I have been facing the magnitude of our current economic crisis for some time now. I expected it long before we ever got here…it’s just logical progression for those that are aware of the facts. I have struggled, however, in the ways I can use to communicate the severity of the crisis.
The puppet heads in the media really aren’t saying what this crisis is. They want to look at the housing market or the stock market…the companies and the malinvestments. They just simply aren’t looking at the facts. The problem has been and will be inflation – the creation of money out of thin air, by the Federal Reserve, without anything of substance to give it value. This crisis is essentially the systematic destruction of the US dollar by central bankers, fueled by an ignorant and fearful Congress.
I found a video that pretty much sums it up. The sheer numbers on a graph, when compared against historical records, illustrate quite well the maginitude of what we face.
http://jeffwhiteside.com/video/thegreatfedfail.flv
For those who may not get what these numbers mean, essentially this is the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve. Imagine that I have $1,000 worth of something valuable (say, gold for example) and that is used as collateral to give value to something that has no inherent value, such as a printed dollar. Then, say, you come to me and borrow a thousand printed dollars. I’m now at a one-t0-one ratio, right? I have $1,000 worth of value and $1,000 worth of debt…not a bad place to be.
But then imagine, I all of a sudden say that I’ll now borrow out $5,000 of intrinsically worthless paper…but I don’t increase my reserves. You borrow the $5,000 paper dollars…I’m now at a 5 to 1 ratio, right? The value of those dollars has not increased, but rather decreased because I still only have $1,000 in reserves. If you wanted to buy that $1,000 worth of gold, it would cost you the whole $5,000 because that’s what the gold now represents.
Take that to where we are today. The graphs in the above video illustrate what would happen if I all of a sudden said I now have tens of thousands of dollars that I can borrow out…but still, refuse to increase that which gives those dollars value. Again, the perceived value of all those tens of thousands of dollars are decreased by the ratio of reserves to loans.
The danger of this situation is significant…both to me, the originator of such loans and to you, the borrower. Why? As we increase this ratio, the perceived value of those paper dollars becomes less and less attractive. The risk comes when you, the borrower, starts to see the impacts of this devaluation and consider other options that may be less risky. That’s where the danger comes in – if the significant borrowers of my paper money become disinterested in borrowing from me….all of sudden the system fails and both you and I are hung out to dry.
This is the rapidly approaching situation that we face, aleit simplified by magnitudes. We cannot turn a blind eye to what is really going on with our economy these days, as scary as it is to face it. The sooner we accept what the problem really is, the sooner we can come to terms on how we can fix it.
Well, it seems appropriate around this time to provide my very own “State of the Blog Address” where I can tell you where we’ve been…and more importantly, where I’m going with this blog.
Come this February, jeffwhiteside.com will be turning a whole two years old! Yep, I claimed it…so all you poser wanna-be Jeff Whiteside’s out there have to suck it up and take it. You’ve got to listen to my Libertarian crazed criticisms and forever hope that someone doesn’t mistake me for one of you. Sorry ’bout that if it happens. I’m just conceited enough, though, to think it might actually *help* you. 
Over the last couple years, my site’s design has changed a few times. What stated as a little web page hosted off one of my servers at home has now seen two different web hosts. I’ve been able to pursue my interests of providing online videos and now have the knowledge (but not the motivation) to do a video log. I’ve also (barely) ventured into the realm of social networking. I’ve toyed around with the so-called “Web 2.0″ with dynamic information relevant to my life.
I still don’t have a MySpace account and I surprisingly haven’t become the next millionaire blogger. Some things will never change.
In the coming four years, you can expect more of the same from me. I don’t promise change…no…I vow to stay the same. I promise to keep ever vigilant and critical against violations of our civil rights, unwise governance and an out-of-control world. I hope to continue my own personal education and efforts to share that which I learn, and to inform those who are interested by writing about that which I feel is important. I seek to hone my skills as a battered in blood political activist and to follow through on my commitment to restore what I think is great about this nation, America, in which I live.
You see, the last two years of this blog have seen great growth. Admittedly, I only manage to write a handful or two postings a month…and sometimes ya’ll won’t see me for months on end. Call it a vacation…I still probably put more time in than Bush did during his eight years. But you see, that’s not what’s important here…it’s how I feel as a person. I guess one could say that I finally feel like I have a place in this world. And this blog has been part of it.
I do wish I was blessed with the motiviation and inspiration to write every day or nearly every other day – but, sadly, it simply wasn’t in the cards. Nonetheless, I think the last couple years of this blog have shown a marked improvement in quality over the term of it’s existence. I suppose it’s a natural progression of “learning to blog,” if you will, but it’s also about (in my case) forcing myself to find the creative outlet with words. It’s about being inspired enough to actually go and write about it while resisting the urge to bore you with insignificant facts like, “I flossed my cat today.” It’s also about resisting the urge to be apathetic and lazy.
And with that, comes even deeper clarity and perspective. This blog has become me. Not my specific interests, not my deepest desires, nor a representation of any of that. It’s the journey…the process…the growth of one individual amongst a sea of others. Where I stand and what it’s worth amongst that sea, I do not care…it’s more for me then it is for you. It is the documentation of myself and my work, my thoughts and my hopes, my fears and my state.
So as we go into the next several years, I hope to maintain this effort and have an historical account of my life and the path that it’s on. I hope to reconnect with those I have met in the past and look forward to meeting those who have yet to come. I anticpate knowing what I have never known and resolve to do the best that I can with what I’ve got. I thank you for your interest and hope you too will find your place in the world.
It’s a good thing I didn’t tell anyone about that New Year’s resolution that I wanted to blog more. Bang up job so far! Dang, it’s almost February and I haven’t even wished my one or two viewers a happy New Year!
So, I’m inspired today because of a video I watched over lunch. Now that our country is swinging back to left, it’s time to vigilantly guard our right to bear arms. Rumors are a flying about gun bans and so forth and I thought I’d put a subtle reminder out there about why we have such rights to begin with.
This video is case in point why we will NEVER surrender them in this country.
http://jeffwhiteside.com/video/britishwanttheirgunsback.flv
I also wanted to put my 2 cents in about the Obama thing now that he’s our President and all. I haven’t quite gotten on board yet, but I must say that I appreciated his inaugural speech. Of course, the words “LIE” and “You’ll never be able to do that” were coming to my head far too frequently while watching…but nonetheless, I listened and I want to believe the speech.
SOOOOOOO…for those of you who didn’t get it, what he’s telling us is that it’s up to US to do what he’s talking about. He didn’t say, “Go back to your homes, watch your TV and let me take care of it.” He said we need to ACT and I fully agree with him.
So all your Democrats and koolaid drinkin’ Republicans out there…let’s particpate in this Republic again. Get educated. Write a letter to Congress. Join an activist group. Start a cause. Do something. I say that as much for myself as I do any others that might come across this. Let’s hold him to the fire!
You want to end the wars? Make it known. You want sound monetary policies because you see our nation spiraling into debt? Demand it. You want to keep every firearm in your arsenal? Defend them. You want end the corporate bailouts? Protest them.
If WE don’t, WHO will???? Not the politicians, I can guarantee you that.
Out.
I was reading a fantastic article awhile ago that inspired me to post to my blog. This informative article deals with the blatant manipulation of gold and silver prices. As a precious metals investor for the past several years, I have had to deal with these manipulations which clearly make no sense at all.
I remember a time, just a few months ago, where silver had just fallen from it’s crest of $20 an ounce down to less than $10 an ounce. Yet, when I would call every single silver dealer where I could take physical delivery, the actual selling price was upwards of $15 per ounce! That is, if you could take delivery at all! Pretty much every dealer I talked to was completely sold out and was expecting 5 to 6 week delays on resupply! For those that actually could deliver, silver was going for $18+ an ounce! Demand was huge, supply was extremely short and yet “official” trading prices maintained unreasonable levels for months!
Today, it’s not all that different, although slightly less extreme. If you want physical delivery, it’s going to cost somewhere between $2 and $3 dollars over it’s going rate. So, currently silver is trading for about $11 an ounce…but if you actually want it’s physical form, you’ll be paying $13 or $14 per ounce! This compared to just a year ago where it was common to pay anywhere from a quarter to seventy five cents over it’s going rate. It’s clear that something has been going on in these markets for some time.
In short, the commodities (paper gold & silver) are being used to manipulate and cap the market when the prices begin to rise to their natural levels. Supply and demand theories completely go out the window when artificial gold and silver are utilized to manipulate the values of the real assets.
I particularly liked this article because it graphically represents trends using historical charts and deals with both the gold and silver markets. If you have some time and have the interest, I recommend you read the following article.
Here is an article you may want to forward to your favorite mining CEO.
This article deals with the blatant manipulation that has been occurring in the gold and silver markets, and offers a solution. While this scandal has been going on for many years, at last more and more people are becoming aware that it is going on.
[click to continue…]
Earlier this year, I heard some rumblings that Oregon was considering shifting their gas tax to a mileage based tax. The idea is to maintain or increase state road revenue by charging “by the mile” instead of “by the gallon” as a measure to combat fuel usage reductions with more fuel efficient cars on the road. I wrote it off at the time considering the technology to do so would be impractical for quite some time – but it would appear they’re now positioning some leverage against auto manufacturers to support this technology.
As has been the case for years now, going “green” will by no means be a less expensive alternative. We have to pay more for organic foods, shell out more cash for “green” energy, and dish out more for seemingly any “green” option that’s available. It would appear that the systems of taxation are right on top of this…they’ll figure out a way to make you pay, even if you’re using less.
The necessary technology behind the effort is alarming to me. Somehow, fuel providers (and who knows whom else) must “download” data from one’s vehicle to determine how many miles had been driven since the last fuel up. Theoretically, this information could be tied into GPS systems frequently found in today’s vehicles through safety technologies like OnStar, which also concerns me a great deal. This means that interested parties could use this information to determine where your vehicle has been, not just how many miles had been driven.
With every technology, I am always aware of the potential results if such information were hackable, which will always be the case. (If the Pentagon gets successfully hacked, an auto manufacturer has zero chance of a secure system.) A techno-criminal could theoretically access this information and determine where your house was and your regular travel patterns could be assessed for when you were commonly away from home.
Even if we were assured that GPS data would not be tied into the download and that our government or hackers would never receive our personal driving habits, I ask the fundamental question of whether it’s good to have such technology that can track our vehicle usage over any period of time. Why not show the real intent and create a separate (higher) tax for hybrid and fuel-efficient vehicles? The next challenge would be how to determine the difference between a gas guzzling rig vs. a fuel efficient model vehicle. Simply have a different fuel tank mechanism that can tell the pump what kind of vehicle you have. Outfitting fuel tanks and gas pumps to detect fuel efficient cars seems no more difficult than outfitting cars and pumps to be ready to download mileage data – and no personal information needs to be collected.
Anyhow, that’s what I know on this front. Hope you’re feeling better informed!
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