Sunday, March 13, 2011

America Time is Running Out

Underestimating Lots of Money

By The Mogambo Guru:

According to Harper's Index, the "estimated value of Chinese household income that goes unreported is $1.4 trillion."

To put it in perspective, the follow-up item is "Portion of China's GDP this represents: 1/3."




You should have seen his face! He looked stricken, and so I thought he could use some good advice right about then. So I continued, "Besides, if you had invested the money in gold, silver and oil, you would made much more profit than you made with this rinky-dink manufacturing place of yours!"



The lesson is that my episode of "serious underestimation" had a lot of ugly repercussions and I lost my crappy job, which explains why I am leery of "instances of underestimation."

Especially about underestimating lots of money!

And speaking of money, if you are looking for another reason why the Federal Reserve continues to create so much money (besides the obvious reason, which is to buy government debt so that the mentally defective Obama administration and Congress can deficit-spend almost 2 trillion dollars this year), another Harper's Index blurb was that there are 77 countries with which the United States runs a trade deficit!


Most of this, I cynically assume, is American foreign-aid money that comes with "You must use this money to buy stuff from American companies" strings attached, so that there is, by mathematical necessity, a trade deficit.


Leaning back in my chair, I was struck by one particularly interesting Harper's blurb, which was that carbonated beverages are the #1 "best selling grocery item in the United States."


"This," I figured, "could go a long, long way towards explaining a lot of the mindless idiocy that I see all around me!"


And it can't be because buying gold and silver is hard, because, if it was, a stupid guy like me would not be able to do it, but even a drooling idiot like me can simply plunk down my money and walk away with my metals, which is so easy that I can't help but gleefully think, "Duh! Whee! This investing stuff is easy!"

The Mogambo Guru
for The Daily Reckoning


Bob Chapman - How will it all end?

Jim Rogers - On gold, commodities and the US$

Jim rogers is interviewed on Gold Seek Radio.....listen here