Showing posts with label wealth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wealth. Show all posts
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Saturday, June 18, 2011
America’s WASP Rot
By Henry Allen, Published: June 17
I know why America is falling into a cataclysm of debt and can’t get out.
I know because I’ve seen the cataclysm before on a smaller but no less poignant scale while growing up in New England. A Boston friend calls it WASP rot: a squalor of doom and debt that prompts the best sort of people to spit sarcasms at each other during cocktail hour, to weep and rage the way Congress is doing as the debt limit looms on Aug. 2. Of course, losing a summer house isn’t losing a war or America defaulting on its debts. Yet to me, at least, the feeling is oddly the same. I worry that America is becoming a character in a story by John Cheever or F. Scott Fitzgerald.
My ancestors arrived early in North America, founded towns, fought at Bunker Hill, built railroads and cornered markets. But that day was long done when I was growing up. We were not unusual — in so many families, the money had been made, the money had been spent.
What made these families exceptional, the way America is exceptional, is that they believed that standards had to be maintained at all costs, a moral obligation, even though there never seemed to be much difference between the material and the moral. Houses in the right neighborhoods, alumni donations and keeping one’s word all seemed to have the same value.
As John Kennedy said in 1961, quoting John Winthrop’s speech to the Puritans aboard the Arbella: “We must always consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill — the eyes of all people are upon us.” To maintain the city, he’d say later, we had to “pay any price, bear any burden.”
If the trust fund played out or Aunt Cornelia turned out to be broke when she died, the rotting WASPs believed they had no choice but to bear the burden of borrowing to maintain their place in the world.
There was nothing wildly luxurious in their spending, no polo ponies or pearls, just the obligatory private schools, Bloody Mary brunches at the Inn, station wagons with yachting flags, silver wedding presents, lots of dogs, the whiskey. They borrowed from banks and relatives to keep the city shining. They borrowed against their houses. They sold Aunt Cornelia’s breakfront. They ignored bills and they despaired.
Imagine a cocktail hour.
“I hate living like this,” says a wife — we’ll call her Martha. She rattles the ice in her glass.
“Do we have any choice?” asks her husband — we’ll call him George. “Do you really want to pull Ted out of Dartmouth? Do you want to move into an apartment?”
“I could get a job,” Martha says. “I could manage a bookstore, like when you met me. It’s odd — we were poorer then, but we seemed so much richer.”
“We didn’t have money, but we did have a future,” says George. “Freshen up that drink for you?”
The conversation usually goes this way: proposals for impossible cuts in spending are met by equally impossible refusals to make them. Slash Medicare? Stop saving oppressed foreigners from tyranny? Raise taxes? The rock and the hard place. It’s a question of standards.
“We have to face the facts,” says Martha.
“I’m so goddam sick of the facts,” says George.
“If your brother would come to his senses, we could sell Seely’s Cove,” Martha says, referring to a summer house with porches and a mossy roof and photo albums from the days when men wore neckties as they sailed.
“We have to sell it or put a new roof on it, but Buell is happy just to let it molder,” George says. “He says keeping it in the family is a matter of principle.”
“You could call Tom about getting another loan from the bank. “
“We’re at the point where we’re just using loans to pay off other loans.”
This is what the American government is doing, too. Whether the problem is summer places or wars, sailboats or health care, the despair and folly feel the same. So does the decline in power and prestige, and the poignant denial of decline, prompted by the fear that if we don’t live and spend a certain way we’ll cease to be us — we’ll lose our place in the world.
Cheever writes: “Where had they lost their competence, their freedom, their greatness? Why should these good and gentle people . . . seem like the figures in a tragedy?”
It’s WASP rot. They drop out of the country club. The drinking eases the pain. They don’t pull Ted out of college; he quits and says he wants to be a chef. The daughter ends up living with a jazz musician who beats her.
It’s as if they, and the United States, have lost their luck.
As for America, magical ideas float through the media: Sell the gold in Fort Knox. Sell the federal government’s land to the Chinese. Maybe the Wampanoag Indians could turn the city upon a hill into a casino resort.
The troops may come home, not because of casualties or futility but because they cost too much. We might have to impoverish the old and ignore the poor and sick, not on the principle that we’re creating welfare dependency but because they cost too much. How sad. How vulgar.
I know the ending of George and Martha’s story, but I won’t depress you with it. I have no idea what will happen to America. It’s impossible to imagine Americans starving to death or the Chinese owning Yellowstone. Next thing, we’d be tossing the bodies of veterans into common graves, though this has already happened at Arlington National Cemetery.
Well-trained in situations like this, I try not to think about it, the goddam facts of it all. Freshen up that drink for you?
Henry Allen, who won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2000, was a Post editor and reporter for 39 years.
I know why America is falling into a cataclysm of debt and can’t get out.
I know because I’ve seen the cataclysm before on a smaller but no less poignant scale while growing up in New England. A Boston friend calls it WASP rot: a squalor of doom and debt that prompts the best sort of people to spit sarcasms at each other during cocktail hour, to weep and rage the way Congress is doing as the debt limit looms on Aug. 2. Of course, losing a summer house isn’t losing a war or America defaulting on its debts. Yet to me, at least, the feeling is oddly the same. I worry that America is becoming a character in a story by John Cheever or F. Scott Fitzgerald.
My ancestors arrived early in North America, founded towns, fought at Bunker Hill, built railroads and cornered markets. But that day was long done when I was growing up. We were not unusual — in so many families, the money had been made, the money had been spent.
What made these families exceptional, the way America is exceptional, is that they believed that standards had to be maintained at all costs, a moral obligation, even though there never seemed to be much difference between the material and the moral. Houses in the right neighborhoods, alumni donations and keeping one’s word all seemed to have the same value.
As John Kennedy said in 1961, quoting John Winthrop’s speech to the Puritans aboard the Arbella: “We must always consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill — the eyes of all people are upon us.” To maintain the city, he’d say later, we had to “pay any price, bear any burden.”
If the trust fund played out or Aunt Cornelia turned out to be broke when she died, the rotting WASPs believed they had no choice but to bear the burden of borrowing to maintain their place in the world.
There was nothing wildly luxurious in their spending, no polo ponies or pearls, just the obligatory private schools, Bloody Mary brunches at the Inn, station wagons with yachting flags, silver wedding presents, lots of dogs, the whiskey. They borrowed from banks and relatives to keep the city shining. They borrowed against their houses. They sold Aunt Cornelia’s breakfront. They ignored bills and they despaired.
Imagine a cocktail hour.
“I hate living like this,” says a wife — we’ll call her Martha. She rattles the ice in her glass.
“Do we have any choice?” asks her husband — we’ll call him George. “Do you really want to pull Ted out of Dartmouth? Do you want to move into an apartment?”
“I could get a job,” Martha says. “I could manage a bookstore, like when you met me. It’s odd — we were poorer then, but we seemed so much richer.”
“We didn’t have money, but we did have a future,” says George. “Freshen up that drink for you?”
The conversation usually goes this way: proposals for impossible cuts in spending are met by equally impossible refusals to make them. Slash Medicare? Stop saving oppressed foreigners from tyranny? Raise taxes? The rock and the hard place. It’s a question of standards.
“We have to face the facts,” says Martha.
“I’m so goddam sick of the facts,” says George.
“If your brother would come to his senses, we could sell Seely’s Cove,” Martha says, referring to a summer house with porches and a mossy roof and photo albums from the days when men wore neckties as they sailed.
“We have to sell it or put a new roof on it, but Buell is happy just to let it molder,” George says. “He says keeping it in the family is a matter of principle.”
“You could call Tom about getting another loan from the bank. “
“We’re at the point where we’re just using loans to pay off other loans.”
This is what the American government is doing, too. Whether the problem is summer places or wars, sailboats or health care, the despair and folly feel the same. So does the decline in power and prestige, and the poignant denial of decline, prompted by the fear that if we don’t live and spend a certain way we’ll cease to be us — we’ll lose our place in the world.
Cheever writes: “Where had they lost their competence, their freedom, their greatness? Why should these good and gentle people . . . seem like the figures in a tragedy?”
It’s WASP rot. They drop out of the country club. The drinking eases the pain. They don’t pull Ted out of college; he quits and says he wants to be a chef. The daughter ends up living with a jazz musician who beats her.
It’s as if they, and the United States, have lost their luck.
As for America, magical ideas float through the media: Sell the gold in Fort Knox. Sell the federal government’s land to the Chinese. Maybe the Wampanoag Indians could turn the city upon a hill into a casino resort.
The troops may come home, not because of casualties or futility but because they cost too much. We might have to impoverish the old and ignore the poor and sick, not on the principle that we’re creating welfare dependency but because they cost too much. How sad. How vulgar.
I know the ending of George and Martha’s story, but I won’t depress you with it. I have no idea what will happen to America. It’s impossible to imagine Americans starving to death or the Chinese owning Yellowstone. Next thing, we’d be tossing the bodies of veterans into common graves, though this has already happened at Arlington National Cemetery.
Well-trained in situations like this, I try not to think about it, the goddam facts of it all. Freshen up that drink for you?
Henry Allen, who won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 2000, was a Post editor and reporter for 39 years.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
How Should Men Define Personal Success?
The question came up on the Mancoat forum about redefining male success. We need to be careful about the term success, because it means different things for different people. 
Ask yourself what would give you lifelong personal fulfillment. Are you at the point of personal fulfillment? If not, you are not a success just yet.
Personal fulfillment comes in many forms. Mother Theresa was personally fulfilled by living in poverty to help the less fortunate. Donald Trump is personally fulfilled by making successful business deals and appearing in the media. The hick from West Virginia is personally fulfilled by catching his dinner each night in the woods, and cooking it up on the wood stove.
The problem is that American culture, via Hollywood and Corporate advertising, put out the notion of success being the "American Dream" and most silly Americans bought into that. Many suffer from that mistake today.
What is success for me? Living abroad on a good salary, early retirement at age 50, and having serial relationships with women half my age. I don't need to be a millionaire, but money enables my success life so it is important. I don't want to be married, I don't need kids, and I don't buy into the nonsense that traps too many other men into wage slavery. In that sense, I'm a success too.
Success is a deeply personal assessment and don't let anyone determine for you what constitutes personal success for you.
Ask yourself what would give you lifelong personal fulfillment. Are you at the point of personal fulfillment? If not, you are not a success just yet.
Personal fulfillment comes in many forms. Mother Theresa was personally fulfilled by living in poverty to help the less fortunate. Donald Trump is personally fulfilled by making successful business deals and appearing in the media. The hick from West Virginia is personally fulfilled by catching his dinner each night in the woods, and cooking it up on the wood stove.
The problem is that American culture, via Hollywood and Corporate advertising, put out the notion of success being the "American Dream" and most silly Americans bought into that. Many suffer from that mistake today.
What is success for me? Living abroad on a good salary, early retirement at age 50, and having serial relationships with women half my age. I don't need to be a millionaire, but money enables my success life so it is important. I don't want to be married, I don't need kids, and I don't buy into the nonsense that traps too many other men into wage slavery. In that sense, I'm a success too.
Success is a deeply personal assessment and don't let anyone determine for you what constitutes personal success for you.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
America: The Grim Truth
http://americathegrimtruth.wordpress.com/
Americans, I have some bad news for you:
You have the worst quality of life in the developed world – by a wide margin. If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you’d be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.
I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.
I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.
Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don’t believe for a second that rot about America having the world’s best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I’ve been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the “good” hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.
This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.
Let’s start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.
Of course, it’s not just the food that’s killing you, it’s the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you’re young, they’ll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you’ll get depressed, so they’ll give you Prozac. If you’re a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you’ll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you’ll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you’ll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you’ll need Lunesta to go to sleep.
With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can’t take one. I’ll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you’ll probably be the only American in sight. And you’ll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they’re paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.
If you think I’m making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:
Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12
The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren’t secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They’ll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they’ll get rid of you.
Of course, you don’t have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself – you’ve got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.
If you’re “lucky,” you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you’ll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan – welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there’s a lot of “stuff” around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can’t, because you’ve got debts to pay.
All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you’ll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I’ve got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.
And that’s just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don’t even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you’ve never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.
But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you’re from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socio-economic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.
If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn’t elect “freedom,” then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.
If there was some chance that the country could be changed, there might be reason for hope. But can you honestly look around and conclude that anything is going to change? Where would the change come from? The people? Take a good look at your compatriots: the working class in the United States has been brutally propagandized by jackals like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity. Members of the working class have been taught to lick the boots of their masters and then bend over for another kick in the ass. They’ve got these people so well trained that they’ll take up arms against the other half of the working class as soon as their masters give the word.
If the people cannot make a change, how about the media? Not a chance. From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bullshit. In America, you grow up thinking you’ve got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don’t think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?
If change can’t come from the people or the media, the only other potential source of change would be the politicians. Unfortunately, the American political process is among the most corrupt in the world. In every country on earth, one expects politicians to take bribes from the rich. But this generally happens in secret, behind the closed doors of their elite clubs. In the United States, this sort of political corruption is done in broad daylight, as part of legal, accepted, standard operating procedure. In the United States, they merely call these bribes campaign donations, political action committees and lobbyists. One can no more expect the politicians to change this system than one can expect a man to take an axe and chop his own legs out from underneath him.
No, the United States of America is not going to change for the better. The only change will be for the worse. And when I say worse, I mean much worse. As we speak, the economic system that sustained the country during the post-war years is collapsing. The United States maxed out its “credit card” sometime in 2008 and now its lenders, starting with China, are in the process of laying the foundations for a new monetary system to replace the Anglo-American “petro-dollar” system. As soon as there is a viable alternative to the US dollar, the greenback will sink like a stone.
While the United States was running up crushing levels of debt, it was also busy shipping its manufacturing jobs and white-collar jobs overseas, and letting its infrastructure fall to pieces. Meanwhile, Asian and European countries were investing in education, infrastructure and raw materials. Even if the United States tried to rebuild a real economy (as opposed to a service/financial economy) do think American workers would ever be able to compete with the workers of China or Europe? Have you ever seen a Japanese or German factory? Have you ever met a Singaporean or Chinese worker?
There are only two possible futures facing the United States, and neither one is pretty. The best case is a slow but orderly decline – essentially a continuation of what’s been happening for the last two decades. Wages will drop, unemployment will rise, Medicare and Social Security benefits will be slashed, the currency will decline in value, and the disparity of wealth will spiral out of control until the United States starts to resemble Mexico or the Philippines – tiny islands of wealth surrounded by great poverty (the country is already halfway there).
Equally likely is a sudden collapse, perhaps brought about by a rapid flight from the US dollar by creditor nations like China, Japan, Korea and the OPEC nations. A related possibility would be a default by the United States government on its vast debt. One look at the financial balance sheet of the US government should convince you how likely this is: governmental spending is skyrocketing and tax receipts are plummeting – something has to give. If either of these scenarios plays out, the resulting depression will make the present recession look like a walk in the park.
Whether the collapse is gradual or gut-wrenchingly sudden, the results will be chaos, civil strife and fascism. Let’s face it: the United States is like the former Yugoslavia – a collection of mutually antagonistic cultures united in name only. You’ve got your own version of the Taliban: right-wing Christian fundamentalists who actively loathe the idea of secular Constitutional government. You’ve got a vast intellectual underclass that has spent the last few decades soaking up Fox News and talk radio propaganda, eager to blame the collapse on Democrats, gays and immigrants. You’ve got a ruthless ownership class that will use all the means at its disposal to protect its wealth from the starving masses.
On top of all that you’ve got vast factory farms, sprawling suburbs and a truck-based shipping system, all of it entirely dependent on oil that is about to become completely unaffordable. And you’ve got guns. Lots of guns. In short: the United States is about to become a very unwholesome place to be.
Right now, the government is building fences and walls along its northern and southern borders. Right now, the government is working on a national ID system (soon to be fitted with biometric features). Right now, the government is building a surveillance state so extensive that they will be able to follow your every move, online, in the street and across borders. If you think this is just to protect you from “terrorists,” then you’re sadly mistaken. Once the shit really hits the fan, do you really think you’ll just be able to jump into the old station wagon, drive across the Canadian border and spend the rest of your days fishing and drinking Molson? No, the government is going to lock the place down. They don’t want their tax base escaping. They don’t want their “recruits” escaping. They don’t want YOU escaping.
I am not writing this to scare you. I write this to you as a friend. If you are able to read and understand what I’ve written here, then you are a member of a small minority in the United States. You are a minority in a country that has no place for you.
So what should you do? You should leave the United States of America.
If you’re young, you’ve got plenty of choices: you can teach English in the Middle East, Asia or Europe. Or you can go to university or graduate school abroad and start building skills that will qualify you for a work visa. If you’ve already got some real work skills, you can apply to emigrate to any number of countries as a skilled immigrant. If you are older and you’ve got some savings, you can retire to a place like Costa Rica or the Philippines. If you can’t qualify for a work, student or retirement visa, don’t let that stop you – travel on a tourist visa to a country that appeals to you and talk to the expats you meet there. Whatever you do, go speak to an immigration lawyer as soon as you can. Find out exactly how to get on a path that will lead to permanent residence and eventually citizenship in the country of your choice.
You will not be alone. There are millions of Americans just like me living outside the United States. Living lives much more fulfilling, peaceful, free and abundant than we ever could have attained back home. Some of us happened upon these lives by accident – we tried a year abroad and found that we liked it – others made a conscious decision to pack up and leave for good. You’ll find us in Canada, all over Europe, in many parts of Asia, in Australia and New Zealand, and in most other countries of the globe. Do we miss our friends and family? Yes. Do we occasionally miss aspects of our former country? Yes. Do we plan on ever living again in the United States? Never. And those of us with permanent residence or citizenship can sponsor family members from back home for long-term visas in our adopted countries.
In closing, I want to remind you of something: unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life. They weren’t traitors and they weren’t bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families. Isn’t it time that you continue their journey?
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
The Myth of the Independent American Woman
One of the most prevalent myths perpetuated by American women is that of the "independent woman."
In reality, American women, regardless of class and ethnicity, are greatly dependent on the resources of others. The route to female affluence in America is rarely due to their own financial accomplishments. Women usually ride the support train of their fathers, their husbands and their ex husbands. If we take a look at who financed the higher education of your average professional women, it is usually family and not self-financed. Then, when these high-achieving women decide to marry, they usually marry higher income men to further buttress their "declaration of independence" war chests.
Increasingly, these restless women initiate divorce when they feel enabled enough to cash out of the marriage and go it alone. Alimony and child support are enforced by the state to supplement the lifestyles of these women. Afterward, the women hold themselves up as independent when the path to their affluence was based on parasitic financial relationships with men; how ironic.
Feminism has made American women independent of the need for husbands, but their quasi-independence is predicated on wealth re-distribution of the family courts, and of the state entitlement systems.
American women are exploiters of male financial wherewithal. It starts in childhood and continues well into adulthood. What gets me is this delusion that they are self-made independent women when in fact they are leeches, spurred on by mass media and the consumption ethic of pop culture.
American men need to recognize this and protect the fruits of their labor accordingly.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Iran dumps US dollar for euro.
Arabian Business reports that the Iranian government and its President ordered the removal of the US dollar to be replaced by the Euro, which was introduced in 1999, in order to protect themselves from the crumbling United States economy and devaluing dollar.
The Euro will be the calculating factor of the Oil Stabilization Fund (OSF), which is a fund that is set up to help the Iranian economy against fluctuating oil prices. It is also set up to help both the public and private sectors with their currency needs by extending loans.
Iran's Central Bank deputy chief Reza Raei stated in December, according to Iran Daily, that the nation’s foreign exchange reserves were over $80 billion.
Since the inception of the Euro in 1999, it has gain popularity by many nations and businesses across the globe. Currently, there are more Euros than dollars in circulation. After it was introduced in 1999, Iraq, at the time having the second-largest oil reserves, traded its oil in Euros.
Venezuela has also pressured OPEC to abandon the US dollar, according to ADN Kronos.
The Coming Collapse of the Dollar, Part 1
While I am by no means an economist, I do have enough common sense to know that the reckless spending and monetary policies being pursued will diminish the value to the US Dollar in short measure.
Prepare yourselves now by spreading your assets in other currencies like the Euro, and precious metals like gold and silver. If you are in cash, US interest rates may skyrocket so that's the silver lining for savers but who knows how much those savings gains will be worth relative to the lost dollar value.
Prepare yourselves now by spreading your assets in other currencies like the Euro, and precious metals like gold and silver. If you are in cash, US interest rates may skyrocket so that's the silver lining for savers but who knows how much those savings gains will be worth relative to the lost dollar value.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Would You Trust This Arrogant Nerd's Financial Advice?
Sometimes we Americans can allow our financial better judgment to be suspended by clever marketing, polished wall street analysts, and the seductive power of CNBC, CNNf, etc. It was not enough to endure the dot.com bubble from 1995-2001. Oh no, Americans listened to the same pinheads tell them to stay fully invested for the long term, and to diversify their portfolios over a wide variety of stock classes.
Those who fell for this nonsense are now paying the price for their misplaced trust.
I removed the greater portion of my stock holdings in 2007 in reaction to the felling of market overvalue. My reaction was private as I did not want to subject myself to the jeers of my peers. I have been vindicated, no doubt, by the market drop of 2008-2009.
The myth of "diversifying" over a wide variety of stock classes is not diversification AT ALL. I fell for this scam back in the late 1990's but then noticed that all stocks (even international ones) were highly correlated in trend. No variety of stock classes would have saved anyone in the current downturn!
My point of this piece is to urge you to spread your assets between US dollars in a reputable US credit union (not a bank); a Euro cash account in a country like Switzerland, Germany, or France; the US stock market (10 to 25 percent according to your time horizen); a municipal bond fund; and precious metals like gold and silver (via ETFs like GLD or SLV). This is the diversification.
I do believe we all should be dollar cost averaging into the US stock market at the present time, but we should be doing it moderately and with the intention to continue over the next several years.
US stocks will correct again and again. When the doom and gloom are heavy on CNBC, that is the time to take chunks of your wealth and bottom feed an S&P 500 or Wilshire 4500 fund. This is called contrarian investing and you will reap great rewards if you can purchase cheap shares when the pessimism is high.
Resist the nerds who want to be fully invested at all times so their fees can still be generated from your holdings. They are out for their interests, not yours. You've been warned.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
New York Times Debate on Marriage: Join the Fray!
The New York Times is perhaps the most widely read news publication in the world. Recently they published an article and readers' debate entitled Husbands, Wives and Hard Times.
This is an opportunity for all who reject the advisability of marriage to voice your opinion on the men forgoing marriage and how it is a fraud on the American man and his well being. My contribution is as follows:
Marriage is slowly dying in America and the west. What is killing it? Feminism-infected courts that steal wealth from formerly unsuspecting men, rip children from fathers, and presume women are in the right even when they are in the wrong.
Women legally initiate the vast majority of divorces; I've seen figures as high as 60 to 70 percent of divorces being initiated by women.
I have stayed unmarried and I have a bevy of loving young women who I care about. Marriage is drudgery and a bore. The only people who advocate marriage are wealth seeking women and religious zealots.
If a man must marry, and he should not, he should choose a wife from a traditional culture where wifely duties and practices are held in high esteem and not denigrated.
To hell with American marriage!
Follow this link and add your two cents too.
Friday, April 3, 2009
The Return of the Blue Collar Man
Several years ago, there was a book called The Millionaire Next Door. This book detailed the characteristics of typical American self-made millionaires. Perhaps the most surprising contribution of the book was the revelation that blue collar people who own their own businesses are disproportionately represented among self-made millionaires.
That fact is counter intuitive for several reasons. Most glaringly, the entertainment media has long promoted the white collar man as the better and more affluent. Hollywood movies, and promotion of university education at all costs fueled this thinking.
Stigma grew around the blue collar trades and blue collar tradesmen from the recent immigrant waves took over and enriched themselves and their families.
This recession will whittle away at the stigma of blue collar work. I think this is a great opportunity for young American men to rediscover the rewards of mastering a trade.
Get your hands dirty guys and make yourselves rich!
That fact is counter intuitive for several reasons. Most glaringly, the entertainment media has long promoted the white collar man as the better and more affluent. Hollywood movies, and promotion of university education at all costs fueled this thinking.
Stigma grew around the blue collar trades and blue collar tradesmen from the recent immigrant waves took over and enriched themselves and their families.
This recession will whittle away at the stigma of blue collar work. I think this is a great opportunity for young American men to rediscover the rewards of mastering a trade.
Get your hands dirty guys and make yourselves rich!
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Might The Madoff Swindle Hold A Silver Lining For Jewish People?
Bernard Madoff was recently carted off to jail after pleading guilty. This man has likely breathed his last breath as a free man. It is hard to imagine any positives coming out of this 50 billion dollar scam, but I think there may be one to consider.
The Madoff scheme was a classic, if not gargantuan, affinity fraud scam where the perpetrator seeks out members of his own group to target. Affinity fraudsters bank on the presumption that one would not defraud or cheat his own. I have seen African American churches sponsor "black reparations tax credits," I have seen Christian churches sponsor "gifting pyramid scams," and I could go on and on.
The difference in the Madoff fraud was the scale, duration, and most importantly the sophistication of the victim pool. Madoff did not just target Jewish Americans, he targeted the most affluent, educated, and discriminating ones. Many of these former heirs, tycoons, and moguls have lost everything and they must start anew to build their lives.
"So where's the silver lining," you might be asking. We have all heard the stereotypes of Jews conspirators working toward world domination and Jewish supremacy. Reasonable people reject these notions but often lack the evidence to refute such nonsense, Madoff solves that problem.
Madoff largely victimized many of the most socially prominent and successful Jews. These people were high-achieving, decent people who were intent on no more than securing their futures and providing for their families. They don't have any special means to rescue them. They don't have any collective "Zionist" agenda. They don't have some inborn inclination to subjugate gentiles.
These people are victims in devastating measure and they have my compassion as they try to get on with their lives. I read about a 90 year old man, who now has to bag groceries to eek out a living. There is no Jewish conspiracy coming to his rescue.
So the next time you hear any blather about Jews controlling this or that for the benefit of the Zionist banking conspiracies, let the troglodytes know who the Madoff victims were and how they suffered in the wake of Madoff's discovered mess.
The Madoff scheme was a classic, if not gargantuan, affinity fraud scam where the perpetrator seeks out members of his own group to target. Affinity fraudsters bank on the presumption that one would not defraud or cheat his own. I have seen African American churches sponsor "black reparations tax credits," I have seen Christian churches sponsor "gifting pyramid scams," and I could go on and on.
The difference in the Madoff fraud was the scale, duration, and most importantly the sophistication of the victim pool. Madoff did not just target Jewish Americans, he targeted the most affluent, educated, and discriminating ones. Many of these former heirs, tycoons, and moguls have lost everything and they must start anew to build their lives.
"So where's the silver lining," you might be asking. We have all heard the stereotypes of Jews conspirators working toward world domination and Jewish supremacy. Reasonable people reject these notions but often lack the evidence to refute such nonsense, Madoff solves that problem.
Madoff largely victimized many of the most socially prominent and successful Jews. These people were high-achieving, decent people who were intent on no more than securing their futures and providing for their families. They don't have any special means to rescue them. They don't have any collective "Zionist" agenda. They don't have some inborn inclination to subjugate gentiles.
These people are victims in devastating measure and they have my compassion as they try to get on with their lives. I read about a 90 year old man, who now has to bag groceries to eek out a living. There is no Jewish conspiracy coming to his rescue.
So the next time you hear any blather about Jews controlling this or that for the benefit of the Zionist banking conspiracies, let the troglodytes know who the Madoff victims were and how they suffered in the wake of Madoff's discovered mess.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
It's The Lack of Confidence, Stupid!
I just finished watching one of those weekend pundit shows with the 4 talking heads debating whether the economy needs a robust "stimulus plan" or more tax cuts. Folks, I think we are in trouble more than we realize when these so-called cognitive elites still don't get it.
People are not spending disposable income you idiots! Trillion dollar new spending from the federal government may employ a fraction of the unemployed (to include some illegals aliens), and a tax cut may enable a fraction more to save more, but neither of those strategies solve the core problem of getting people to spend, spend, spend.
Our elected officials are still in an intellectual holding pattern as to what to do. Perhaps years of decisions based on special interests created this mess.
The economy will turn around when there is more good news, and the doom and gloom reports decrease. Americans are terrified, and they are undoing years of stupid consumption. Eventually, the savings floodgates will gradually open and consumer spending will increase with the renewed prosperity. But until then, the beltway's insistence on arguing about supporting special interests under the guise of fixing the economy will only prolong our current malaise.
People are not spending disposable income you idiots! Trillion dollar new spending from the federal government may employ a fraction of the unemployed (to include some illegals aliens), and a tax cut may enable a fraction more to save more, but neither of those strategies solve the core problem of getting people to spend, spend, spend.
Our elected officials are still in an intellectual holding pattern as to what to do. Perhaps years of decisions based on special interests created this mess.
The economy will turn around when there is more good news, and the doom and gloom reports decrease. Americans are terrified, and they are undoing years of stupid consumption. Eventually, the savings floodgates will gradually open and consumer spending will increase with the renewed prosperity. But until then, the beltway's insistence on arguing about supporting special interests under the guise of fixing the economy will only prolong our current malaise.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Just Lose Your Job? Just Eliminate Your Family, That's All!
The news media is buzzing about Ervin Antonio Lupoe of Los Angeles. Ervin and his wife were recently fired from their jobs due to forgery and low level fraud to secure child care benefits. So what does Ervin do? He shoots his wife, 5 children and himself.
How about getting a new job Ervin? I know finding a new one is tough in this economy, but most of us would rather scrub toilets all day than murder our families to spare them hardship.
As the economic downturn continues, we will likely see more and more bizarre incidents of this nature. Difficult times have a tendancy to bring out either the best or the worst in us. Ervin Lupoe obviously was lacking in former.
How about getting a new job Ervin? I know finding a new one is tough in this economy, but most of us would rather scrub toilets all day than murder our families to spare them hardship.
As the economic downturn continues, we will likely see more and more bizarre incidents of this nature. Difficult times have a tendancy to bring out either the best or the worst in us. Ervin Lupoe obviously was lacking in former.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Why Do Married Men Try To Bamboozle Bachelors Into Marrying?
Why is it that married guys always try to convince us of why it's so great to be married? None of them can muster any persuasive specifics as to why it's so great, but they just seem to say so out of social programming. I pressed one of my married attorney friends on why it's so great, and he finally came up with, "Being married keeps me out of trouble, single guys get into trouble." I thought it was horrible that that's all he could come up with.
My theory is that married guys are like the fools who fall for the multi-level marketing schemes. Those schemes depend on recruiting new members, but only a precious few are successful participants. Most participants will break their necks to try to convince you to go to a new participant seminar. When they hear a "no," it just illustrates their own foolish decision. The eventual sucker that agrees to be a new participant validates the decision of the former, even though it was a bad one.
Married guys are like that too. To admit that marriage is a bore and a financial drain is too painful and too hurtful to acknowledge, so they come at you with how great it is to be married but are never able to articulate exactly why.
I think it was Fred Reed who said that any young man contemplating marriage should be made to spend 15 minutes in an empty room imagining his future wife 10 years older and 20 pounds heavier. If he still wishes to get married after that image, he should marry.
Fred Reed is right. Women are only temporarily beautiful. Marriage is the universal scam that baits the man into legal obligation to the woman, then switches with aging and the diminishing of female beauty. Married men struggle to come to terms with why they made the marriage decision based on the lunacy of short term attraction.
Just as children tend to lose interest in the little cute puppy dogs when they get older, so do men when their "oh so wonderful" sweetie-pies age less than gracefully.
Married men, if you are so "happy" being married, leave us independent men alone so we can pursue our interests as we darn well please. A rich man never has to convince another to become rich because the value of being rich is self-evident.
My theory is that married guys are like the fools who fall for the multi-level marketing schemes. Those schemes depend on recruiting new members, but only a precious few are successful participants. Most participants will break their necks to try to convince you to go to a new participant seminar. When they hear a "no," it just illustrates their own foolish decision. The eventual sucker that agrees to be a new participant validates the decision of the former, even though it was a bad one.
Married guys are like that too. To admit that marriage is a bore and a financial drain is too painful and too hurtful to acknowledge, so they come at you with how great it is to be married but are never able to articulate exactly why.
I think it was Fred Reed who said that any young man contemplating marriage should be made to spend 15 minutes in an empty room imagining his future wife 10 years older and 20 pounds heavier. If he still wishes to get married after that image, he should marry.
Fred Reed is right. Women are only temporarily beautiful. Marriage is the universal scam that baits the man into legal obligation to the woman, then switches with aging and the diminishing of female beauty. Married men struggle to come to terms with why they made the marriage decision based on the lunacy of short term attraction.
Just as children tend to lose interest in the little cute puppy dogs when they get older, so do men when their "oh so wonderful" sweetie-pies age less than gracefully.
Married men, if you are so "happy" being married, leave us independent men alone so we can pursue our interests as we darn well please. A rich man never has to convince another to become rich because the value of being rich is self-evident.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
How "The American Dream" dupes men out of wealth
A professor in law school once said that females control more personal wealth than males. I thought he was crazy, but he explained that since women outlive men, they inherit male money when men are at their richest. He's right.
This got me to thinking, since American women statistically initiate divorce more than men, and since most divorces are based in money issues, I theorize that young women marry then divorce men to get at their wealth. I don't think women consciously plan it that way, but that's obviously the effect sanctioned by our culture and our laws.
I also remember having a discussion with two random girls back in college. The subject came up about prenuptial agreements, when I stated that I would have one if I ever got married, these two girls went high and to the right. It went from a civil discussion, to a loud, accusatory discussion. In later years, I realized that these girls knew that access to male wealth was the real agenda behind American marriage, not love and family.
The "American Dream" is but a perpetuated myth serving as a means to dupe men into ceding wealth to females. Realize this and protect yourselves accordingly.
This got me to thinking, since American women statistically initiate divorce more than men, and since most divorces are based in money issues, I theorize that young women marry then divorce men to get at their wealth. I don't think women consciously plan it that way, but that's obviously the effect sanctioned by our culture and our laws.
I also remember having a discussion with two random girls back in college. The subject came up about prenuptial agreements, when I stated that I would have one if I ever got married, these two girls went high and to the right. It went from a civil discussion, to a loud, accusatory discussion. In later years, I realized that these girls knew that access to male wealth was the real agenda behind American marriage, not love and family.
The "American Dream" is but a perpetuated myth serving as a means to dupe men into ceding wealth to females. Realize this and protect yourselves accordingly.
What the Housing Crash Can Teach Us About Marriage
It's not news anymore. We all know that home foreclosures are skyrocketing and hundreds of thousands of Americans stand to lose their biggest "investment."
But take a step backward 2 to 4 years. I can recall the frantic push for universal housing ownership. I can recall ads and marketing blitzes telling renters that they too could likely afford a mortgage even if they thought they could not. I recall state and federal government campaigns to increase "minority" home ownership, especially among Blacks and Latinos.
Now what do we have? Now the press is saying that all these government-encouraged home purchases were ill-advised and irresponsibly financed by mortgage companies. A huge proportion of those Black and Latino home buyers are now losing their homes to foreclosure and the rate of home loss will multiply each year when their "alluringly low" adjustable mortgage rates adjust higher and higher.
So what does this have to do with marriage you ask? The lesson here is to ignore the corporate and government campaigns to encourage marriage. Corporations and government have an interest in marriage only to suit their own ends. Just as in the frantic rush to get everyone in a owned-homes against their best interest, corporate America and government wish to get you married just to flaunt growth statistics and reap marriage consumption profits (new homes, new cars, new furniture, etc) , and resultant tax benefits.
Smart men should never allow government to advise us in our personal lives. In the final analysis, millions of Americans will meet their financial ruin because of policy agenda "campaigns."
Do not let this be you; ignore the calls for men to marry or expect your financial house to be "foreclosed" and turned over to the Financial Bank of Ex-Wives.
But take a step backward 2 to 4 years. I can recall the frantic push for universal housing ownership. I can recall ads and marketing blitzes telling renters that they too could likely afford a mortgage even if they thought they could not. I recall state and federal government campaigns to increase "minority" home ownership, especially among Blacks and Latinos.
Now what do we have? Now the press is saying that all these government-encouraged home purchases were ill-advised and irresponsibly financed by mortgage companies. A huge proportion of those Black and Latino home buyers are now losing their homes to foreclosure and the rate of home loss will multiply each year when their "alluringly low" adjustable mortgage rates adjust higher and higher.
So what does this have to do with marriage you ask? The lesson here is to ignore the corporate and government campaigns to encourage marriage. Corporations and government have an interest in marriage only to suit their own ends. Just as in the frantic rush to get everyone in a owned-homes against their best interest, corporate America and government wish to get you married just to flaunt growth statistics and reap marriage consumption profits (new homes, new cars, new furniture, etc) , and resultant tax benefits.
Smart men should never allow government to advise us in our personal lives. In the final analysis, millions of Americans will meet their financial ruin because of policy agenda "campaigns."
Do not let this be you; ignore the calls for men to marry or expect your financial house to be "foreclosed" and turned over to the Financial Bank of Ex-Wives.
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