We all know inflation is coming, I mean, there's no way to avoid it now. As we begin to deal with the consequences, it helps if we spot the slight-of-hand used by marketeers. Kinda makes you wonder if ethics classes were ever even offered as part of the marketing curriculum at some of these business schools. The price of spaghetti sauce, for example, has remained at one dollar at my local grocery store for many years. We use quite a bit at our house so this makes our budget happy.
Then, as Wifey was making spaghetti for dinner tonight, she notices something (sorry for the blurry cell camera image).
The spaghetti cans we have been buying for years have shrunk...by two ounces. Two ounces may not seem like much but it all adds up. Inch by inch, ounce by ounce, we're either paying the same price (or more) and getting less and less product.
I asked last week where we can find an American counterpart to Nigel Farage. When Nigel takes the floor of the European parliament, he harpoons all those knuckle-draggers that are blatantly causing the downward economic spiral in the E.U.
Much like watching an old John Wayne movie, Farage tells the bad guys exactly what he thinks of them and that they'll get what's coming to them. Bad guys never win in the long run...at least not in a John Wayne movie. I'd like to see the same outcome for the malaligned governments and crooked bankers of the world. But who is going to take them down?
Well, today's tongue lashing came from none other than our own Repulican from Texas Ron Paul. In a monetary progress report to Congress, Bernanke attempted his usual diatribe regarding how profitable the Federal Reserve has been in the past two years ($125 billion in profits) and how the Fed doesn't "spend" money, it "loans" money. Sounds like "the rich get richer" to me.
Paul points out from the onset that consumer spending makes up 2/3rds of the American GDP but yet the Fed keeps printing money and giving it to the "too big to fail" companies. This doesn't help consumer spending at all. It simply puts more profits back into the pocket of big business (again, rich getting richer).
Paul even points out that if the Fed had wanted to boost consumer spending and spur the economy, the $5 trillion that went to big business could have been giving directly to the citizens of our country to the tune of $17,000 PER CITIZEN. Who in their right mind would argue that the citizens woulnd't have spent the $17k on consumer goods and services? That would have been a HUGE boost for the economy. Instead, we saw minimal job creation and massive bonus increases to CEOs (who also didn't pay corporate taxes: hello General Electric?).
Bernanke, clearly taken aback by Paul's comments as noted by his long pause of silence, let's it be known that he doesn't think gold is money. Really? Perhaps this gives an insight into what Ben thinks money is. Since he can't double or triple the gold supply, therefore devaluing everyone else's gold while causing inflation and printing more gold for himself...gold can't be money...at least in his world.
So I'd like to thank Senator Paul for not only interupting Bernanke at least four times and making Ben look like an ass, but for also standing up to these cretons and letting them know that we are all aware of the shenanigans they are pulling and that their time is coming. I will be donating to Paul's campaign today as a thank you for his efforts.
The answer to 1984...Pilgrim...is 1776.
~OJD
If you just came out from under a rock, here's a quick comical tutorial on our government:
I've been prepping for over a year now and have quite a few things squared away, as it were. The impass that I'm coming to now is: where do we go from here?
In a prior post, I mentioned my redundancy plan. We have most major bases covered. Of course, you could never have too much of anything so we'll continue to stock up on food and ammo.
I'm just wondering what we'll do when gas hits $6 a gallon. I'm not sure it will be viable to drive the kids to school.
We've found a terrific school that we've used for about four years now. We've gotten to know the teachers and the curriculum is successful. The problem is going to be that the school is 16 miles one way, from our house.
If we get 10 mpg in our Suburban, and I'm UNDERestimating, then that's three gallons per day for a round trip. At $5 per gallon, we're talking $15/day just to take two of our six girls to school. Five days a week means $75/week or $300/month just to go to school. $6/gal gas would cost $360 per month. There is no bus system to our neighborhood.
Theoretically, if I buy an older Toyota that gets an estimated 30mpg the math would change. It would then only take ONE gallon of gas to get the girls to school and back, as opposed to three gallons. At $5/gal, that saves me $10/day, $50/week, $200/month (using 4 weeks in a month for simplification).
Most decent Toyotas/Hondas that I've seen on CraigsList are selling for around $1500-$2500. The midpoint being $2000, the breakeven point for me would be at 10 months. Saving $200 a month in gas for 10 months would equal the $2000 it cost to buy the economical car.
I wish I had some historical data that could help me predict how long the gas prices will skyrocket before landing back into reasonable levels.
