Loading ...Well so much for helmets for protection less you go down after being hit by a bug. But without eye protection can only imagine what would happen if you guys got hit in the eye or a pebble from a tire of another can that can crack a windshield. Don’t let that news get out or they will make a new law that everyone riding a motorcycle has to wear full body armor.
It was only a mater of time I suppose. Those bureacrats we all love have figured out a way to tax flatulence. Once I would have thought this was funny-not any longer.
www.hpj.com/archives/2008/dec08/dec1/Agastaxforlivestock.cfm
Your WebMasters report from Dr. Gary North’s, Ph.D., member website, November 28, 2008:
“Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving. It is supposed to be an indicator of consumer spending for Christmas. This, in turn, is supposed to indicate consumer confidence. “We already know what consumer confidence is: missing in action. Maybe people will buy today ‘for the kids.’ Maybe not. It will not matter in January if they splurge today. The economy will still be in recession. “The secret of economic growth is not consumer spending. It is saving. There has to be capital formation. “Capital formation will end in 2009. The U.S. government will absorb savings. The deficit will increase by a trillion dollars, minimum. The Treasury must roll over a third of the existing debt. It must find at least $3 trillion, in addition to the $1 trillion. “The recession will kill business spending/investment. The deficit will lure capital from the private sector (risky) to the government sector (wasteful but guaranteed). “This is why the economy is in for a long recession. “The stock market has risen due to blind confidence that ‘we have reached the bottom.’ How can the stock market reach a bottom before the recession is in its final phase? The stock market went down for a year and a half after the recession of 2001 ended. That was a mild recession. There will be nothing mild about this one. It will be deep and long. “This is a worldwide recession. Asia is hurting. Europe is hurting. Every sector is hurting. There is no visible engine of recovery. “Mrs. Joe Sixpack is worried. So is Joe. She may splurge on the kids. Or the retailers may bite the bullet and offer post-Christmas prices. This is likely: profits will be dismal, and some retailers will go bust in January. “When the Christmas bills arrive in January’s mail, the consumer will go into gridlock. “February will be worse. “The layoffs will begin in earnest in February — Obama’s first full month on the job.”
i’ve been hit by all kinds of bugs while on a motorcycle, and they hurt. that’s why i now have a windscreen on my triumph bonneville america. the scariest thing that has happened to me, though, wasn’t a bug, it was a bird. a few years ago, i was on a royal enfield 500 bullet (madras model), coming down a hill a couple miles from here, making maybe 65 or 70, when out of the ditch, comes a red shouldered hawk (we used to call them chicken hawks). the hawk had a small furry critter in its claws and was having trouble making altitude with the extra weight. he passed just in front of me, and i brushed his tailfeathers with my arm. he lost the furry critter, and i almost lost sphincter control. if he had hit me in the chest, i’m pretty sure it would have killed me.
i never come down that particular hill without looking in the ditch for a surprise.
Sometimes it is hard to watch all the madness going on around us these days. Like Floridagold mentions often, Up is Down, Left is Right, East flipped to the West. Its often just a daily struggle to try and make any sense of things once simple. Leave it to the Puppet Masters and thier hordes to make a total mess.
I once feared trying to pick up the pieces once they finished thier path of destruction. I think today, I am adopting/adapting ? my thinking. That perhaps We The People, will be step up, take back control of our lives, and live a more simple, a more peaceful life after they are gone.
Some positive thinking to close out this week….take us on outta here Cat!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sjSHazjrWg
Have a Great Weekend Folks, Farmboy
a guy rides into the emergency room exit at a hospital in oklahoma city. he was from out of state and was westbound on i-40. he felt something hit his face and noticed he was bleeding profusely from his nose and cheek. the attending emergency room physician called the police because he was sure the guy had been slashed by a straight razor. the physician was a little embarrassed when the police arrived and he had to explain how a grasshopper wing had made a deep cut on the guy’s face. most of the bigger flying bugs have very sharp wings and many motorcycle riders have been severely slashed by them.
i guess the moral of the story is to wear a full face shield when confronting bugs at a high rate of speed.
rno
Betcha that boy has the driest armpits in town. Until it starts raining…(grin)
Noticed a bit of ‘Green’ in the Precious Metals this week.
Equisetrum, I think our tradin screens are going to be showing a whole lot more of the John Deere Green in the weeks and months to come. Providing that is, that those idiots at Treasury Dept dont completely sink the whole system trying to ‘Fix’ things. (Wouldnt bet on that…lol)
But, if all the paper does burn, its good to know our woodpiles are safe.
Hope you have a great weekend, Best Farmboy
You ask ‘Why’; I ask ‘How’
Thanks, glad the pics are enjoyed. As mentioned before, taking photos helps remind me to pay attention to the beauty around me. And writing things like ‘the journey is the destination’ is as much of a reminder for myself as for anyone else.
ipso- for the 30+ years I’ve been based in Oregon, for about 20 I’ve lived on the Deschutes River, in five different locations. Right now I’m about 1/4 mile from it. It flows through the town I live in. So I see the river virtually every day and some days I get to play along some of its wilder parts. I could easily be a spokesperson for the local chamber of commerce, but there’s been too much hype already, ’nuff of that. Suffice it to say this is a beautiful area. Thank goodness the oftentimes harsh climate isn’t for everyone or the area would get far busier.
Silvertri- How’s your back doing? Are you able to ride? Hope you’re all healed. On and off for the past week I’ve had lower left back pain accompanied by left side abdominal pain, no pattern to it and no symptoms clearly saying anything specific is wrong. Nurse friend agrees. It was debilitating last night, worst pain I’ve ever had, to the point I took a couple of the oxycodone tabs prescribed for after the ankle surgery last year but I never took. I don’t take that stuff unless necessary and last night I cried uncle. Slept until 9 this morning and woke up with no pain except a chemical hangover. No sign of pain all day today, weird but I’m not complaining. Went out for a bike ride until after dark, just got in. Once again, the clouds were fantastic.
If you’ve seen Sarah speak for more than 5 minutes then you know that Mayor of a small town is about the limit. 
……..Treason…….sell Alaska back to the Russians ?…..hey thats a good idea ….but what about Palin ?………..do they sell her too ?……..maybe she would be Czar of Alaska ?
Equisetum (0:00) last evening, in which you gave reasons why copper may have reasons for price support, did you notice the posting by ipso_facto at 18:49 today which suggested that China is busy buying up base metals now that they are available relatively cheaply. I’m not worried about copper’s future and will continue to hold Taseko, Amerigo, and Northern Dynasty. Of course, I have made wrong choices before. Cheers. Equiz.
Food for thought from Loonie Land…
Murph:
The rigging is done, over, finished.
To save the US taxpayer, the “boys” are now PRAYING for “inflation”. If the “boys” let gold “run”, lumber follows and copper follows and textiles follow and suddenly, the replacement cost of a new home being built will exceed the price of “existing inventory”, it will LIFT housing and make the Bush, Paulsen, Barnanke “legacy” appear wondrous over time. All those convertible preferred shares will skyrocket; the Treasury gets off the nut; money velocity normalizes; and the only problem left in 2010 is a 35% inflation rate, all of which we GATA disciples have prepared for.
I looked at the gold chart today and it bottomed exactly three trading days after China announced the Stimulus Package.
The ETF on the Canadian Gold Index printed $9.10 today which is almost a DOUBLE from the October lows. We are long under $5.00 and are ADDING to positions – on October 1, they traded at $17.00.
God bless GATA.
Mike
Gary North’s REALITY CHECK
Gold’s price:
www.GaryNorth.com/snip/300.htm
The Federal debt:
www.GaryNorth.com/snip/544.htm
To subscribe to this letter:
www.snipurl.com/subscribenow
Issue 810 November 28, 2008
KEEPING DOWN WITH THE JONESES
One of the familiar phrases in American culture is this:
“Keeping up with the Joneses.” The idea behind this phrase is
that we all prefer to be graded on the curve. This begins in
grade school, where we are taught to grade ourselves above all
other skills, which is why it’s called grade school, I guess. We
assess our level of success by looking around us. We look at
those who are closest to us, and we attempt to estimate by
whatever is visible just how well we are doing.
Keeping up with the Joneses is a good policy for as long as
the Joneses are moving ahead. The free market has let the
Joneses move up, beginning around 1775 — 1800 at the latest.
Problem: when the United States government and the Federal
Reserve System join forces to adopt policies that will push the
Joneses over a cliff, it is unwise to keep up with the Joneses.
THE TRAPPINGS OF SUCCESS
Outward appearances are deceiving. We tell our children
this. “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” But if this is
true, then we should not allow ourselves to be graded on the
economic curve.
Our neighbors may not be doing very well, but they conceal
this by the use of debt. It appears that they are getting ahead
of us, when in fact they are falling behind. Maybe they are
borrowing against the equity in their homes. Maybe they are
borrowing on their credit cards. They are trading their future
for the trappings of success.
So are the Federal Reserve System and the United States
Treasury — a scale of deception unique in history. They are
rapidly turning America into Potemkin Village.
Those of us who worry about extensive consumer debt would
regard it as falling behind whenever we find ourselves in a
percentage of indebtedness that equals the level which our
neighbors regard as normal.
Obviously, we do not know the level of debt of our next-door
neighbors. We don’t ask people how much debt they have in
relation to their assets. To do so would be considered impolite.
Americans are amazingly reticent to talk about their wealth.
They don’t even talk about this to their adult children, who have
a stake in their future. So, we really do not know how well our
neighbors are doing. What we do know is that they keep buying
new cars. Maybe they improve their landscaping. Beyond this, we
have very little idea how well they are doing.
We know the outward appearances are deceiving. We also know
that most people do not want to admit publicly that they are in a
bind.
Several years ago, there was a funny TV ad starring a man
named Stanley Johnson. Stanley looked like a complete success.
He had a smiling face. He belonged to the right set. But, as he
admitted late in the ad, he was up to his eyeballs in debt. He
did not know what to do. “Somebody help me,” he said.
It was an ad for a credit consolidation program. The
company went public in August 2008. It opened at $6, shot up to
$11, and now sells for $2. Sorry, Stanley. For a great spoof of
Stanley, see this video:
Part of our problem is the way we select our neighbors.
Sometimes this selection process is almost unconscious. There is
a company, Claritas, that has divided America into 66 different
social and economic categories. It has done detailed studies on
zip codes. It has determined that these zip codes contain
individuals with very similar social and economic backgrounds.
The company makes money — a lot of money — by selling this
information to direct marketers. The information is so accurate
that it reduces the cost to direct marketers substantially. This
is why direct marketers pay a premium price to buy this
information.
The company operates on an assumption. The assumption
appears to be accurate. The assumption is this: we choose our
neighborhoods in terms of very specific criteria. We do not do
this self-consciously, but we do it. We move into neighborhoods
in which people have very similar tastes: in automobiles, in
housing, in the magazines they subscribe to. It is amazing how
similar neighbors are. Yet there is nothing self-conscious about
the way we select our neighbors. We don’t know their names three
years after we move in. Then we move.
Before you move, you should check out the information on
local neighborhoods. You can use Claritas’ free neighborhood
assessment tool to do this. You can find out the five main
social categories of any neighborhood in the United States. Go
here:
The same observation regarding neighborhoods applies to
church membership. A local church is homogeneous. Local
congregations contain people of very similar tastes and
interests. We look at the parking lot of our church, and we
grade ourselves on the curve.
Note: my goal for 30 years has been to stay behind the
parking lot curve. I figure a decade behind is about right. I
did finally did get a $500 paint job for my 1993 Dodge mini-van.
It was looking looked a bit shabby. My church is in the inner
city, and the van had fallen too far behind the curve. It was
time for a paint job. Members noticed.
DEBT AND SOCIAL CLIMBING
Keeping up with the Joneses is an important motivation for
economic growth. We usually don’t like to regard ourselves as
social climbers, yet we are. We make the attempt to climb up
when our income allows us to buy a better home in a better
neighborhood. We think of this as an orderly process. When we
get promoted, we want to let others know. So, we move. We buy
a bigger house. We take on more debt. We buy a better car. We
take on more debt. Some men get a new wife. They take on more
debt.
Debt increases to our level of debt tolerance. Then it
stabilizes. Our rising level of personal debt sustains our
rising level of external appearances. We want to look better, we
want to look more successful. We want to look as though we have
made it. We do so by taking on additional debt, which funds our
rise on the appearance scale. We use debt as a way of getting
ahead of the crowd. The crowd we’re getting ahead of is the
crowd we have just left or intend to leave behind very soon.
One of the statistics I look at occasionally is the
percentage of household income that goes for debt servicing.
This statistic has been on the rise over the last 30 years, but
it has not risen dramatically. It has moved up from about 16% to
about 19%.
www.garynorth.com/snip/729.htm
This is an increase, but it is an increase over a long
period of time. It indicates that consumers are aware of their
limits. They do not get too much beyond their comfort zone. The
absolute level of debt is increasing, but not by much, when
graded on a curve.
This means that as debt becomes more acceptable as a way to
increase our lifestyles, we keep up with the Joneses in terms of
the level of debt we are willing to accept to keep up.
There has been a huge change that is masked by the statistic
of household debt repayment: the disappearance of savings.
American households no longer save. They borrow from the elite
who have money to lend. American households now assume that the
government will take care of them in their old age. This is
moral hazard on a national scale. This is the terrible price of
the wefare state mentality.
The problem arises when the Joneses and the Smiths and the
Browns are all using each other as markers of personal success.
When everyone looks to the curve as the basis of assessing his
own level of success, he is tempted to take on more debt than he
would otherwise accept.
We see a slow ratcheting up of debt in personal finance.
What about corporate finance? Odd as it may seem, the debt-
equity ratio has fallen. In both the United States and Canada,
it was around 90% in 1990. It was closer to 50% in 2006. But
equity has fallen in 2008. The ratio has increased.
This indicates that people pay attention to debt when their
own money is on the line. The problem is government debt.
Politicians’ own money is not on the line. The government’s only
equity is the power to tax. Debt is now skyrocketing. At some
point, there will be a tax revolt. The debt-equity ratio will
skyrocket even faster.
We face an international recession. Business profits are
falling. Consumers are retrenching. The housing markets are
declining for the first time since World War II. Debt is
becoming a liability in a way that it has not been before. It
has become a threat to corporate profits. This is especially
true of the banking industry.
Within the world of fractional reserve banking, keeping up
with the Joneses has meant keeping up with Washington Mutual,
Wachovia, and Citibank. They have kept up together. The
leverage is far greater than in non-financial business. This is
because the government and the Federal Reserve System serve as
the sources of endless bailouts. Moral hazard is a way of life
in banking. So, the debt-equity ratio is far higher here.
Now the financial system is de-leveraging. The visibility
of bad debts is multiplying. I am reminded of the lyrics of a
song written a generation ago by Tom Lehrer: “We’ll all go
together when we go.” Lehrer had in mind nuclear war. He did
not have in mind derivatives. But the song applies to
derivatives equally well.
SINKING TOGETHER
Because we try to keep up with the Joneses, we worry less
about our condition if we think the Joneses are suffering the
same problems. This is most obvious in stock market performance.
The American stock market peaked in March of 2000. Since that
time, discounting for inflation, the stock market is down by
about 60%. The NASDAQ is down even more. But most people did
not worry about this until 2008, when it became obvious that the
stock market was tanking.
Nevertheless, most people have yet to call their pension
fund and tell the person on the phone to get them completely out
of stocks and into either bonds or a money market. The vast
majority of those Americans who have pensions have not made a
decision to get out of stocks entirely. They see that their
future is being decimated by a declining stock market, but they
stay in the market, because they think the Joneses are also
staying in the market. They are therefore content with keeping
down with the Joneses.
If the Joneses are not panicking, we don’t want to panic.
If the Joneses have not put a For Sale sign in front of their
home, we don’t intend to put one in front of ours. If we suspect
that the Joneses have suffered the same percentage loss in their
pension portfolio as we have suffered in ours, we do not panic.
We grade ourselves on the curve.
If the Joneses are doing as poorly as we are, which is what
we think is probably the case, panic does not spread. The desire
to grade ourselves on the curve keeps us on the curve. It keeps
us in the same kinds of investments that we think our neighbors
are invested in. Everybody may moan about the falling stock
market, but as long as everybody is only moaning, and not
panicking, the panic does not spread.
There is going to come a time when the panic will spread.
That time is not far off. The panic about the capital markets
will become widespread: bonds, housing, stocks. When we perceive
that the Joneses are finally selling, we will want to sell, too.
When we perceive that the Joneses have become aware that they
will never be able to retire, we will become aware that we will
never be able to retire.
For almost 30 years, the mantra of academic economists has
been this: “Buy a no-load index fund of the S&P 500, and never
sell it.” That advice has not worked since 2000. It has visibly
failed in 2008. Nevertheless, the mantra has not changed.
At the same time, the investment world has never believed
it. Investment publications, television business news shows,
newsletters, websites, and every other medium that makes money by
selling economic advice have assured people that they should not
buy an index fund and hold indefinitely. No one would need to
pay a subscription to get that kind of advice. Nobody would stay
glued to the television set to watch CNBC if he believed that the
secret of success is to buy a no-load index fund of the S&P 500
and hold it until retirement.
People are told to buy and hold, and they’re also told to
get in and out of sectors. They are told to buy this that or the
other. They are subject to all kinds of rival advice. Every
time Maria Bartimoro interviews anyone, she asks the obligatory
question: “What sectors will do well now?” This is the opposite
of the buy-and-hold mantra.
The best general advice that anyone could give a year ago
was to get out of all stocks and sell short. The best sector to
sell short was the financial sector. Those of us who don’t like
to buy sectoral or sell sectoral told people to sell short the
S&P 500. In other words, sell short a broad index of stocks.
That is what I told my subscribers to do, and I still maintain
that this is still safe way to invest in stocks. It gives you
more profits than simply moving to cash, but moving to cash is
certainly better than staying in a bear market.
The problem is, the Joneses did not believe this message.
The Joneses have stayed in the stock market. This is why the
Joneses and the Browns and the Smiths have suffered enormous
losses. This is why they are not going to be able to retire.
There are other reasons why they are not going to be able to
retire, most of which are related to the fiscal policy of the
United States Treasury and the monetary policy of the Federal
Reserve System. These two organizations are bailing out the good
old boys in the financial sector, at least those who have not
already gone under, and the bailout is going to be put onto the
backs of the Joneses, the Smiths, and the Browns.
There is no protest from the Joneses, the Smiths, or the
Browns, because all of them are looking at the short run, and
they believe that if the government and the central bank did not
intervene, all of their investments will collapse by another 50%.
This assessment is correct. The crucial question is this: Are
their investments going to collapse by another 50% anyway, and
everyone will then be saddled with gigantic debt through the
Federal government, and gigantic wave of price inflation as a
result of the Federal Reserve System’s purchase of toxic waste
assets? In other words, are their investments going to fall just
as much as they would have fallen anyway, but with a huge
increase of the level of debt placed on the backs of the Joneses
and their peers? I think so. CNBC does not.
Everybody in the West is now being consigned to the same
fate: keeping down with the Joneses. Central bank monetary
policy affects everyone. Treasury debt policy affects everyone.
We are all in the same boat. As Tom Lehrer put it, we will all
go together when we go.
We are all burdened by the same disastrous economic
policies, and so, when we grade ourselves on the curve, we say
that we are doing pretty well, even though our score indicates a
major decline. The score keeps dropping, but we grade ourselves
in terms of the curve. We comfort ourselves by saying that
everybody is suffering equally. But this is not true. People
who got out of the market in time, or people who shorted the
market, are doing pretty well.
The problem is, if the entire financial system goes belly-
up, there really is no escape hatch. We really will all go
together when we go. Even those who seem to be beating the
market will find that they cannot beat Federal Reserve policy and
Treasury debt policy.
AGAINST THE GRAIN
There is another factor to consider. An individual who
shorts a market by using an ETF or a bear stock fund finds that
he is going against the grain. So, during periods in which the
market moves up against his position, he gets terrified. He
sells. Then the market heads back down. The person who had
shorted the market panicked early and sold out his position why
did he do this? Because he is still obsessed by the Joneses.
He was willing to tolerate losses in his investment
portfolio from 2000 until the day he finally decided that he had
better short the market. He was willing to keep down with the
Joneses. He was still grading on the curve. He was still
judging his performance in terms of the lousy performance of the
Joneses, the Smiths, and the Browns. He was part of a pack, and
the pack was losing. But he judged his performance, not in terms
of the losses, but in terms of the pack.
The habit of keeping up with the Joneses is extremely
difficult to break. When someone finally breaks free, and
decides not to be graded on a curve any longer, he finds himself
in a completely new world. He finds it very difficult
psychologically to deal with markets based on the performance of
a market and not based on the performance of the Joneses.
So, when he shorts the market, he knows that he is doing
this all by himself. He has broken with the Joneses, the Smiths,
and the Browns. He finds himself all by himself. He is no
longer a member of the pack. He is not used to operating in such
a situation. So, he lacks self-confidence. When the market
moves against him, he panics, and he gets out of the position.
He does not ask himself whether or not the Joneses, the Smiths,
and the Browns are going over the cliff in a bear market rally.
Instead, he doubts his own wisdom, and he goes into a money
market fund. He is probably smart enough not to go back into the
stock market, but he does not have the courage to keep the short
position.
The problem we face today is that the United States Treasury
the Federal Reserve System have adopted policies that are going
to push Americans’ wealth down. They are adopting long-term
policies that are guaranteed to produce disasters, and they do so
for the sake of bailing out their cronies in the financial sector
in the name of stabilization.
The public wants to hear about stabilization, because the
public has suffered enormous losses in their stock holdings.
They understand their retirement dreams are being smashed. So,
they are willing to accept the promise about stabilization and
protection when in fact what is being guaranteed is the
destruction of the monetary unit and a vast increase in taxes.
What is also being guaranteed is a future panic upward move of
interest rates, when the solvency of the United States government
bonds system is called into question internationally, and because
the dollar is going to be falling so fast that lenders demand
higher rates of interest to compensate them for the loss of
purchasing power.
We are going to see rising interest rates, rising mortgage
rates, and falling home prices as a result. Yet we’ve been
assured by the secretary of the Treasury that the heart of the
economic problem today is falling home prices. But because
interest rates are going to be forced up by Federal Reserve
policy and by Treasury debt policy, the mortgage markets are
going to go into a disaster zone. We are going to see, as we saw
back in 1981 and 82, mortgage rates at 15% or maybe higher. The
result is going to be the same as it was in the early 1980’s:
reduce the demand for housing. People are not going to be able
to qualify for an mortgage loans under the new conditions.
If the Federal Reserve intervenes directly to buy the debt
of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as it appears today than the FED
is doing, in order to force down mortgage rates, this is going to
come at the expense of a massive increase of the money supply.
Prices of everything else will be going up. People’s budgets
will be trapped by rising prices. Discretionary income will
decline.
This will still place an enormous burden on anyone who wants
to buy a house. His credit score will not qualify him for a
loan. If the Federal Reserve distorts the market in order to
keep housing prices moving up, it is going to distort the other
markets far worse, where prices will be going up even faster.
Americans are going to have to get used to the idea of
keeping down with the Joneses. The Joneses are trapped by
Treasury policy and Federal Reserve policy. There is nothing
they can do about it. A few people can take evasive action, but
everyone cannot take the same evasive action at the same time.
If everyone tries to get through the same window of opportunity,
a line will form in front of the window of opportunity, and the
price of getting through it will double or triple.
The only way that you can escape the trap is to stop trying
to keep up with the Joneses, because that approach is going to
force you to keep down with the Joneses. The only way that you
can get through any window of opportunity is because nobody else
has seen it as a window of opportunity. They don’t perceive that
it’s necessary to get through this window of opportunity.
You have to decide not to be graded on the curve if you’re
going to survive the disaster that the Federal Reserve System and
the United States Treasury have created since September 7, 2008.
With the nationalization of the mortgage market by the United
States government, we have seen the end of free capital markets
for the remainder of our lives. There is no going back. The
door of retreat has been closed. The government has taken over
the capital markets. The Joneses are going to lose.
So, you had better start thinking about ways to keep way
ahead of the Joneses. Obviously, there are limits to this
strategy, because we and the Joneses are on the Titanic. We can
get into a lifeboat if we move fast enough, but it is still going
to be a lifeboat. It is better to be on the Titanic than a
lifeboat until the Titanic sinks. A person gets into a lifeboat
only because he thinks the ship is going to sink.
If you get into the lifeboat thinking that it’s going to
take you to a bigger, larger, more luxurious ship, and you will
also be able to get a ticket on that ship for 20% or 50% off,
then you will not appreciate the lifeboat. You aren’t going to a
nicer ship. Your best hope is to get to a freighter that will
get you back to land. If you think you’re going to get more than
that, you’re terminally naive. Sorry, but that is the reality of
a world in which the Federal Reserve System and the United States
Treasury team up to keep crony capitalism alive, at the expense
of the economic futures of the Joneses.
CONCLUSION
Then who will win? The Wongs and the Patels. You are ahead
of them today. Hitch your wagon to their star. They will not
stay behind on the curve much longer.
In American high schools, the Wongs and the Patels raise the
curve. They will do the same in the economic markets, too.