Let me tell you story. I know a guy. He’s a financial planner/investment banker type who from time to time helps me out. In November I had lunch with him after the first initial crash and wanted his opinion on the gather storm clouds I saw just over the horizon. He told me a few interesting things one of which kinda scared your Hero Halo a bit. He said, ‘Halo, I am advising my clients who have enough liquid assets to secure remote, sustainable property. I’m advising this because for very little capital outlay, they can have a lot of security.’
Ted, I looked right into this guys eyes and saw a certain fear that I have never seen before. This is a man who manages literally billions of dollars worth of assets and he looked as though his entire concept of reality had been shaken to the core. I wasn’t really sure what to do. In all the years I had been dealing with him I had never seen this and wondered why now? What’s different this time? Well, there are many things, but when a guy with these kinds of resources at his disposal says stuff like this, it might be time to start listening.
Titanium Halo
February 5, 2009
Sheep Say, “Baaaaaa”
[I’ve been putting a lot of time into economics recently and hope to have a post on the results of my research sometime this weekend. As a teaser let me just say:
- The “stimulus plan” violates my Jews In The Attic Test.
- Daughter Kim’s economics class is reading books that talk of the U.S. government and the CIA “forcing free trade”, and how “capitalism destroys community ties”.
- My research has involved talking to people from China, India, Ireland, Romania, and Sri Lanka. People speak in hushed tones with a very somber demeanor. It’s bad everywhere.
- While discussing the politics of our new socialist nation, even without explicit mention that my Jews In The Attic Test was being violated, a friend recently told me that an AK has an expected life of about 50K rounds and even though they have several such rifles it wasn’t enough to solve the problem even if they had enough rounds and didn’t encounter resistance.
We have very, very big problems ahead of us. And the worst part is that the people that caused the problems will likely get more support as the situation gets worse. They will demand more and more “help” from those that put everyone in jeopardy. And the unless very aggressive action is taken by people, who have shown very little backbone in the past, the last people to go down are likely going to be the people that created and aggravated the problems.
I know who John Galt is, but where is his gulch?–Joe]
Unless you are Dagney Taggart, you have to be invited to Galt’s Gulch (Midas really owns it, but…).
This general drift has crossed my mind, but I am not fit enough to go self-sufficient.
The sad thing is that people continue to think that money grows on trees and more importantly the value which money represents does not spring unbidden from the loins of government.
It wasn’t a serious question, just an obscure way of saying there do not appear to be many good options available.
You are right. People don’t seem to realize that money is just a generic redeemable coupon for goods and services. And unless that coupon is backed someone willing to redeem it then it is meaningless. And frequently the logic for demanding government action is very flawed. It goes something like this, “Bad things will happen unless action is taken. I can’t afford to take the action therefore the government must take action.” They completly miss the issue that perhaps the government can’t afford it either and the best option may be to let the bad thing happen and deal with it as best you can. Nationalized health care comes to mind.
I’d like to think that a mix of “Unintended Consequences” and “Enemies, Foreign and Domestic” would be a start on the fix for these problems. Unfortunately the reality is far worse then the fiction.
As I commented somewhere else, I was hoping to be dead BEFORE the Republic died. That’s looking less and less likely.
I know where the real Galt’s Gulch is, but it doesn’t help any.
I don’t think there will be much escaping the mess, only hunkering down and surviving.