Chevy Volt a Failure - GM to Layoff 1,300

I still have a lot of assets in gold. We have a government with $16 trillion in debt and that has shown no will or ability to change the fact that it is adding to it at more than a trillion dollars a year. We have a Federal Reserve that has ballooned its balance sheet to more than $3 trillion trying to inflate way that debt and is still doing the same old stupid things. We have nearly every other country with any amount of GDP in the world in serious debt problems.

UNTIL that changes, I feel good about gold as a store of wealth -- those conditions make gold extremely attractive for me. And I will likely buy more on dips at some point, probably, depending on what I see coming out of the world.

This is NOT a trade. I know the difference because I am a trader by nature.

I also know that my reasoning has paid off. In 2008, when we had the financial collapse, something clicked for me. I remember doing a rambling, nearly incoherent post on here, actually, about why TARP was a really bad thing.

Privately, I reasoned that the monetary policy that began under Alan Greenspan was too loose (to try to create false prosperity -- a major reason for the bubble that caused the financial collapse) and that our response to it would likely be all wrong--from the rhetoric we were getting from Bush/Hank Paulson/Tim Geithner. When they announced TARP, I began buying gold. Mind you, gold had already run up a lot in the previous few years -- Alan Greenspan's Fed had already begun crapping on the dollar, which created the false prosperity we saw for about a decade.

They followed TARP up with everything I anticipated from politicians who do stupid things. A giant spending bill in 2009 to pile on more debt. An unwillingness to deal with entitlement programs that are swallowing us up, and thus trillion plus dollar deficits every year that has our debt up over $16 trillion now. And the Federal Reserve has been acting predictably -- enabling the politicians doing that, by trying to inflate away the debt. Like puppets.

It has added $3 trillion (that we know of) to its balance sheet. To put it in perspective, even with the loose monetary policy that began this trend under Alan Greenspan prior to 2008, it's assets were usually just over the $500 million mark throughout the early 2000s. Now they have bought up close to $3 trillion of our own debt (an INSANE policy that makes our currency worth less and less), and private debt, to try to "stimulate" the economy. It not only hasn't had that effect, it has created a monster that is ripe to explode if someone sticks a pin in it.

It has been essentially printing money, which HAS TO devalue the dollar. And the thing I still see is that we are not dealing with our debt, so I anticipate (although I hope I am wrong) more of the same -- at least until they can no longer walk the tight rope and we have a financial collapse of some type and the insanity ends by necessity.

If you have your money in dollars, you have been earning less zilch, not enough to keep up with inflation since the financial collapse (and you are not getting a true measure of inflation from government numbers) and the subsequent destructive (to your economic well being) Fed policy of quantitative easing and forced 0 percent interest rates. Your $1 from 2009, for example, buys quite a bit less today than it did then. People who don't get my ramblings on here, still know that -- they have seen it at the supermarket, the gas pump, etc.

If you had held gold, rather than dollars, since then you could have been trading your gold for dollars all along the way to buy your necessities, and ended up not just keeping up with inflation, but essentially earning a nice income courtesy of the Federal Reserve and your elected officials. They are running up a lot of debt and using a central bank to try to inflate it away. An actual commodity that is valued for its rarity and relatively fixed supply (unlike dollars, which they just keep printing more and more of), appreciates in value as they the currency it is traded in is intentionally devalued. Gold has always done well as a store of value when fiat currencies are played around with this way.

At least that has been my reasoning. I am not alone in that reasoning.

If I am wrong, and what we have seen is due to something else, so be it. Then, I guess it is good to be lucky.

But now isn't the time to look at what has been a trend that has followed my reasoning and tell me I have been wrong--because prices have hit peaks and valleys along the rise up. And if my reasoning is correct, until we see some fiscal sanity worldwide and central banks not thinking they can manipulate money supplies by running printing presses, there is no reason to think otherwise right now. So yes, I still feel I am doing something logical -- until I see something different.

 

Just to tie the tangent into this thread. ... GM added another $20 + billion to our national debt.

A debt load that is now greater than our annual GDP + annual deficits that keep adding to that debt, rather than facing it + a Federal Reserve that keeps printing more and more paper dollars to try to inflate away that debt = . ...

 

$100,000 for that impracticle thing... in this economy. Fine with me if Elon Musk wants to bilk idiot investors with his sake oil. As long ws it doesn't infringe on me, not my business... ws fun as it is to laugh at it.

I am still pissed that our corrupt lawmakers gave $465 million to him for that mess, that we are at risk of not seeing back. And that that money contributes to our debt crisis.

Tesla's financials are a mess, despite all of its loans and equity offerings that raised more money than I can comprehend for that huckster. But it is going to need to borrow more money this year, and even with Treasury phone calls on its behalf, I can't see how its luck doesn't run out. You'd be insane to throw money into that sieve. Even Musk bought very little with his own money when they did their emergency privste offering to raise something to stay afloat.