pdub271's  Instablog

Debt and budget deficits/surpluses are partially influenced by the government, but also largely influenced by what citizens consume, and the resources that companies extract, import and export.  

America is rich in coal and natural gas.  Yet we don't use the NG, and coal is becoming less fashionable in the new eco-friendly era.  Cap-and-trade might ultimately leave coal as under-utilized as NG.

Imagine a thousand dollar steak.  Kind of like a Kobe beef, but better -- so carefully prepared from the cow to the plate, that it's truly heaven on earth.

Imagine that American companies produce this thousand dollar steak.  There is some demand abroad, so exporting the steak is a possibility.   Now, US demand for the steak determines whether it is exported or not:  If there is low enough US demand, and high enough foreign demand, then exporting the steak will be more profitable than selling locally. Those two scenarios (export or consume in US) have completely different effects on the health of the US economy:

How good of an investment is gold really?  All the recent gold talk motivated me to look it up.  A quick calculation revealed that over the past 30 years, the number of 36 month returns that exceeded 5% APY is a meager 45%.  Investments in gold are often outperformed by even conservative investment strategies.

Perhaps that's not so suprising, since gold doesn't DO anything.  Gold -- that lazy bastard -- requires time and resources to extract, and then it just sits there.  Sort of like Paris Hilton.  Well, ok, Gold probably does a tiny bit more than Paris Hilton.  Gold is used in some electronics, and helps the guys garner favor from the ladies.  Silver, though, definitely does a lot more than Gold and Paris Hilton combined.  Silver is heavily used in many industrial applications, and is probably better labeled a "natural resource" like oil/coal, rather than a precious metal. Silver can even be used as an antibiotic!