When Owning Gold Made You a Target for Execution

Posted on October 5, 2012 by MN Gordon

When Owning Gold Made You a Target for Execution
By Doug Hornig, Hard Assets Alliance

They sewed the gold into their clothing, grabbed only what they could carry, and hoped they weren’t caught…

Vietnam 1975: As the Communists marched south, countless terrified Vietnamese – mainly middle-class business families who were ideologically opposite to the approaching forces – fled for their lives.

The well-to-do, the well-informed, and the well-prepared had seen the writing on the wall earlier than most.  They arranged safe passage and had already moved themselves and their assets out of harm’s way.

Now though, as their country looked set to fall to communism, it was the middle classes who feared imprisonment, torture, and execution if they stayed in their homeland.

They were pouring out of the country in any way they could.

Many left had to be airlifted out – 125,000 of them in the spring of 1975, just prior to the fall of Saigon.  Before they left, those with possessions of worth – primarily the middle-class business community in Saigon – sold everything they had.  Every vehicle, every stick of furniture, piece of art, and family heirloom.  Sold. Continue reading →

Posted in Doug Hornig, Politics | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

When the Gravy Train Jumps the Tracks

Posted on October 2, 2012 by MN Gordon

The future consequences of all that has been done to the financial system and the economy over the last four years – from late 2008 to the present – are largely not understood.  There seems to be some broad impression that the stability of the pre-Lehman default era is gone forever.  But it’s not generally acceptable to talk about in front of polite company.

At present the task falls squarely on the shoulders of oddballs, cranks, and killjoys.  We, of course, are part of this sour cast.  We don’t dwell on it.  Rather we get to it, like we get to most things…with a sharpened pencil, questioning spirit, and the stubborn persistence of a pack mule.

No doubt, by the November 4, 2008 presidential election night, the financial crisis had accelerated the economy’s ride down the highway to hell.  Lehman Brothers, the fourth largest investment bank in the United States, and a bank that had been in business since before the Civil War, had vanished from the face of the earth less than two months prior.  About this time, the finance world watched in horror as black swans relentlessly descended upon the LIBOR like common ravens upon fresh Southern California road kill. Continue reading →

Posted in MN Gordon, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Skeleton Economics

Posted on September 28, 2012 by MN Gordon

“Markets make opinions,” once said someone who’s much, much smarter than we are.  Perhaps they meant that when markets rise for a long period investors will make up opinions about why they will keep rising further.  Likewise, if markets are falling they’ll come up with reasons why prices will continue to fall.

Of course, everyone’s entitled to their own opinion…regardless of if it’s any good.  One fellow may come up with technical indicators to support their opinion.  Another may follow the fundamentals.  Both, no doubt, are 100 percent correct until just the moment they are wrong.  That’s when they must come up with a new theory to opine.

Housing is one market that has hardly seen a ray of light over the last five years.  After decades of rising prices, culminating in a blowout of irrational exuberance between 2002 and 2006, the impossible happened.  Housing prices didn’t go up.  What’s more, not only did they not go up…they went down.

Since peaking out in 2007, housing prices nationwide have deflated 35 percent.  In some places, like Florida and Las Vegas, the carnage has been much worse.  But now, under everyone’s nose, the housing market bottom may have already come and gone without notice. Continue reading →

Posted in Economy, MN Gordon | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Falling Off the Hunger Cliff

Posted on September 25, 2012 by MN Gordon

The October edition of Smithsonian magazine tells us that “With five simple words in the Declaration of Independence – ‘all men are created equal’ – Thomas Jefferson undid Aristotle’s ancient formula, which had governed human affairs until 1776: ‘From the hour of their birth, some men are marked out for subjection, others for rule.’”

Aristotle’s sentiments are obviously nonsense.  However, if you’ve ever reported to jury duty, and sat in a courthouse selection room all day among peers, you know that Jefferson got it wrong too.  For all men are not created equal…there’s a vast spectrum of people ranging from idiot to genius.

According to Thomas A. Patterson, in The American Democracy – Alternate Edition, what Jefferson – a slave owner – meant when he said “all men are created equal” is that all Americans are entitled to equal justice under the law.  The Smithsonian article attempts to reconcile the conflict between Jefferson’s words and actions as follows: “The very existence of slavery in the era of the American Revolution presents a paradox, and we have largely been content to leave it at that, since a paradox can offer a comforting state of moral suspended animation.” Continue reading →

Posted in MN Gordon, Politics | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment