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Seasons' Greetings!
Permit me to defend myself.
When I graduated from college in 1971 and moved to a big city for employment, I lived in an apartment next door to an elderly retired German couple. Oscar Stein and his wife had emigrated from Germany in the late 1920's, worked in the Detroit auto factories, and retired to Alabama to be near children. Mr. Stein, as I called him, was a wonderful man and I loved to sit and chat with him. What caused him to leave Germany, as he explained, was hyper-inflation. Being in his 20's, he worked as a laborer. He got paid each day in German Marks and, he explained, he had to spend them on his way home because, next day, they wouldn't be worth anything. He added that a piece of gold jewelry or a gold or silver coin was priceless and could be bartered for anything. I found his story quite remarkable and remembered it thenceforth. His story was reinforced recently when I looked up hyper-inflation in Wikipedia. A graph appears showing German inflation in the 1920's and the depiction is utterly astounding.
Our National Debt is at a tipping point beyond which our future will be irrevocably set. We will be following post-WWI Germany's path. The result will be economic calamity. Anything denominated in dollars (bank accounts, retirement accounts, pensions, Social Security, welfare assistance, government employee paychecks, debts, mortgages, credit card balances) will become worthless. When stability eventually emerges perhaps several years later, young people who hustle will have an opportunity and time to rebuild and, being young, will not generally have lost much. Those whose subsistence depends on dollar-denominated items as listed (the elderly, the poor and disabled on welfare, civil servants, schoolteachers) will be hurt very badly. But unlike Mr. Stein's day, a gold or silver coin will not be negotiable currency. Gold and silver are now commodities like soybeans, corn, and cotton. Wal-Mart, Kroger, Target, McDonald's, and Wendy's will not be accepting gold and silver. So one should be careful when planning for the future.
And economic calamity will, most assuredly, be accompanied by political calamity. But that's a different subject, perhaps, for another day.
Happy Holidays!
J.B.
Permit me to defend myself.
When I graduated from college in 1971 and moved to a big city for employment, I lived in an apartment next door to an elderly retired German couple. Oscar Stein and his wife had emigrated from Germany in the late 1920's, worked in the Detroit auto factories, and retired to Alabama to be near children. Mr. Stein, as I called him, was a wonderful man and I loved to sit and chat with him. What caused him to leave Germany, as he explained, was hyper-inflation. Being in his 20's, he worked as a laborer. He got paid each day in German Marks and, he explained, he had to spend them on his way home because, next day, they wouldn't be worth anything. He added that a piece of gold jewelry or a gold or silver coin was priceless and could be bartered for anything. I found his story quite remarkable and remembered it thenceforth. His story was reinforced recently when I looked up hyper-inflation in Wikipedia. A graph appears showing German inflation in the 1920's and the depiction is utterly astounding.
Our National Debt is at a tipping point beyond which our future will be irrevocably set. We will be following post-WWI Germany's path. The result will be economic calamity. Anything denominated in dollars (bank accounts, retirement accounts, pensions, Social Security, welfare assistance, government employee paychecks, debts, mortgages, credit card balances) will become worthless. When stability eventually emerges perhaps several years later, young people who hustle will have an opportunity and time to rebuild and, being young, will not generally have lost much. Those whose subsistence depends on dollar-denominated items as listed (the elderly, the poor and disabled on welfare, civil servants, schoolteachers) will be hurt very badly. But unlike Mr. Stein's day, a gold or silver coin will not be negotiable currency. Gold and silver are now commodities like soybeans, corn, and cotton. Wal-Mart, Kroger, Target, McDonald's, and Wendy's will not be accepting gold and silver. So one should be careful when planning for the future.
And economic calamity will, most assuredly, be accompanied by political calamity. But that's a different subject, perhaps, for another day.
Happy Holidays!
J.B.
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