Great Depression Online Archive Issue:

Teaching the World a Lesson

Great Depression Online
Long Beach, CA
September 21, 2010

Inside This Issue You Will Discover…

*** Gold Standard Shaving
*** Destroying the Value of Money
*** Teaching the World a Lesson
*** And More

Gold Standard Shaving

The modern-day, contemporary, ways of doing things are not always better.  What’s more, they’re often times much worse.  The traditional ways of doing things, by comparison, have withstood the trials of time.  They’re proven, established, and effective.

Convenience over discipline is one of today’s principal shortcomings.  Quality is often shunned for expedience…be it the monetary system or your morning shave.

Here at the GDO we recently traded in our five blade Gillette Fusion cartridge razor for a Merkur double edged safety razor.  We’d finally had enough of paying $17.49 for a 4-pack of replacement cartridges…particularly since each cartridge was only good for about 5-shaves.  Plus we never understood why we had to scrape a razor with five blades across our face for a morning shave.

~~~~~~How To Prepare?~~~~~~

The shocking 1990 collapse of the Japanese Market.  The extraordinary U.S. economic boom of the ‘90s and early 2000s.  The devastating global recession that began in 2008.  These impacted everyone’s lives, investments, and fortunes.  The signs of their arrival were visible years and years in advance.  And yet…Almost No One Predicted Them.

The mainstream media didn’t.  The top economists didn’t.  The great financial advisers didn’t.  But One Man Did.

What’s coming Next?  When will it happen?  What should you do to Prepare for it?

Click Here for the Answers 

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

As it turns out, these multi blade cartridge razors and fluorescent green shaving goop take several steps backward from the past.  In fact, the “old fashioned” traditional wet shave, using a precision-made metal tool, a badger hair brush, and a glycerin-based shaving soap – like Col. Conks Bay Rum – results in a far superior shave.

But, like the gold standard, the traditional wet shave takes discipline and patience.  There are consequences for imprudence…if you act with haste you’ll cut yourself fierce.  Nonetheless, with a little self-restraint, the results are golden.

Similarly, when it comes to a monetary base the gold standard is…well, the gold standard.  That is if you believe in protecting ones private property from government confiscation.  Here’s what we mean…

Destroying the Value of Money

“An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions,” began Alan Greenspan in his essay, Gold and Economic Freedom, first published in Ayn Rand’s Objectivist newsletter.

In one of the better essays written in defense of the gold standard, Greenspan concluded with the following…

“In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation.  There is no safe store of value.  […]  The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

“This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists’ tirades against gold.  Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth.  Gold stands in the way of this insidious process.  It stands as a protector of property rights.  If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.”

The year was 1966, and outside of the Rand’s New York social circle, Greenspan was a nobody. 

Twenty-one years later, and counter to the philosophical underpinnings of this essay, Greenspan became the central banker to the United States Government.  By the time Greenspan left his post at the Federal Reserve in 2006 he’d done more than any man in history to destroy the value of paper money.

Teaching the World a Lesson

Some men – like Teddy Kennedy – seem to never die.  Alan Greenspan is one of these men.

For years he enamored Congress with his incomprehensible babble.  Last week he was at it again.  The Wall Street Journal reports…

“We have to find a way to simmer down the extent of activism that is going on’ with government stimulus spending ‘and allow the economy to heal’ itself, former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan told a gathering held at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Wednesday.”

When questioned by reporters, Greenspan showed he still has a spine of rubber…willing to bend and turn as convenience suits him…

“Greenspan said that the U.S. needs to do something now to deal with budget deficits and it must do something very soon. He explained his anxiety is so high that ‘I’m coming out in the first time in my memory’ in support of higher taxes in addition to reduced spending, including allowing the so-called Bush tax cuts to expire.”

Do you get it?  Greenspan is against further government intervention in the economy yet he wants to raise taxes.  Of course, Greenspan’s mess would have never come to be if he’d stuck to his earlier ideals in favor of the gold standard.

But alas the man’s proven throughout his career to be lacking in self-restraint.  Following his Randian deliberations he traded his ideals for power.  Then, as Federal Reserve Chairman, he succeeded in tempting two generations of American’s to throw-out the proven, traditional, means of managing their finances in exchange for an epic debt bubble.

Perhaps the man was just teaching the world a lesson.

Sincerely,

M.N. Gordon
Great Depression Online

P.S.  “We’ve seen the greatest credit bubble and greatest real estate bubble in modern history, which means we have inflated asset values and, more importantly, way too much debt in our system,” warned financial author and publisher Harry Dent recently to Moneynews.com.

Debt Kills 

P.P.S.  For the true gold standard shave use a straight razor.  Though if you don’t know what you’re doing you’re liable to cut your head off.  So leave it to the pros.  If you’re ever in Long Beach, stop by Razorbacks Barber Shop on the corner of 4th Street and Redondo Avenue.  Pedro or Scotty will fix you right up.

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