Last week’s thought experiment was to imagine hyper-inflation and what you would do to protect you and your won from the currency calamity. What would you buy? Invest in? Would you move? 100% inflation isn’t even really considered hyper-inflation by economists as that designation usually is at least 50% a month, but these nerds can …
Bygone Relics
The US has raised the debt ceiling and avoided defaulting on its debt. That’s a good thing, right? For the 90th time or whatever the number is now, we have raised the debt ceiling. America always pays its debts is a popular rhetoric, but I have to give credit to Peter Schiff who likes to …
Last week we discussed depression and how a contraction of the money supply was one of the key errors made by the Federal Reserve and how it helped cause the Great Depression. We also discussed how the crazy spending of the previous decade helped bring it about. Huge credit was extended to consumers, and they …
What does depression mean? Where are we at the economic cycle? Are the banks in bad shape? Why? Will we see a bank run or is what we are having a “bank walk” ? How likely for the banks to get a hit from the real estate loans they had extended? Will the downtown office …
I again want to discuss where we are precisely in G. Michael Hopf’s quote and how we got here. We are in the last stanza for sure. This should help us understand the debt ceiling. There is a famous scene in Sergio Leone’s gangster epic Once Upon a Time in America where one of the …
Our takeaways from the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting which was held on Saturday, May 6th. What did the two wise men, Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger tell us? “You only have to do a few things right in your life so long as you don’t do too many wrong.” Warren Buffett I’ve been critical of …
“You got pigeon shit in your eyes? You’re pathetic, you know that. You’re a disgrace to your profession.” Well, the funny part of that exchange in the 1984 basketball movie Hoosiers was that Coach Dale played by Gene Hackman was trying to get kicked out of that game. He even told the ref as much. …
This week’s Bygone Relics show is reminding us about the panic of 1893. Are there similarities to the current situation? Let’s find out. I recently had the good fortune to take a vacation which included a couple connecting flights. I booked through one airline and was able to select my seats and I had the …
In this week’s Bygone Relics show, we continue digging into the partnerships between the government and the private enterprises. While doing so, we are also drawing a comparison between Elon Musk and John D. Rockefeller. In our previous post, we discussed the silent partner Tesla and Apple have: the government. You have Tesla growing their …
In this week’s Bygone Relics show, we investigate how government has allowed itself to be a primary partner of many multi-national businesses such as Tesla and Apple. Does this allow the government to choose winners and losers in our version of capitalism? We are going to talk about the unique relationship between business and government. …