See: Americans
robbed blind by inflationary theft by Charlie Reese, Columbia Daily
Tribune Ole Bear, Editor, Commentary with Miss Melanie Bear Customlines, Crown Victorias, and 5-Cent Cokes
We already linked the great piece by Charlie Reese last week in our Mumbo Jumbo, but like Mozart's repetitive manner so folks could hear the tune enough so that they could remember it once they left the concert, we relinked this great essay. The Ford above is a family heirloom, and it has only about 28,000 miles on it. It was purchased new in 1954, and cost between $1,800 to $1,900 as the sticker price as equipped with radio, heater, cigar lighter, V-8, cloth and vinyl interior, and automatic transmission [the ole Fordomatic]. Go price a new Ford Crown Victoria today, which has a lot more bells, whistles and toys and get prepared for sticker shock. This is only a matter of about 51 years [2005 -1954 ='s 46 + 5 ='s 51]. I collect postage stamps, mainly pre-1900 US, but I know a lot about 20th Century US as well since I started out as kid collecting 'em. First class regular mail postage in the early 1950s was 3 cents. By the time Coca Cola's went from a nickel to a dime in the late 1950s, first class postage bumped up to 4 cents. Adult movie ticket prices at the local Paramount movie theatre were 75 cents for adults and a quarter for the kids in the late 50s. Folks were outraged when in the early 60s, the movie prices went up to $1.25 for adults and 75 cents for the kiddies. But stuff was happening behind the scenes and folks generally weren't paying attention to what was happening to the value of their money. The economic history of what our money has been doing since the Creature from Jekyll Island was created in 1913 is all around us.
See what I mean? Just look around and open your eyes, dear readers. The Federal Reserve, that Creature from Jekyll Island, causes its inflation and ours by printing more money not backed by anything but a promise to pay, and then smokes and mirrors us all by talking about it like it never had its hand in the cookie jar. Who me? Us? That is what central banks do. The linked articles are about inter related stuff -- real estate, money systems, gold and bullion, inflation, and Big Government that steals from its citizens through the central bank. Part 2, Broken Resolutions linked above is a real hoot on real estate, and is not a very pretty picture in the real estate scene. CNBC, aka Bubblevision, has for the past couple of weeks been trying to dispel real estate prices as a markets bubble for their viewers. There is all that cash on the sidelines waiting to jump into the markets. Yeah, right! One guy even says that real estate will have a soft landing if things get out of hand, because sellers will just remove their homes from the market and sit tight. Well, that's pretty good thinking in my view, and may be true, as long as the sellers have jobs, and can make their mortgage payments. Hopefully the home is not leveraged with a 125 to 150% Loan to the Value on the Property. It is a tough nut to crack when you sell a house and still owe the bank on the mortgage that was not covered by the sale of the property.
Miss Melanie Bear's Pearls A lot of retirees are in hock up to their ying yang's with a mortgage, new cars, and stuff that they are still buying on credit. Greenspan says that he's worried about inflation, but he's causing it for me. I would love to send Alan Greenspan my drug bill, since a lot of retirees my age depend on Walgreen's and Better Living Through Chemistry. Although I got out of the Wall Street shell game in 2000 before the World Com and Enron fiascoes, there really is no good place to park my cash, except in US Treasuries, which don't pay a hoot or a holler. I have Greenspan and the rest of the FED Boys to thank for the price of new Cadillacs doubling in price since I last bought one in 1988. I am not paying over $40,000 for a new Caddy, when my 1988 only has 53,000 miles on it. At least I know I am partly covered on this monetary destruction, since my house was paid for when I moved in it. It is hard to believe that my little house has almost doubled in price since 1992. Thanks, Alan! You're a true gem! -- Melanie Bear None of us will really know how good or bad things may be in the future should micro real estate markets start imploding. Our best recommendation is to live within your means, pay off debt, keep those credit card balances very low, and think about getting out from under the banking system which creates money by loaning it. We also recommend physical ownership of heavy metal [Au and Ag] as some insurance against the central banking fraud of paper money not backed by specie. We encourage folks to learn about money and money systems, and to recognize that mortgage interest rates are at near 50 year lows... that the past 20 year average for mortgage rates was more like 7-9%... and we will probably get there again one day. That will spell trouble right there in River City for a lot of folks, sad to say. Our readers must choose... wisely when they vote with their money in the marketplace. Yours Truly,
Ole Bear, Editor with
Miss Melanie Bear © 2005 Realty Reality |
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