From: The International Forecaster, February 25 2009
Since 1997, real inflation, as opposed to ridiculously understated official inflation, has raged at a minimum of 8% annually, and has soared as high as 14-16%. This means that you have lost a minimum of two thirds of your 1997 purchasing power. So, if you invested $10,000 in the Dow components in 1997, not only would you have no gain whatsoever, you would have losses on the stocks which were dropped from the index due to poor performance and, in addition, to add insult to injury, your purchasing power has been reduced from $10,000 to approximately $3,000 in terms of 1997 dollars. In other words, that $10,000 you invested in 1997 will today only buy what $3,000 would have bought in 1997.
Effectively, anyone playing the general stock markets has been wiped out by this combination of lost capital gains and reduced purchasing power. Those who began investing after 1997 have done even worse because they have suffered major capital losses in addition to having suffered reduced purchasing power. So much for the much touted 10% average annual gains for stocks. By contrast, you could have bought gold in 1997 for about $300 per ounce and more than tripled your money at today’s prices. Your $10,000 would have become $30,000+, however, due to inflation caused by the Fed’s profligate increase in the money supply, which the Fed intentionally orchestrated in order to impoverish you and bring you to your knees so you will accept world government, your purchasing power would only be about $10,000 in 1997 dollars. So you would at least be even in terms of purchasing power. Certainly, $10,000 in purchasing power is a whole lot better than $3,000. This example is a classic illustration of how gold preserves your wealth. As you can see, failure to invest in gold, silver and their related shares is tantamount to committing financial suicide. The bankruptcy courts will soon be full of the tens of millions of US citizens who ultimately will ignore gold and silver as a safe haven, or who will simply lack the capital to invest in gold and silver in any case because they are in hock up to their ears, or because they have become unemployed, or both.
Pension plans, often heavily invested in stocks and real estate, asset classes which have seen tens of trillions of dollars disappear in a matter of months, are now so far behind in funding due to their ludicrous underlying assumptions about ROI (return on investment) that they are effectively bankrupt and will have to be bailed by the grievously under-funded PBGC (Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation), which of course can only provide pennies on the dollar unless another bailout is orchestrated to save middle class pensions, which is not going to happen, and these losses do not even take into account loss of purchasing power due to inflation, which is understated officially to screw retirees out of their social security benefits. Instead of a PBGC bailout, we more likely will see the US follow in the footsteps of Argentina by nationalizing private pension money, mixing it with government entitlements. If you were wondering where the elitists plan to park a large portion of those new treasuries being issued to fund all the bailouts, look no further than your IRA’s, 401(k)’s and your company pensions, which will be forced to purchase these treasuries as part of the process by which the elitists will nationalize your pensions. Also, as part of this process, the types of assets you are allowed to invest in will be greatly limited, and your pension will be overseen by your corrupt, bungling government, insuring a complete financial…. That way, you get the unspeakable privilege of owning dollar-denominated paper assets that will be vaporized along with Federal Reserve notes (aka toilet paper, aka “worthless paper”) when foreign owners of dollar forex all head for the exits to see who can dump their dollars the fastest as they try to purchase as many tangible, real assets as they can find in the US. You won’t know, of course, because statistics about foreign ownership in the US are, conveniently, no longer published by the FTC. However, you will find out soon enough as you are Zimbabwe’d and Weimar-ized. And that only addresses problems due to devaluation of the dollar. Wait until the interest rates skyrocket as hyperinflation takes hold and risk reaches new heights. This will collapse the treasury market, and the value of all your pension plan assets, which the government will have forced you to invest in treasuries, will go down in flames with it.
CNBC anchors were left dumbfounded and acted overtly cantankerous yesterday after Congressman Ron Paul’s opening statement at the House Financial Services Committee was broadcast live to an audience of millions.
