curious cat

The Big Whoosh: Is This The Beginning?

uwe... i'm 55 and i remember, as a kid working in a concession stand, selling peanuts, hollywoods, oh henrys, paydays, chewing gum and potato chips for a nickel each. i remember the first time we raised our prices and someone complained, too. i felt real bad because it still looked like a nickel bag of potato chips.

i remember having hamburgers at mcdonalds for a quarter and thinking how much the price had gone up, how much cheaper things used to cost just a few years ago. there was a time that i could see two movies, a double header, at the garden theater for a quarter and when the price went to $.50 for one movie! unbelievable!

when i was in high school, we shopped around for the lowest priced gasoline because we didn't want to pay the outrageous price of $.16 a gallon if we could get it for a penny or two less. i remember when nixon took us off the gold standard and lots of people were collecting silver coins because they were "worth more". as a young man, i earned less than $2.00 an hour. i only recently threw out my paystubs. i'm glad i only move once every twenty years or so.

trust me when i tell you that the price of everything has been going up for years. the only sustained reduction in prices that i have seen over my lifetime is the result of importing goods from japan, china and the other emerging nations.

think about the massive benefits we have enjoyed over the years from cheap imported fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, clothing, cars, computers, toys, etc. hell, if houses weren't so big, americans would have imported them, instead of the huge mexican labor force we invited. god bless them all and we complain that they want citizenship. when was the last time you went up on your roof to hammer a shingle? when was the last time anyone picked fruits or vegetables? evidently, we cannot make a machine that can do it cheaper than they can.

my point, and i do have one or two but i admit that i had a senior moment there, is that inflation is not new. commodities have gone up in price before. competition is good for everyone, even detroit. we live in the most exciting times, in the greatest nation, in the history of the world. rather than thank the lord for every breath we take, we complain, we fight, we compare ourselves to game show contestants, we are incapable of understanding zen because we are the only one that matters.

victimnation... you thought i forgot about you, didn't you? well, the truth is that our parents paid cash because they didn't have as great of a banking system as we do. they had gone through the depression and the "great wars" and had no faith in banks because the banks failed and the government did not come to the rescue. our bankers may fail, but our government has vivid recollection of what happens when you do not come to the rescue of your banks. our government is full of people that are that old.

besides, you have allowed the liberal media to mislead you into believing that most americans are in debt and cannot afford to pay for things. that is simply not the case. sure, there have always been those idiots who have to have more than they can afford, but we've always had chapter 11 and 13 for them. the rest of us pay with credit cards because it is convenient and then pay off our bill when it arrives every month. we get discounts when we do that too.

in fact, we have steadily increased our wealth as individuals, even as our politicians have made every effort to redistribute our hard earned money to people who do not understand what it means to work for a living. we have thousands and thousands of millionaires in america. we'd have one more if it wasn't for that pesky tech bubble fiasco, but we still have plenty.

my parents had a third grade education when they left the "old country". they had no money, they could not speak english and were in their mid-thirties when they came over on the boat (not a cruise ship either). still, they managed to raise eight children without government "assistance". they didn't have washing machines, dryers, refrigerators, microwaves, computers, disposable diapers or tv dinners.

they walked everywhere. they worked unbelievably hard, a lot harder than most young americans can imagine today. but, the people in emerging markets know exactly what that means. that's why they can see their futures improving. that's why their economies will not fail. there will always be a segment of the world's population that is busting their asses, excuse my french, to get ahead. if you think our economy will fail and our money will collapse, just invest in them. personally, i will put my money on the house.


i have seen gold and silver go up before. i have seen tech bubbles, housing bubbles and bubblicious gum. there's always a bubble right behind the last one. keep chewing, even when the flavor is gone.