Protecting Wealth in This Economy

Author: Tommy Leung | 07.29.2008 | Category: Economics, Life, Money

I write a lot about inflation. It is amongst the greatest evils in the world as it robs us invisibly. Unfortunately, it is not a very popular subject. Our economy has been getting worse and worse with each passing day. Prices have been skyrocketing in everything we buy–some relief may lie ahead with the recent correction in oil. With inflation and economics being such an uninteresting topic to most people, I figured I’d write about something we all care about: money.

The economy is in bad shape. Banks are failing, the national debt is increasing, home prices continue to fall, inflation is rampant, jobs are being lost, and wealth is being destroyed. One can argue that no real wealth was created in the last several years as the boom was due to inflation but, whatever. We have dollars and we generally measure our wealth in dollars.

The likely scenario in this potential economic Armageddon is massive inflation. Some analysts and economists say the dollar will go to zero. I don’t think the dollar will go to zero–that is a nightmare scenario. I think inflation is going to get worse as our government is ready to spend any amount of money to keep our current financial system from falling to pieces. The House recently passed a bill to bailout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It is awaiting the president’s signature. The bill basically says the United States government will insure Fannie and Freddie no matter what happens–these two institutions account for about $5 trillion in mortgages.

The Great Depression was a time of deflation so while unemployment were in double digit highs and pain and suffering was abound, things were cheap. Our situation–not that we are headed for a Great Depression–is that of high and increasing prices. The reason for these high prices is inflation–a devaluation of the dollar. So, if the dollar is losing value you will be wise to not hoard any.

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Aimee Allen Music

Author: Tommy Leung | 07.24.2008 | Category: Music

The first time I knowingly heard a song by Aimee Allen, it was the “Unofficial Ron Paul Revolution Theme Song”. I love that song and it is probably my favorite song inspired by the Ron Paul Revolution. I didn’t look much into Aimee Allen since I first heard that song until recently.

I had tried to add Aimee Allen to my Pandora account but it’s the French Jazz singer that keeps coming up–not what I’m looking for. So, I visited Aimee’s MySpace page a few days ago and listented to some of her other songs–they are awesome. I love her style of music. She had a song on iTunes, “Vacation Song”, so I bought that–I love it. I’d recommend that you check out her music as well and perhaps buy her single on the iTunes Music Store.

Aimee’s “I’d Start a Revolution” was the theme song to Birds of Prey which ran for one season. I saw the pilot episode and that was it for me. I’ll leave you with a taste of Aimee’s music below. Enjoy!

I.O.U.S.A Movie

Author: Tommy Leung | 07.23.2008 | Category: Economics, Politics, Videos

I didn’t know about this movie until after I wrote about our almost $10 trillion national debt. Now that I do, I will be sure to watch it this August. Check out the trailer above.

The $10 Trillion Problem

Author: Tommy Leung | 07.22.2008 | Category: Economics, Money, Politics

Secretary Henry Paulson has been calling for a bailout of the insolvent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the Democrats in Congress are looking to pass a bill to raise the limit on the national debt. The national debt is over $9.4 trillion already and the deficit for next year is approaching $500 billion. The bailout for Fannie and Freddie is estimated to cost $25 billion by the government.

So, if you and I were in $1,000,000 of debt that was accruing interest on a daily basis, would extending how much more debt we are willing to take on going to solve our problem? Is it a good idea? Of course not! The kicker here is that this $10 trillion of debt is OURS! We are even making monthly payments on it–the government steals money from us every paycheck. Unfortunately, the money that is being taken from us is also being spent instead of paying down debt.

Our national debt in 2001 was in the $5 trillions. We will have almost doubled that by the time Bush leaves office. Neither the Republicans or the Democrats in Congress are fiscally responsible. They are like teenagers with their daddy’s credit card. Paulson has also recently said that we are turning the corner in this housing crisis. Even if that were true, we have just added to another problem: the $10 trillion problem.

Bash Ron Paul, Get Traffic

Author: Tommy Leung | 07.22.2008 | Category: Books, Internet, Politics

Thomas Woods brought up this blog post at LewRockwell.com–one of my most frequented blogs. The author of the above blog post had some degrading remarks for Ron Paul’s recent book deal with the publisher of Revolution: A Manifesto to write an autobiography.

I certainly added my own two cents:

You need to work on the Stephen Colbert imitation; it’s not very good. Unless, you weren’t doing a Stephen Colbert, in that case, you must be writing such ridiculousness to get people to read and comment–like I just did and the other folks above, including the ever-intelligent Tom Woods.

I am very interested in Paul’s autobiography which is only tentatively titled, Revolution: A Memoir.

And do you really think taxpayers should be paying for medals for Rosa Parks or Mother Theresa? Paul did suggest that the representatives who supported it could shell out their own money–they didn’t. Using other people’s money to give gifts is ridiculous.

Not too long after that, more pro-Ron Paul comments piled on. The lesson here: bash Ron Paul, get web traffic!

Obama: Out of Iraq in 2010?

Author: Tommy Leung | 07.22.2008 | Category: Politics

We voted in 2006 to get out of Iraq. It is the second half of 2008 and we are no closer to leaving Iraq. The Democrats’ are still trying to convince us that they will leave Iraq if you only elected one of them to the White House. None of us can predict the future but, a Democrat in the White House looks likely at this point.

Barack Obama recently visited Iraq and reports are saying that the Iraqi Prime Minister shares his view of withdrawing troops by 2010. But, there is fine print: any withdrawal plan is subject to the level of violence. As much as I care about what the Iraqi Prime Minister thinks, I care more about what Americans think. 70% of Americans are not in favor the war in Iraq. We wanted to leave in 2006; we want to leave right now.

A timetable for withdrawal based on the level of violence in an area as unstable–and made more unstable by our presence–as that region is as good as having no timetable. We need to leave now. Protect our troops from harm that can be avoided and bring them home. Obama’s withdrawal plan should be to start the day he steps foot into the White House; not in 2010 based on violence levels of a violent area.

Ghostbusters Video Game

Author: Tommy Leung | 07.15.2008 | Category: Video Games, Videos

That was completely unexpected. Love the Ghostbusters! There is a good chance this game will suck but, it’s at least nostalgic.