Economic Recovery, Plunder, and the End of an Empire?

Joel Bowman writes:

...Wrote the French libertarian philosopher in his 1850 classic, The Law:

“See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”

The obvious – and fallacious – rebuttal here is that Wall Street fat cats earn tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of times the salary of government employees. And that’s true. But you don’t have to pay it. If you don’t agree with excessive executive compensation, don’t buy that company’s products. Don’t invest in its stock. Simple. Of course, that won’t stop the government gifting your tax dollars to its Wall Street buddies…but you can hardly blame the grafters on The Street for taking what’s offered. Call it corporatism. Call it crony capitalism. Call it whatever you like. Just don’t call it the free market.

But just because the state can avoid consequences in the short term, that doesn’t mean it can avoid them indefinitely. “Imperial suicide,” as Bill calls it, is nothing new. In 1917, the year of Russia’s October Revolution, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin offered a few predictions for the century ahead:

“Germany will militarize herself out of existence,
England will expand herself out of existence,
and America will spend herself out of existence.”

Had he known the inherent shortcomings of his own political ideology, Bolshevism’s bad boy might also have added, “And Russia…she will plan herself out of existence.”

As for the United States, it seems she is not content with simply spending more than she produces, foisting the unfunded obligations onto future generations; instead, she militarizes, expands, spends AND plans toward her own demise…as all once great empires eventually do.

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Jim Rogers on the Economy and Bernanke

Speaking to CNBC earlier this week, Rogers said: “In America, Bernanke just says we'll print more money, we'll spend more money, even though the United States is now the largest debtor nation in the history of the world."

"The things that have worked in the past... will be you go bankrupt then you re-organize and you start over. You have a painful period for awhile, and then you start over. This has been done in the past 3-4 thousand years, and that's the way you do it," said Rogers.

"Trying to push the problem out to the future, and printing money, we just had another example here in the US, it didn't work and it's not going to work."

Rogers said that with central banks "flooding the world with money," the only place for investors right now is in real assets, to protect themselves from central banks debasing currencies.

"Paper money is not going to do it for you," he added.

Rogers said central banks are destroying the saving and investing class. “We’re going to have a lot more currency turmoil over the next 2-3 years because of the huge imbalances that exist in the world.”...

“Mr. Bernanke has never been right about anything,” said Rogers, adding that the Fed chairman "doesn’t understand economics, finance, or currencies and is merely pushing the problem to the future by printing more money," Rogers told CNBC...

While he doesn’t call this a double dip, as “we never got out of the first recession,” he does say that “the next time it’s going to be worse because we’ve shot all of our bullets.”

"With zero interest rates and huge government deficits all around, policy options are definitely more limited," Rogers said.

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No Recovery

We’re not worried about the recovery. Because there is none.

None of the key components of recovery – housing, jobs, or consumer spending – suggest that the economy is returning to its pre-recession habits...

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