Where we're headed (maybe?)

I'm writing this for the express purpose of reading it in one year.

I went to college back in the day, and based on little more than a funny professor or two, I chose Economics for my degree. So I suppose I'm an amateur economist, whatever in the hell that is. Oh, and I like Walter E. Williams too!

So anyway, the US Government has announced something in excess of $7 trillion in "bailout" spending in recent weeks and months. Money to bail out greedy, arrogant, and apparently pretty dense people in the financial world who've made a gigantic mess, mostly with an overdose of debt and a miasma (sp? meaning?) of uber-complex investment securities supported by (yah . . . right!) layer upon layer of that same debt. So if Joe Lunchbox misses a payment, a whole lineup of people get screwed. It's like one of those department store mirror doohickeys, where you see yourself over and over and over again out seemingly to infinity. Every last one of those folks in the mirror is screwed by this shell game ponzi scheme cooked up by "elite" members of our society.

I remember being in High School, listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd, thinking I should get my kicks in life from nature, being outdoors, good friends and a frosty ale or two every once and again. How friggin' right I was.

So anyway, my goal here today is to prognosticate a massive bout of inflation and rising interest rates. I think our dollar is likely to be worth next to nothing one year from today. Massive disruption in our lives. Quite literally, a collapse of everything we've relied upon throughout my post-war baby boom life.

I hope to hell I'm wrong.

My kids don't deserve it. Hell, I don't deserve it . . . maybe I live a tiny bit beyond my means, but my balance sheet is still in the positive. I socked away for the future, man, and now this crap is chiseling away at that ol' nestegg. Really quite depressing!

I hope to hell I'm wrong.

But I'm afraid that I'm right. I learned in school that you can't just print money and not drum up inflation. It's simple supply and demand. Too many dollars chasing a fixed pot of goods and services means it will take more and more of those dollars to buy any particular good or service. Pretty simple really. With a little effort, a child could understand it.

But apparently, the "adults", they don't.

See ya in a year . . . if I can still afford to power up the PC, that is . . .