Long Silver John

Obama's Sure-Fire Formula for Accelerating Inflation

I think we should be allowed to print our own money on home computers. When the paper runs out, we just use thin slices of baloney. That removes any pretense as to what's going on. I would like to know the Fed's exit strategy for removing excess reserves. Don't they have to sell something? Like toxic assets on their balance sheet? Or can they just tell the banks to give the money back?

Gold as an Inflation Hedge

It's pretty simple: physical gold and silver are the only assets I can think of where I no longer have to trust anyone. Our history is replete with examples of how the government, their banking pals, industry and others having control over money can't be trusted. For fun, read the "gold cases" from the US Supreme Court in the 1930's, where they turn themselves into a pretzel to renege on the plain promise stamped on every Gold Certificate, that it can be redeemed for gold coin. They completely reneged on that promise.

Tipping Point for U.S. Treasuries?

Price signals are all out of whack. If the Fed is directly (or through proxies) buying up Treasuries, to keep interest rates low, then why wouldn't they later just transfer cash to Treasury without bother going through the public bond market? That next logical step in hiding our finances would keep Treasuries off the market and the reported rates low.... That would make it difficult to execute "my plan... to continue to track the signals indicating when and where a tipping point may be reached." Seems like we're headed for Niagara Falls in the night, without knowing just when we'll be going over the cliff...

Crossing the Rubicon: Monetizing the Long Bond

I've always been optimistic, but I just pulled out from the last of my mutual funds and put the money into physical gold. I also stockpiled canned goods and commodities that I'm likely to need during the next year. If you read Murray Rothbard's "America's Great Depression," (available online in pdf) you can see where this is headed (just change the names and dates).