- Apparently Abraham Lincoln was mistaken. After viewing
the election results, good reader, I have concluded that you can, indeed,
fool all of the people all of the time. At least when it comes to
politics.
-
- On Tuesday, more than 115 million voters were fooled
into believing that their votes mattered. That the political process is
sound. That, given the choice between the devil and a demon, they are
compelled
to install one of them in the White House.
-
- Hardly had the last campaign lies faded from memory
yesterday
when Republicans across the country - cheering Mr. Bush's re-election -
began declaring that the people had spoken.
-
- The people had spoken, true. But what, exactly, had they
said? Was the GOP really listening? If they were, then they must realize
that nearly half the country doesn't want them anywhere near the Oval
Office.
More than 55 million Americans cast their votes against the incumbent,
most of them thoroughly convinced that the leader of the free world is
no more fit to manage the country than he was managing oil companies and
baseball teams.
-
- On the other side, more than 59 million voters chose
to maintain the status quo, and nothing was going to hinder them in their
determination to continue the insanity. Some of them waited many hours
in voting lines for the privilege of furthering their own demise. Neither
wars, nor high unemployment, nor record deficits and bankruptcies - nor
even the mounting loss of "inalienable" rights could keep these
patriots from their appointed folly.
-
- But what a predicament the willing lumps were facing!
It was like asking a condemned man if he prefers to be shot or hanged.
Either way, the poor fellow's family is doomed to weep.
-
- Please don't get the wrong impression, dear reader. It
isn't that I despise George W. Bush. I merely do not understand him. The
man seems both confused and confusing. For example, nearly everyone can
appreciate his desire to protect those still in the womb. What mystifies
so many is his profound lack of concern for those who have already left
it.
-
- But the world is a dangerous place, some will say. The
situation is difficult and complex and does not lend itself to easy
answers.
All the more reason, one would think, to avoid choosing a political leader
who is so confidently simple.
-
- I wonder: How do you explain the re-election of a man
who, in less than 36 months, turned a nation's record budget surplus into
a record deficit? A man who parlayed the world's post-9/11 love and
sympathy
towards America into nearly universal ridicule and a general feeling of
contempt? A man who went out of his way to start a war and seems to go
looking for fights in every god-forsaken corner of the planet? A man who
couldn't take third prize in impromptu speaking at a two-person meeting
of Toastmasters? A man who shirked serious military service that he might
one day compel thousands of others to risk life and limb engaging in
it?
-
- Evidently, GOP supporters figured that Mr. Bush is
already
doing a fine job ruining the country and that no further help is needed
finishing the job. Or perhaps they concluded that Senator Kerry's plan
for the country's destruction was not substantially different or superior
to the president's.
-
- Ralph Nader, too, had a plan. Somehow Nader managed to
convince almost 400,000 U.S. voters that he is the nation's much-needed
savior. But alas, with less than four-tenths of one percent of the ballots,
Mr. Nader provided one last ray of hope that perhaps the country has not
yet gone completely bananas. Nader may be a noble rebel, a man of
conviction
and a voice in the wilderness. Or he may be something else. But when it
comes to putting him in the White House, the electorate soundly declared
him "unsafe at any distance." (May we be so lucky next time
around
should the presidential ballot contain the name
"Hillary.")
-
- Where does all of this high drama leave us, dear reader?
What are we to make of this world's ludicrous machinations, its short-lived
circus of human idiocy and its passing absurdities? What can we do that
might help us take advantage of the spectacle? In other words, how can
we make a buck? For LeMetropoleCafe is not the proper forum for political
ranting, petty name-calling, witless buffoonery and cheap,
counter-productive
character assassination. That is clearly the domain of Congress.
-
- No, dear reader, this is a pay-only website, and most
of us are here - let us be honest - to find ways to make money. Besides,
I confess that I myself am strictly apolitical. That is, I despise nearly
all politicians equally. I am not thrown off the scent of the trail of
common sense by hogwash, whitewash, or backwash. And I do not subscribe
to professional hucksterism of any brand, whether Democratic, Republican
- or Presbyterian.
-
- How, then, can we take what we observe in the nasty,
un-sterilized world of politics and leverage it into a profit in the nasty,
un-sterilized world of finance? What is the current geo-political
environment
telling us? Is it ever possible to foretell the future based upon the
present
- or even upon the past? Only a fool would even try.
-
- So here goes...
-
- As I see it, there are a few obvious possibilities.
First,
peace could break out the world over as the mass of humanity learns the
self-defeating futility of taking sides on a round planet. As a gambler
and long-time observer of human nature, I am willing to bet against this
proposition in the short-term (which is to say the next several
millennia).
-
- Next, the world may continue growing even more chaotic
and unpredictable. If it is bewildering and inimical to peace-loving
peoples
now, it is just as likely, it would seem, to become even more so. Given
the typical fare served up on the nightly news, this assumption seems
reasonable.
-
- What else? What can we Americans expect from our newly
installed political leaders? More to the point, what financial trends
should
we look for in the months and years ahead?
-
- More of the same is my guess. With the blessings of a
fiscally reckless "conservative" majority in the House and
Senate,
Sir Alan Greenspan - if he doesn't resign or drown in the bathtub - will
probably continue printing dollars like they were - well, like they were
nothing but worthless paper. If he does that, hard assets - like gold,
silver and other commodities - will resume their 3-year uptrend.
-
- But what if the Maestro and his merry band of fools at
the Fed decide to cut back severely on the world's supply of greenbacks?
That would probably lead to an all-out depression, since the country's
astronomical personal and corporate debt load would come crashing down
and crush the entire financial system beneath its weight. Some see this
as inevitable, regardless of the silliness implemented by the Fed. The
global monetary stress created by such a disaster would, again, likely
send the price of gold skyward.
-
- It's possible, I suppose, that things could go on pretty
much the same. The president could muddle through the next four years,
continuing to spend money we don't have on programs and policies we don't
want and leading us down the path of moral and fiscal bankruptcy. At least,
in that respect, he is well qualified.
-
- The Democrats, of course, will fight him tooth and nail
all the way. They, too, have their ideas of how our money should be wasted,
and they will insist that some of their own inept schemes are implemented
as a matter of compromise.
-
- In such an event, we should, once again, expect gold
to perform well. Despite the sinister, market manipulation shenanigans
that may be occurring behind the scenes, gold has still found a way to
climb nearly 70% from its lows in 2001. I see no good reason why it
shouldn't
continue its steady ascent.
-
- Some predict that gold will ultimately begin rising
parabolically.
Why? Governments are tripping over themselves to devalue their currencies
against the U.S. dollar, and the race to the bottom has only just begun.
It is reasonable to expect that people everywhere will continue to protect
their wealth from the ongoing destruction of fiat "money" by
investing in the only real money on the planet: gold. That could indeed
drive the price higher than most imagine possible.
-
- In the unbearably sad case that more wars erupt and/or
more terrorist attacks are staged, gold should continue serving as a
financial
refuge from the storm. Surely those of us who consider ourselves
compassionate
and civilized do not hope to profit from any such event. We would far
rather
surrender a profit amidst peace than to capture one through misery.
-
- But misery, it seems, is the politician's field of
expertise.
And no American administration has dispensed it more efficiently - or more
proudly! - than the present one. Nor does it appear likely any time soon
to turn the other cheek. Despite its constant invoking of the Almighty's
name, this leadership shows no hint of its intention to practice the
biblical
injunctions of Jesus to return not evil for evil, pray for one's enemies
or love one's neighbor as oneself. The pay scale at Halliburton would never
survive.
-
- And so, as America prepares for another four years from
her mistake-free leader, we buy gold. We buy it not simply because we are
dedicated to an ideal but because it is imminently practical. We buy it
not just to prove a point but to turn a profit. We buy gold, dear reader,
not because George W. Bush was re-elected, but because we live in a world
where such men are electable in the first place.
-
- Derek K. Van Artsdalen
- vanartsdalen@hotmail.com
-
- Note: This essay does not necessarily reflect the views
of Bill Murphy, GATA, LeMetropoleCafe.com, or, for that matter, any other
sane and rational person on the planet.
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