body politic that we only hear about personalities when what is needed is the awareness about and strength of slates of candidates all across the country. That WAS the possibility of the Tea Party. That IS the possibility of Occupy. Unfortunately, the Tea Party was frequently co-opted by concentrated wealth and the Koch brothers on one hand and a bunch of uneducated imbeciles who talked a good game but understood and knew almost nothing. And Occupy has thus far done almost nothing to actually build any organizational muscle, which may yet come but is not apparent.
Electing either Bernie Sanders or Ron Paul would almost certainly provide us with the kinds of change that electing Barack Obama did, namely a few changes for the better and a whole lot of other changes for the worse. Any president will be the captive of BIG money, the money that was significant in putting him or her into office as well most members of Congress. The solution is, in my opinion, to look further into the future to provide a large pool of smart, knowledgable and honest candidates for lower offices who will grow into congressional leaders and presidential candidates.
The goal then as well as now must be to disperse the concentration of wealth and power. We have to get BIG money out of politics. ALL power must be limited if one wants government power to be limited. Until then all this stuff is just so much pissing in the wind. We will get smaller governmental bodies all more easily corrupted by internationally, nationally and locally concentrated power.
This is far from an ideal world. We will NOT get to an ideal world by jumping on every bandwagon that promises us salvation but firmly runs within the ruts of the status-quo. We WILL get there by reading, listening to and thinking about more than just one faction of political, economic and educational thought. We will not get there by laziness and ignorance. We will get there only by expanding our vision and thoughts far beyond the limits of our narrow range of experiences and beyond bumper sticker slogans, a longed for silver bullet to solve all issues or candidates du jour.
pat, please continue your work , i m waiting for your article every week
radwriter,
“Power diffused and administered without bias or corrupting influences” is an IMPOSSIBILITY.
How do you “BIG MONEY” out of politics??? You prevent government from being a candy store and handing out grants, loans and “stimulus.”
The cure in a sentence–“That which governs LEAST, governs BEST.”
P.S. Clearly your definition of “conservative” encompasses just about anybody who’s not an avowed Marxist. If you honestly believe that most members of Congress are “conservative”, then I don’t know what to tell you because, frankly, you’re beyond reasoning with (as are most so-called “liberals”)
Perhaps I should have been more CLEAR and EXPLICIT, rather than using the common nomenclature of “Conservative” versus “Liberal”. There are TWO basic philosophies one can subscribe to: a) Individualism or b) Collectivism. In reality, the TRUE “liberal” is the INDIVIDUALIST who favors self-responsibility and personal liberty. Each man is an end unto himself. In fact, the modern use of the word “liberal” to describe Progressive Collectivists is a misappropriation of the original intent of the word.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and the like were Liberals. As they have ZERO in common with the people calling themselves “Liberals” today, perhaps it is best we cease using the term at all.
Clearly, your philosophy is just one of a multitude of various ideas, all of which share one thing–a belief that the individual exists merely as part of a greater society and that “society” has a right to control and make demands on any and/or all individual for the “greater good.” Never mind that a few or many will be injured or destroyed either economically or physically, it’s their “duty” to do their “fair share”.
Such a philosophy can only be described as EVIL, as it abrogates the RIGHTS OF MAN which arise, depending on your belief, from either the Creator or Natural Law. Instead it substitutes the “Rights of Men”, who can compel other men to do their bidding, provided it’s done for some “greater good” as determined by some amorphous and unaccountable body of “leaders”.
The information Mr. Heller provides is used by many of us who read his columns to further our ability to take care of (be SELF-responsible) for ourselves and our families. If he makes a few dollars off of selling physical bullion to those of us who buy it of our own free will, well, GOOD FOR HIM. If you don’t agree, no one makes you either read his column OR transact business with him.
I should just ignore your factually incorrect comments, but as others might be misled by your mistatements of facts, unfortunately, I find myself compelled to rebut you.
thanks
Unless one follows the life of the hermit, yes, every individual does indeed exist as a part of some kind of society, like it or not. An individual doesn’t “merely exist” in those societies, but they are, for all intents and purposes, genetically compelled to live as such. Unfortunately “societies” don’t have a “right” to control said societies. There are presently no such civilized country/societies. Yes, there is a real “greater good” to strive for and it should be a part of any society that ASPIRES to be civilized in the real meaning of that word. The ideal of a person being individual is a mythic idealism. Nice to contemplate, but again only a hermit has a real shot to achieve this. In a global world as we now have nations now know that none of them can ever truly go it alone (not for any meaningful length of time) because the global pace simply won’t permit that in the 21st century. If life is to have any meaning in the “pursuit of happiness” it MUST take real concern for the NEEDS OF THE MANY AND ESPECIALLY THE UNDERPRIVILEGED, THE SUFFERING, (unless one subscribes to euthanasia or to some “final solution”).
FDR was considered as a traitor to his upper class. Our country was fortunate to have had him at that time because he knew what true suffering was all about and he knew that it was his duty to implement policies that wore not quite constitutional in order to break the inertia of economic depression. HE WAS A MAN OF ACTION! He is vilified for the 1933 Gold surrender order, but the wealthy did not surrender THEIR GOLD, they shipped it overseas to avoid confiscation. Where does the coin collector of today think that most of those pre-1933 gold coins came back home from? EUROPE mostly, after WWII, and illegally of course. Hoover, of course was wrongly accused of causing the Great Depression. The machinery for that was set in motion LONG before he was in office. (True, he did nothing to abate the depression, but he did not cause it.) In reality the debasement of our national “currency” was orchestrated in retaliation of the Progressivism that had partly been achieved through the Trust Busting era. Effectively it was pure fiat currency to serve a consortium of bankers, led by J.P. Morgan which created the Federal Reserve System in 1913 and, not so coincidentally, INCOME TAXES IN 1913. Even Woodrow Wilson suspected there was a manipulative collusion at work, but alas, it was the DEAL MADE to quell the bank panic that was then current. Believe it or not there really ARE laws or at least formulas that were developed ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO where if anyone living today, knowing and observing, and in a government position the the real power over oversight, COULD HAVE PREVENTED THE ISSUANCE OF THE DERIVATIVES THAT SO EFFECTIVELY DESTROYED THE ECONOMY IN 2008.
The reach to the great Americans of the 18th century and what we perceive their ideals to have been really have small relevance to the 21st century. They, like any men, were of their times, they were men of vision, IN THEIR TIME. The world was still largely agrarian, the Industrial Revolution barely begun. Their aim was to go against the 18th century “1 percent” (i.e.: royalty) to further their prospects and secure their future. To do this was to mobilize the “99 percent” effectively to achieve this. Ironically, the French royalty who supported the U.S. cause failed understand the American ideals as it might apply to France. It exploded in their face with “The Terror of 1793”, the really ugly side of a “99 percent” run amok and rudderless.
More relevant to constitutional meaning should be pointed toward the Progressive Era or roughly 1890 to the present, for some history of possible relevance, (even though the “Industrial Revolution” is over for all intents and purposes in our Technological Age.)
In closing, hey, it is a free country here, buy all the gold & silver you want. Just do it with you eyes wide open AND with the knowledge that all precious metals have been, are, and probably always will be manipulated by those of immense power from individuals to quasi-government entities, to serve their wealth multiplication pyramiding, as that is all it has historically been. Anyone advising people to generally stock up on guns, ammo, and precious metals to the exclusion of any other alternative is just as irresponsible as the old stock tip thing of buy all you can afford and then hold on to it. That’s the only point I want to make. really sensible person might be good to have 10 or 20 percent in precious metals is reasonable though… same for any good stock too. All I’m saying is don’t make wealth protection a holy grail to the end all of what a real human’s responsibility ACTUALLY (Genetically AND Historically by way of RELIGION)… Fellow Man.
P.S. Radwriter. I thoroughly enjoyed your writings. I liked a good 90% of it. Well conceived ideas!!! You ought to write a book! -GC