New Year…..probably not so happy.
80 years of FDR socialism come home to roost in 2009.
Having been a pauper at the start I suppose I’m better prepared for it than most. It has been nice to be so fortunate as to improve substantially upon that meager station in life. The current successful defensive investment strategy will probably prove meaningless once my property is seized by the state. Yet I persist, as hope springs eternal. Is it time to go long again? Is a PE ratio below 8 going to last? It do seem unlikely in a stable market, and one must hedge. The real question is “Is this a stable market?”. My doubts are no doubt clear. 😉
Maybe the glee of having been correct several times will be enough to sustain the family once the actual assets themselves are seized at gunpoint by the neoCommie mob. Maybe it would be best to just spend it all now. Cash everything out and live large for a few years. Eat the seed corn. That goes completely against my naturally frugal nature, but it does seem to be a viable option. The current penalties for early withdrawal may, in hindsight, appear quite reasonable once we get to 2015. Alternatively, what hard asset will hold its value, but also escape the wrath of overzealous or targeted taxation by a failing government infrastructure? Gold coin is so impractical. Buy seed corn maybe?
Time for tea, as the Titanic slips beneath the waves! More Circus, less Bread pleeeeze! 😮
One thing is certain. It will be interesting to watch those who have no experience with poverty cope, their pockets full of hope and very little change. The bottom is completely unfamiliar territory for so many today. Most folks think they have it tough, but “tough” is a very subjective thing. All things considered, I would rather have it “tough” here in one of the wealthiest places known in the history of mankind. It sure beats the crap out of living in a cave in the desert, or a squat in the rain forest. Even the tar paper shack in the sugar cane field was better than that. It at least had screens on the door and windows. It had a door and window to put screen on. Livin’ large, relatively speaking.
What’s up with all the whining about de-regulation? Are there really less regulations than there were in 1930? Than in 1950? 1970? 1990? 2000? People really seem to believe this claptrap, even though every day anecdotal experience is enough to disprove the assertion. More stupid laws that won’t be enforced equally will solve no problems. Are the stupid laws worse than the unequal enforcement?
If it were not for the rapidly approaching demise of “the press”, their new position as the Josef Goebbels wing of the neoCommunist party might be alarming. Fortunately that seems to be a self correcting problem. Good riddance.
I also ponder the reception such ideological radicals as Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin would receive in today’s political environment. Their ideals are so far outside the realm of today’s prominent domestic ideologies that they would once again be quite radical. Would they now be dismissed by being labeled as “kooky libertarians”, and then pilloried in the public square? It seems likely that is exactly what would happen.
Yet their arguments are still timeless. Not bad for a bunch of non-technical barbarians from the edge of the frontier, despite their personal failings. I should be so lucky.
They did foresee the end of their experiment in personal liberty, but they left no indication of how long they thought it might actually last. That is now an un-answerable question, but one that is fascinating. Once America is just like every other socialist shithole or tinpot dictatorship across the planet, the experiment is over. Will the experiment ever again be resurrected? I suspect not, as human nature seems to be drawn to lording over one another. The historical precedent on that is clear – the experiments in individual liberty are damn few and far between.
Adam Smith would be tarred and feathered today. Too “mean spirited”.
…and thus the ideological solipsism shall end. This is to be the one and only political diatribe ever to “grace” this area. It is now to be henceforth and evermore an ideology free zone…. at least until the lights go out permanently. At which point it is all moot anyway.
psssst!…….George Bush killed the dinosaurs!