No Escape

Bankers and politicians were thought to be strange bedfellows. Why? I wondered recently. Banking is now a business that thrives, rather than making a few percent more on what it loans out relative to what it pays for your deposited savings. It is a business that relies on being able to lend what capital it has on the books several times, at as high a rate as possible. However, when the crunch comes (recent lending proves to have been disastrous), you and I cannot get a loan even if we prove we absolutely do not need it.

Politicians thrive, rather than on carrying out the mandate that the voters struck a deal for when they last voted, but on the advice of lobbyists. What do lobbyists have to offer that we the voters don't have? Influence that can get the politicians cushy retirements. Influence that gets them a get home card in the lobbying business or other lucrative field.

Politicians passed laws to make it mandatory to make certain amounts of loans in slums and poor neighborhoods. They put real teeth in the laws. They also jawboned the public and the banking industry to make this an "ownership society." And they, through the Federal Reserve Bank, lowered interest rates (during the nineties and during recent times also), so that many of us went first for the dot com boom, and after that collapsed, we went for home ownership. Now they are busy saving mortgage lenders, in the name of preventing foreclosures. How can you tell a politician is lying? Their lips are moving.

Practically every use we found for "our money" in the last decade or so has turned to shit! Let's face it, the money is not ours. The money belongs to the banking system, but the problem is ours. No investment is safe. It appears that government bonds are safe, but why the hell should we believe any longer in the "faith and credit of the United States?"

Buy gold!