Posts Made By: James C Chandler Jr

Erwin Miller said:

Gold is losing its Midas touch. Has dropped below $1200 at $1193 an ounce down 21 bucks. Is this the beginning of the unraveling of that bubble?

I suggest those former gold owners buy Campbell's Soup. Not the shares, but the actual cans of soup. As in Harlan Ellison's "A Boy and his Dog" canned goods may well become the new currency.

Goes up'n'down like any commodity. I'm glad it occasionally goes down, because I don't buy at peaks.

Ya pays yer money and takes yer chances. A mattress of cash or numbers in a bank account is like a tray of water on the counter-- It slowly evaporates until nothing is left. Stocks and to a lesser extent metals, are like a tall glass sitting on the counter-- Occasionally it can tip over and spill half yer water.

Real Estate may be better if purchased in a dip, unless the govt raises property tax go too high for maintainability, or unless the govt decides to seize the property for the benefit of the collective.

Bullets don't make great trade goods if it gets really bad, unless you can trade with friends. A stranger might trade for yer bullets then shoot you with em.

Canned goods are too heavy to tote and do have expiration dates. Mac&Cheese is the overland hiker's staple-- Compact and light with lots of calories if you have the luxury to cook. You don't get malnutrition right away eating junk food. Granola bars are light and reasonably compact and you don't have to cook em, but they do have expiration dates. Maybe stock up on Little Debbie's. Those things are so full of chemicals I don't think they can go bad .

These are not the droids you are looking for.

Paul Kammueller said:
There being a lot of chatter about debt crises all over the planet now is kind of interesting for the following reason: one man's debt is always another man's investment. The balance sheet must balance, after all.

Hi Paul

Are you so sure that it is necessarily true that one man's debt is always another man's investment?

Neglecting mammoth national and world debt for a moment. Examine a contrived microeconomic example.

1. One day I invest $100,000 in a local bank savings account.

2. Next day I borrow $1,000,000 from the local bank. The bank uses the margin ratio from my previous $100,000 savings deposit, to borrow $900,000 from the Federal Reserve. That gives the bank sufficient funds to loan me $1,000,000

So the Fed printed $900,000 and the bank loaned my original money back to me, plus the Fed's new-printed-money-from-air.

So my debt is $1,000,000, and my investment is $100,000. That doesn't seem to balance to me.

The bank has a 'debt' to pay me my $100,000 on demand, and it has an asset of the $1,000,000 I owe (plus interest). And the debt to the Fed, of course.

It doesn't REALLY balance except for that $900,000 of new-money-out-of-air that came from the Federal Reserve via the deposit reserve ratio.

I don't think that $900,000 from thin air really qualifies as a "balancing investment" by the Federal Reserve, because all they had to do was pay a clerk to tap some numbers into a computer. My original $100,000 investment was a WHOLE lot more trouble to come by, than the Fed money.

Mike Strieber said:

Obama's speech was a little over an hour ago and I don't remember a damn thing he said. Even Olbermann nailed it...."he didn't aim low, he didn't aim at all." Carter inspired me more.

Mike

It may be a blessing that Obama is so over-exposed. Thataway, hardly anyone tunes in, and therefore do not get repeatedly bludgeoned in the head by the feller's vapidness.

Circa 2003, the remote control mute button got renamed the "Bush button". Now it is the "Obama button".

Stop covering for Obama's Incompetence--

"Hon. James David Manning, PhD speaks about the British Petroleum oil spill and says the red phone is going to ring again. "

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paCspv-C3ug

Michael Koons said:

Cleaning up beaches, there should be a ton of work and OSHA is allowing 10 minutes of work per hour because of the heat. At that rate it will take 5 times the number of people and a ton more of BP's money to get cleaned up. Unbelievable................. OSHA s%cks!!!!!!!!!! 8O

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNFy6YshX4E

FEMA = "FIND EVERY MEXICAN AVAILABLE"

Hi Rod

That is a good movie.

Have you ever seen Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai"? Supposedly "The Magnificent Seven" was a western remake of "Seven Samurai". I like both of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Samurai

Doesn't "Muqtada" translate to "Bubba" in English?

Would I have to send 1099's to Apple and HP when I buy new biz computers? That would be nuts.

Mike Strieber said:
How bad is the outlook? We have a choice in NV of Harry Reid or "Crazy Sharron" Angle and the lunatic Angle is the better choice by far. Now that's scary.

It is easily possible to get someone worse than Reid. OTOH if you can just substitute any warm body for Reid, if the substitute isn't hell-bent on spending money we don't have and writing new law to further control the personal lives of 300 million people, maybe it is a marginal improvement. After all, it is pretty crazy to spend trillions of dollars we don't have and have no feasible way of earning. Especially to spend that money on ephemeral stuff that is gone as soon as the money is spent. At least the 1930's depression era crazy spending bought lots of dams, roads, and hiking trails.