Great Depression Online Archive Issue:

An Intangible Experience of Significant Cultural Importance

Great Depression Online
Long Beach, CA
June 12, 2009

Inside This Issue You Will Discover…

*** Certificates of Guaranteed Confiscation
*** Going for Broke Should Be Much More Fun
*** An Intangible Experience of Significant Cultural Importance
*** And More

Certificates of Guaranteed Confiscation

The U.S. Treasury exhaled yesterday.  For there were still enough people actually willing to lend them money.  We don’t know who in the world would load up on 10-Year Treasury Notes these days…but, amazingly, enough lenders showed up to cover the $19 billion auction of government debt.

What’s more, they only asked for a mere 4 percent in return.

“Concerns about the growth of government borrowing on Wednesday forced the US Treasury to give investors in an auction of $19bn in 10-year notes a yield of 3.99 per cent – 4 basis points higher than the yield available before the auction,” reported The Financial Times.

~~~~~~Gold and Silver eBook~~~~~~

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Among the unique insights in this free eBook are 6 eye-opening tables that reveal how gold and silver performed vs. stocks and T-notes during each of the 11 recession-expansion cycles of the past 100 years.  These tables alone are worthy of a high price tag, but you can download them for free.  You’ll also get valuable analysis for gold stocks, precious coins and more – all at no cost.  Check it out here: Gold and Silver eBook.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Who knows, when the stock market crashes again, a 4 percent return may seem like a real savvy investment.  But with all the government spending going on to ‘stimulate’ the economy, we think, that just maybe, inflation could rise above 4 percent sometime in the next 10 years.  When that happens, those 10-Year Treasury Notes will in fact be…certificates of guaranteed confiscation.

Here’s why we expect inflation to be the dominant trend over the next 5 to 10 years…

Going for Broke Should Be Much More Fun

Who could’ve known that going for broke without reservation would be so dismal?

This is one of the ironies of the current spending spree…that all the money squandering is so dreary.  Shouldn’t it at least bring a little merriment and cheer to the world…maybe a free happy hour with buffalo wings?

We bring this up because we discovered from the Treasury Department on Wednesday that during the month of May the federal deficit was a record $189.7 billion.  That means the government spent $189.7 billion dollars more than it hauled in. 

That comes out to…

…over $6.1 billion per day.

…about $255 million per hour.

…over $4.2 million per minute.

…and over $70,000 per second.  

In other words, our government is going broke at the rapid rate of $70,000 per second.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going,” said Winston Churchill.  Perhaps that’s the Treasury’s intent here.  Still, we find it to be an incredible disappointment…we always thought going to hell in a handbasket would be much more fun.

An Intangible Experience of Significant Cultural Importance

The handbasket ride twists and turns with each passing day.  Here is the land of fruits and nuts the Governator’s proposed terminating school textbooks as a way to help narrow the state’s projected $24 billion budget shortfall.

“We expect the first science and math books to be digital by this fall,” said the former champion bodybuilder.  “If we expand this to more textbooks, schools could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year, and that’s hundreds of millions of dollars that could be used to hire more teachers and to reduce class sizes.”

Sure we’re well into the digital age these days…but, good grief, how could there be school without textbooks?

Besides, what happened to the books they’re using now?

When we graduated from the state’s public schools in the mid-90’s, we were using books older than we were.  Yet it didn’t really matter…in the 20-years since the books had been published the quadratic equation hadn’t changed, you could still calculate the area of a circle using pi, and learning about gerunds and dangling participles was as tedious as we imagine it ever was.

Plus, there’s something endearing about learning from worn books with ripped pages and graffiti that’ll be lost with digital media.  For example, on page 3 of an English Literature book you were likely to find a note from the early 70’s scribbled in the margin prompting you to, “Turn to Page 69.”  Then, when you turned to the page, you were greeted with an explicit, “F-You!”

We don’t quite know why, but we don’t think we’d be the same without having experienced this.  And alas, without textbooks, the next generation will miss out on this intangible experience of significant cultural importance.

That’s it for today…enjoy your weekend!

Sincerely,

M.N. Gordon
Great Depression Online

P.S.  Do not invest in gold or silver until you read this free 40-page eBook.  Not all gold and silver investments are created equal. You’ll learn which are the best and exactly when they’re the best with this brand-new eBook that will change the way you think about precious metals.  Check it out here: How to Benefit from Gold's Next Move.

 

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