EXCERPT: I hate to say I told you so.  But, I told you so a couple of years ago.  This self-indulgent consumer model (the name says it all) is unsustainable.  If you want to see where it might lead, read Aldous Huxley’s Brave New But that is fantasy, a fantasy that could only materialize if so many predictable and unpredictable intermediate cataclysmic events were somehow not spawned by this unsustainable model.    This consumer model depends on at...

EXCERPT: I told you so!  Now pay attention!!    Investopedia A Forbes Digital Company    What Does Reserve Currency Mean?       A foreign currency held by central banks and other major financial institutions as a means to pay off international debt obligations, or to influence their domestic exchange rate.      Investopedia explains Reserve Currency      Currently,...

EXCERPT: Japan, South Korea, even India and China are getting into the drivers seat.    The greedy arrogant narcissistic CEOs in Detroilet have not listened to the market or read the hand-writing-on-wall since the 1970s.  They have championed the immediate profit margin over the global reality that has been emerging since the end of WWII, and America’s auto industry is in the Federal Government's ICU today because of it.   The government promoted, and...

EXCERPT: That is not a new idea.  I remember my mother griping about a well-to-do aunt that was receiving SS benefits.  She said she didn’t need it, and shouldn’t be receiving it because she could get along without it.  She was advocating means testing even if she didn’t have the name to hang on it.     I don’t know.  The arguments on the other side back then are a bit fuzzy.    My argument is that I could have...

EXCERPT: In view of the current state of affairs, you may wish to review this series of articles posted back in 2006.  It explains the origins, evolution and looming endgame of this conspiracy that governs the rise and fall of the American middle class.       1.  The Rise and Fall of the American Middle Class: The Big Idea.
2.  The Rise and Fall of the American Middle Class: A Faulty Foundation.
3.  The Rise and Fall of the American Middle Class:...

EXCERPT: Let us review:  The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg: Confidence Alert   In summary: America The Golden Egg.  We emerge unchallenged economically from the Second World War.
The Golden Egg hatches.  Our money is accepted globally, even though it’s just...
The Golden Egg hatches.  Our money is accepted globally, even though it’s just paper.  The whole world has confidence in the integrity and stability of America.  The dollar...

EXCERPT: How about that Tim Geithner?   The Treasury Secretary’s plan has the Bush econ nose dive by the scruff of the neck and is turning it around.   Treasury's Bank Plan Sparks a Broad Rally By Ylan Q. Mui and Renae Merle Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 24, 2009; Page D01    Stock markets staged a massive rally yesterday, soaring as much as 7 percent after the Treasury Department unveiled a plan to help banks purge their...

EXCERPT: The flimflam man is alive and well.    Back in the 1950’s and 1960’s the house salesman would try to sell you a house.  With time, luck and effort that house might then become a structure within which you and yours would create a home for yourself and your family.     Somewhere in the 1970s the house salesman was elevated to a higher plain of existence with a simple marketing strategy:    The salesman was re-titled as a...

EXCERPT: The unemployment insurance weekly claims report for the week ending November 8, 2008 has an advance seasonally adjusted figure of 516,000, indicating an increase of 32,000 from the previous week. The four-week moving average hit 491,000, an increase of 13,250 from the previous month.  The last time seasonally adjusted weekly claims hit half a million was during the week ending September 29, 2001, when 517,000 claims were filed.
During the week ending 11/01/2008 [latest data...

EXCERPT: Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
 
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
 
So, that's what they decided to do.  The ten men drank in the bar...