Day: April 25, 2006

Jim, Just one more note regarding the rising cost of metals, especially copper in the market – I sent an earlier message regarding recycling cartridge brass (which contains copper) instead of stockpiling copper, but now the New York Times notes in a Saturday brief: “Price of a Penny Could Exceed a Cent – What happens if a penny is worth more than one cent? That is an issue the U.S. Mint could soon face if the price of metals keeps rising. The cost of the metal in a penny has climbed to almost one cent. Add in the cost of …

Jim: I think we now have another way to compute the countdown to the collapse of our society as we know it. Several months ago I read on one of the economic web sites, we both visit, that for every penny the price of fuel goes up $1,400,000 per day is sucked out of the consumer economy. With oil at $74 per barrel today and the PENAC people pushing for another Middle East war, this one with Iran, we are looking at oil reaching $125 per barrel or higher as soon as this dumb war starts. This translates to $5.25 …

We asked you this week, dear reader: What will the next Great Depression bring? How will Americans survive in our day-to-day lives? The responses to this not-so-hypothetical query continue to clog up our inbox, which doesn’t surprise us. What does surprise us, however, is how united our readers are on this subject. Not one message lamented on how strong our economy is right now, and how we are fools for even bringing up the possibility of another Great Depression. Each e-mail portrayed how real this idea is to Americans – that something this bad could be right around the corner. …