On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:44:17 -0500, Joseph Gwinn
wrote:

Goldbugs unite!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123440593696275773.html

The Wall Street Journal, 11 February 2009.

Joe Gwinn
----------------
While appealing, history is not on your [or any one else's] side.

We have tried gold backed currency.

We have tried gold/silver backed currency. [bimetallism]

We have tried silver backed currency [silver certificates]

We are currently using fiat currency. [Federal Reserve note]

All of these have failed in one way or another, and inflation,
while slower with some and faster with others is still a
continuing problem, with periodic deflation sinking the entire
economy from time to time.

When you always do what you have always done, you will always get
what you always got. Insanity is repeating the same actions and
expecting a different outcome.

Somewhere there is a fundamental flaw in the economic model, and
more of the same only better, faster, cheaper, etc. is not the
cure.

IMNSHO, it is vital to implement a "zero based" [no prior
assumptions] critical/objective study of the US economy to try to
determine what went and what will go wrong, and then take
preventative measures to avoid yet another boom/bust cycle, as
these appear to be increasing in both amplitude and frequency.

Given the literally trillions of dollars being spent on rescue
efforts [c. 10 trillion in the US alone at last count], it would
appear to be common sense to spend a few hundred million to a few
billion to determine just WTF is going on here.

These periodic economic meltdowns, now global in nature, have
costs far beyond money as these frequently precede domestic
socio-political catastrophe [e.g. Weimar Germany/Tsarist Russia]
and major armed conflicts.


Unka' George [George McDuffee]
-------------------------------------------
He that will not apply new remedies,
must expect new evils:
for Time is the greatest innovator: and
if Time, of course, alter things to the worse,
and wisdom and counsel shall not alter them to the better,
what shall be the end?

Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman.
Essays, "Of Innovations" (1597-1625).