. . .
C2 “An unsustainable system is sustaining itself. Somehow. Yet, in the end, an unsustainable system is unsustainable.”
C1 “Everyone is engaged in a grand ‘punt, pass and kick’ game to punt his or her personal or professional responsibility, pass the buck, and kick the 55 gallon rusty drum down the pot-holed road and over a structurally unsound bridge, yet the system is stumbling and bumbling along. They continue to build ‘bridges to nowhere’ and allow existing ‘bridges to somewhere’ to decline and decay.”
C2 “To build a sustainable bridge, we must do something as simple and foresighted as using stainless steel rebar to support the structure so that it does not rust and rot from within.”
C1 “When the 55 gallon oil drum is empty, it will be much heavier and harder to kick down the road. We may not make the bridge. Will time expire on the ‘punt, pass and kick’ game without a possibility of overtime.”
C2 “We may get ‘sudden death’ overtime, although we may be deceased. We cannot argue with success.”
C1 “As long as you succeed.”
C2 “Some folks will argue with failure, but it may be too late.”
. . .
C1 “We cannot peer behind drawn curtains or peak behind closed doors. At best, we may observe some developments while trying to assemble a puzzle with only a few random pieces operating in the dark with one hand tied behind our back.”
C2 “On a good day. We interpolate and extrapolate with little information and confront an active effort by a variety of folks to mislead and deceive. A conspiracy requires too much cooperation, but a confluence of powerful interests responding to the same incentives and acting in concert to acquire lucre and power can cause mischief.”
C1 “What is today’s exchange rate between lucre and power? A desperate cabal trying to stave off a large creditor or interest could loot the Treasury. When there was some chatter about the United States not returning all the gold in the Federal Reserve vaults to Germany because the gold had been sold, little was said. Big players do not air their tainted laundry in public. What if the gold is not there?”
C2 “You could craft a movie around a discovery that all the gold in Fort Knox will not buy a twenty-five cent cup of coffee.”
C1 “Gold has mesmerized men through the ages, although it does not taste particularly tasty.”
C2 “Even with golden mustard. And it does not wear well.”
C1 “If ‘He who has the gold makes the rules,’ what if there is no gold?”
. . .
C1 “The Big Jolt may come when ordinary folks are spooked by something, rational or irrational, and try to withdraw their deposits from financial institutions. When it first senses a possible problem, the Federal Reserve will send a directive in seconds to all financial institutions limiting withdrawals to a small sum and then, if that does not work, allowing financial institutions to print script of some kind on site to give to depositors seeking to withdraw their funds.”
C2 “That script may not be acceptable. At that point, the script would be backed by the half faith and hollow credit of the United States.”
C1 “An old banker reflecting on the start of the Great Slide looked out the window at depositors who demanded their money and felt an overwhelming sense of terror. Their terrified look triggered his terrified look.”
C2 “Their terrified look may trigger more than a terrified look.”
C1 “Look out.”
. . .
C2 “A ‘Bail In’ is likely to trigger the same reaction unless it is done very slowly with little publicity so that no one notices.”
. . .
C1 “Something may be done or may happen to jeopardize the dollar’s position as the world’s reserve currency. That will have a bad ending. Try to explain what has happened and will happen to the ordinary citizen.”
. . .
C1 “I am convinced that the clearest lesson in American history is the absolute conviction that no one in the banking and financial industry who loots and robs the public will ever be convicted let alone even indicted for a crime.”
C2 “We might as well enshrine it in a constitutional amendment – the Kleptocracy Amendment.”
C1 “Because of our actions and inaction, we are fundamentally in worse economic shape now than we were in September of 2008. What do you think, three more years or ten more years or could the ‘punt, pass and kick’ game sustain for thirty more years.”
C2 “A riot could become a rebellion and then an insurrection. Enough people and places are festering and percolating to spark and provide the tinder.”
C1 “The catalyst may not be economic or financial. A computer virus could go viral or a virus could go viral.”
. . .
[See the “e-ssays” titled Beans and Bullets (April 6, 2009) and Bailouts: Out; Bail Ins: In; Slowly Boilin’ The Frog (April 15, 2013) and those collected under https://e-commentary.org/category/gold-standard/.]
Bumper stickers of the week:
You can argue with failure
Crime pays in America, but only big crime
Something that cannot go on forever will not go on forever
Federal Reserve Note legends on dollars, 1928 and 1934 and 1953 and 2014 and ____:
REDEEMABLE IN GOLD ON DEMAND AT THE UNITED STATES TREASURY, OR IN GOLD OR LAWFUL MONEY AT ANY FEDERAL RESERVE BANK
THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE, AND IS REDEEMABLE IN LAWFUL MONEY AT THE UNITED STATES TREASURY, OR AT ANY FEDERAL RESERVE BANK
THIS NOTE IS A LEGAL TENDER AT ITS FACE FOR ALL DEBTS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
THIS NOTE IS . . .
