Masters Of Delusion

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.
John Kennedy

Putting a man on the moon was easy. What people often forget is that doing so without killing him was the hard part. Fooling Mother Nature is always a temporary project. July 20th will mark the 41st anniversary of the greatest trick humanity has ever played on Mother Nature. Like all anniversaries indivisible by 10, it will pass largely unnoticed.

What is being noticed is that the long predicted collapse of the engineered economic order is about to be realized. It’s gotten so bad that even Paul Krugman is noticing. Robert Samuelson, the 2nd smartest guy in economics, is noticing too. Hopefully, the peasantry is noticing that economics is not engineering.

What really got the economists attention was the continuing problems in Greece. In spite of multiple promises of “austerity measures”, and bailouts by a variety of governments and institutions, Greek bond rates are still rising. How can this be? The people with credentials have studied the problem and made their decisions. The policy prescriptions have been put in place, so everything will be ok, right?

As always, there is one thing missing from the equations produced by the would-be Masters of Capital Markets; the peasant class.

I’ve commented many times over the last 2 years about the disappearance of the small investor. (Being a blogger, and therefore one step below a journalist, I’m far too lazy to dig through the archives, so you’ll just have to take my word for it). Disappearance may have been too strong a word, as rising gold and silver prices are a good indication of where he has gone. Precious metal prices are also an indication of the amount of trust in one’s leaders. Like the millions of jobs that became obsolete in the last 2 years, trust shows no sign of making a comeback.

The reasons for this lack of trust are many. The most recent example was nicely demonstrated by Nancy Pelosi when speaking of unemployment checks:

This is one of the biggest stimulus’s to our economy, economists will tell you…it injects demand into the economy…

Even the simplest logic seems to escape both economists and politicians alike. Why not just hand out money to business people and skip the middleman? Oh wait, that was the first and second stimulus. Do you get the impression that if they could nationalize the unemployed, they would? It is one of modern life’s mysteries why so many smart people, who themselves are doing well financially, can’t see the difference between credit and wealth. Perhaps it is because we have been on the Federal Reserve system for so long, they can’t imagine things being any other way.

I know there are some who can’t stand song lyrics in blog posts, but I just can’t resist an old Jethro Tull* favorite.

The excrement bubbles,
The century slime decays,
And the brain-washing government lackey’s
Would have us say,
“It’s under control
And we’ll soon be on our way
To a grand tea for babies
And quiz panel games,
Of the heart-hungry millions
You’ll be sure to remain.”
The natural resources are dwindling
And no-one grows old.
And those with no homes to go to,
Please dig yourselves a hole.

Like the Apollo astronauts preparing for their return, our fate is dependent on the plan made long before. Our current national bank will soon inflate itself out of existence, the same way our country's first three national banks did.

Unlike the astronauts, our plan did not include a safe return, only constant trickery by delusional economic engineers. Our return to earth will not be a joyous occasion. We would do just as well placing our trust in the hands of poets.

*from Wondrin' Again