Yesterday, one of our kids was reading aloud from a “Hunting Safely in Grizzly Country” pamphlet that we picked up when buying some topographic maps at the local USFS [1] ranger station. It was published by the “Interagency Bear Committee” and the Wyoming Fish and Game Department. Most of the advice was good, but some of it must have been written by tree huggers. They opined: “Shooting a bear when it is charging is not recommended. The bear almost always lives long enough to maul the hunter severely.” Excuse me, but what am I supposed to stop a bear with? Harsh language? I suspect that they give this advice because statistically some bear charges are just “mock” charges. Based on these statistics they’d rather risk your life, than a bear’s life. Grizzly bears are of course a “protected species”. But to the tree huggers, we deserve no such protection.
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Florida Guy sent us this: Victims Fight Back in Home Invasion [2]. The last line in the article displays the almost obligatory liberal hand-wringing: “The police are very cautious not to make this seem like a heroic act. They say fighting back can sometimes end with the victims being more seriously hurt.” Yeah, right. OBTW, I think that the journalist that wrote this could take on some moonlighting work, writing wilderness bear safety pamphlets.
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The following comes from economist Bill Bonner, in a recent issue of the pro-hard money e-newsletter The Daily Reckoning [3] (highly recommended, and subscriptions are free): “In the last seven years of the Bush administration, the federal debt increased by two-thirds while U.S. household debt doubled. Despite all this extra spending, median real incomes have continued to go down. Practically all new jobs have been created either by government, or in housing, health care, bars or restaurants. Jobs in manufacturing are now at levels not seen since just after WWII.
“This is the profile of a third world economy,” says former Under Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts.
How does an economy like this keep going? It depends on the kindness of strangers and the stupidity of friends. Who but a fool or a friend would buy a U.S. 30-year treasury bond at a 4.28% yield? This number is only a few basis points from the number for annual increases in consumer prices. Which means, if all goes well, investors can expect to make a return of zero on their investment over the next 30 years. And if all this talk of Zimbabwe economics and banana republic finances turns out to be true, they can expect to suffer another round of losses – measured in the trillions. And why shouldn’t it be true? The American Empire is a bit like General Motors, says Martin Hutchinson. It has heavy fixed costs, an aging workforce, worn-out equipment, mammoth debts, and it is losing market share. At immense cost, America maintains its legions in more than 100 overseas garrisons. At home, the mobs call for bread. And every candidate for office – save the forgotten man, Dr. Ron Paul – offers more of it. “We cannot afford another year without decent wages because our leaders could not come together and get it done,” said Barack Obama in South Carolina.
GM, of course, cannot print money. But as Ben Bernanke himself put it, the United States, like Zimbabwe where inflation is running at 150,000%, “has a technology called the printing press.” What can you expect? We would modestly predict that those 30-year T-bonds, sometime between now and 2048 when they mature, will become worthless.”