I made some suggestions recently on ways to preinvest. There are in fact no good investments right now. Thus I concentrated on reducing debt and having cash reserves in several places and in several forms. Having a large pantry might be the best "investment" you can make. Not because the zombies will attack, but because inflation or unemployment may be coming. I would not even think zombies attacking as impossible.
The following video shows why investment is so difficult. There is little to invest in as the risk gets higher and higher if you chase high returns. The presenter suggests gold. Maybe. But gold was confiscated in 1933, and this could happen again. Most of us are better off with our money in a major bank, ... nuts that won't work either.
In any event this video sums up why I am so nervous about the future.
I hope you figured out my post on April 1st was an April Fools Joke. I do not think that printing money is a solution. It might end up being a part of the solution, but if that is the only solution offered to the crisis I see coming in 3 to 7 years, we are doomed.
Money is whatever I say it is! But there is a truth to modern monetary theory that "hard money" types like me can be blind to. Fiat money, as long as it is not excessively created, can work. This was the position of Milton Freedman and the Chicago School. He advocated a set increase in the money supply every year of 3%. The idea is to set the increase in money to the traditional rate of productivity increase. Sounds reasonable at first. But there are several downsides. First it was the government capturing the entire productivity of the nation every year forever as the increase in money would be a tax. But will the Central Bank limit the increase in money to a set number? No American Central Banker has done this for 30 years.
Another problem is one of measurement. It is similar to the question I asked recently, "What is Money?" What figure do you use for your base? Here is Mesh Shedlock's suggestion as to what "money" might be.
Base Money Supply: $2.9 Trillion
M1: 2.4 Trillion
M2: 10.4 Trillion
Total Credit Market Debt Owed: $56.3 trillion
As you see the base has a large amount of possible variations. If you or I make a mistake, we can live with it. But a national whoopsie is not a good thing. Just ask Zimbabwe.
We may soon be able to ask Japan if Modern Monetary Theory, or as I like to call it Magical Monetary Theory, works. As John Mauldin said, "Japan is a windshield in search of a bug." I predict that it will work as long as Japan does not cross the tipping point and cause inflation. Such a tipping point does exist, but we lack the ability to calculate it. Thus the risk of a whoopsie is very very high.
What does Modern Monetary Theory say about Japan?
What does Kyle Bass say? (Note that I have used Bass in a video before. This is not a great video because you cannot see his charts, but it is still illustrative of his point. I am troubled by his suggestion to buy semi-junk bonds.)
Watch World News... er, Watch Japan. A crisis in Japan will probably increase the value of the dollar. It will serve as a warning to those who are looking.
This may be the strangest video I have ever posted. It attempts to explain free market economics, but I kept laughing at the wrong parts. I couldn't help it...it stars the famous San Diego Chicken and is narrated by cowboy singer/movie star Rex Allen. This looks and sounds like something we would have watched in Jr. High. Enjoy!
My HeroI did not really explain MMT, Modern Monetary Theory, when I talked about it on Saturday. In preparation for this blog post I watched a few YouTube videos and concluded that it was true. MMT teaches that the way to economic prosperity and full employment is to print enough money and spend prosperity into the economy. There is no limit to the amount of money we can give our hard-pressed people. Happy Days are here again.
Former Vice President Dick Chaney was right, deficits don't matter. The obvious thing to do is print more money. There is no need to cut Social Security or Medicare. We can afford our empire with just throwing a few switches at the Department of Treasury.
Here is an interview with one of the founders of the movement, well no not really, it is just fun.
Not convinced? Here is another presentation without crash dummies. No one this pretty could be wrong.
MMT Explained Graphically!Financial salvation has arrived at the cost of a few trees for the paper. No doubt a few virtual trees will be cut as well.
Think of it! We have the chance to dwell in the Garden of Eden again. The Kingdom of God is just a few runs of the printing press away. Prosperity beyond our wildest dreams is just around the corner. We have found the pot of gold at the end of the rain ... oh, wait, never mind, that is a bad analogy.
Jesus has returned in the Form of the New Economic Perspectives.
Friday, April 5, 2013 at 3:00AM 
I made some suggestions recently on ways to preinvest. There are in fact no good investments right now. Thus I concentrated on reducing debt and having cash reserves in several places and in several forms. Having a large pantry might be the best "investment" you can make. Not because the zombies will attack, but because inflation or unemployment may be coming. I would not even think zombies attacking as impossible. 
