perfidy

I hear that there's some debt shenanigans going on.  If I weren't so appallingly cynical, I'd be shocked at the apparent inability of politicians and professional economists and Wall Street pimps to understand what's happening.  I mean, it's pretty simple, as Reddit demonstrated the other day.

I see only a few possibilities:

• mendaciousness - the individuals in question really do know what's happening, and are lying to us for their own gain.
• cluelessness - they really are that stupid, and don't see that they're spending us right off the cliff.
• unjustified arrogance - along the lines of what Oxford Sovietologist Ronald Hingely once said, noting that basic misapprehensions about the nature of the Soviet Union were rare among really serious scholars, and also among ordinary people.  Those who didn't get it were those of fair intelligence, the "educated elite."  Hingely commented: "For it is surely true, if not generally recognized, that real prowess in wrong-headedness, as in most other fields of human endeavor, presupposes considerable education, character,  sophistication, knowledge, and will to succeed."

It seems to me that each of the three groups most responsible for our current predicament fits one of those descriptions.  I will allow that there is some possibility of overlap...

I'd say that reading the economic news is like watching a train derailing, except that you can't exactly watch a train derailing from the inside, so its not a perfect analogy.  I have this terrible sense that inexorable doom is coming toward us.  You look at the similarities between the first great depression and our current situation (banking crisis, pause, soveriegn debt crisis...  who will be the Creditanstalt for our times?).  You look at the results of debasing the currency in Imperial Rome, in pre-Industrial England, in dozens of countries from Weimar Germany to Zombabwe in the last century and wonder how we can be different, except in scale. You look at the disingenuousness of the economic statistics - Q1 revised down to .4% growth? G is a component of GDP. Take that out, subtract that from next to zero, and what do you have? And let's not mention the unemployment numbers.

In this environment, people like Ron Paul are made to look like the crazed radical for pointing out the obvious. Well, maybe the food, gold, ammo approach is less unreasonable and paranoid than it once was.

Ironic to think that in the space of just five years, the US and Zimbabwe dollars could switch places at the top and bottom of the world currency rankings:

A week ago we presented the idea floated by once hyperinflationary Zimbabwe, oddly jeered by most, that the country is seeking to move to a gold-backed currency, adding, somewhat surrealistically, that the "days of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency are numbered." And if anyone should know a hyperinflationary basket case, it's Zimbabwe. Well, today this bizarre story just went fuller retard, after the country announced that it may exchange diamonds for gold "so that it can have a gold-backed currency, according to a recent proposal from the governor of Zimbabwe’s central bank." Indeed we speculated previously why: "Zimbabwe, a country rich in natural resources, took so long to figure out that it was nothing but a puppet in the hands of western monetary interests." Well, others are now getting this idea - Commodity Online reports that "The country is a resource hub: It sits on gold reserves worth trillions. It has the world’s second largest reserves of platinum, has got alluvial diamonds that can fetch the nation $2 billion annually and even boasts of chrome and coal deposits." And since Zimbabwe is now fully on board this whole "pioneering" thing perhaps it should just go ahead and create the first diamond-platinum backed currency. Just don't give China and Russia ideas about floating a new reserve currency that actually has real commodity backing. What's that, you say? They are launching one soon? Oh well.

h/t Zero Hedge

... when Zimbabwe tells you to straighten the fuck out on the whole inflation/fiat currency thing.

From Zero Hedge:

Yes. Zimbabwe, the same place that two years ago sported a brand new crisp Z$100 trillion bill. What is just as odd is that this news comes less than a week after Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticized US economic policies, saying that the paper currency created by the American government is taking a heavy toll on the global economy. While Zimbabwe, which now transacts almost exclusively in foreign currencies such as the USD and the South African Rand, is actively considering ways to return its own currency into circulation, the man who has up to now served as an inspiration and a role model to Ben Bernanke, Gideon Gono, said the country should consider adopting a gold-backed currency. “There is a need for us to begin thinking seriously and urgently about introducing a Gold-backed Zimbabwe currency which will not only stable but internationally acceptable,” he said in an interview with state media...

We wonder what took Zimbabwe, a country rich in natural resources, so long to figure out that it was nothing but a puppet in the hands of western monetary interests:

“The events of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis demand a new approach to self reliance and a stable mineral-backed currency and to me, Gold has proven over the years that it is a stable and most desired precious metal,” Gono said.

“Zimbabwe is sitting on trillions worth of gold-reserves and it is time we start thinking outside the box, for our survival and prosperity.”

Curiously, the same can be said for Russia, and, soon enough, after it will have bought every last resource and global extraction company, China.

By now it is far too clear that it is an "Onion" world out there. Will it be all that surprising if Zimbabwe is the first country, following its brief and painful detour into hyperinflation, to introduce a gold-backed currency?

Crazy. By the way, I got my own Z$100,000,000,000,000 note from Amazon not that long ago. I told my son that I was going to give him an allowance denominated in Zimbabwean dollars. He wasn't amused.

The Instapundit linked to the top five worst hyperinflations of all time.  The worst was in Hungary in 1946:

Highest monthly inflation: 13,600,000,000,000,000%
Prices doubled every: 15.6 hours

The worst case of hyperinflation ever recorded occurred in Hungary in the first half of 1946. By the midpoint of the year, Hungary's highest denomination bill was the 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 (One Hundred Quintillion) pengo, compared to 1944s highest denomination, 1,000 pengo. At the height of Hungary's inflation, the CATO study estimates that the daily inflation rate stood at 195 percent, with prices doubling approximately every 15.6 hours, coming out to a monthly inflation rate of 13.6 quadrillion percent.

The situation was so dire that the government adopted a special currency that was created explicitly for tax and postal payments and was adjusted each day via radio. The pengo was eventually replaced later that year in a currency revaluation, but it is estimated that when the currency was replaced in August 1946, the total of all Hungarian banknotes in circulation equaled the value of one one-thousandth of a US Dollar.

Holy devaluations, Batman!  An entire currency worth a tenth of a cent.  That just blows my mind.  That and having a radio adjusted currency.  Strangely, it sounds sort of science fictiony.  Like, if you didn't know how fucked up it is, it would sound cool.

From Zero Hedge:

Like most economists, the Fed and its chairman mistake their manipulation of money for control of the economy. You and I are the economy and it is quite apparent that the Fed has very little "control" over us. If they could control us, then their policies would have worked and they wouldn't keep experimenting on us with radical policies like quantitative easing and ZIRP.

Money, lest we forget, it just a medium of exchange. It does other things as well (store of value, indicator of the relative cost of things), but its primary function and the reason money was invented is to allow us to easily facilitate exchanges of goods and services. The economy is what we do everyday when we work, buy, sell, and save. Money is just a tool we use. When the Fed manipulates our money what is does is upset our ability to plan about the future. We have one set of perceptions about what money is and then the Fed distorts those perceptions and we end up making bad choices and bad plans. It results in the boom-bust business cycles we have and price inflation or price deflation.

Interesting piece on what hyperinflation in the US might look like.  The prelude is a description of the hyperinflation in Chili under Allende:

Apart from what happened with the Weimar Republic in the 1920’s, advanced Western economies have no experience with hyperinflation. (I actually think that the high inflation that struck the dollar in the 1970’s, and which was successfully choked off by Paul Volcker, was in fact an incipient bout of commodity-driven hyperinflation—but that’s for some other time.) Though there were plenty of hyperinflationary events in the XIX century and before, after the Weimar experience, the advanced economies learned their lesson—and learned it so well, in fact, that it’s been forgotten.

However, my personal history gives me a slight edge in this discussion: During the period 1970–’73, Chile experienced hyperinflation, brought about by the failed and corrupt policies of Salvador Allende and his Popular Unity Government. Though I was too young to experience it first hand, my family and some of my older friends have vivid memories of the Allende period—vivid memories that are actually closer to nightmares.

The causes of Chile’s hyperinflation forty years ago were vastly different from what I believe will cause American hyperinflation now. But a slight detour through this history is useful to our current predicament.

To begin: In 1970, Salvador Allende was elected president by roughly a third of the population. The other two-thirds voted for the centrist Christian Democrat candidate, or for the center-right candidate in roughly equal measure. Allende’s election was a fluke.

He wasn’t a centrist, no matter what the current hagiography might claim: Allende was a hard-core Socialist, who headed a Hard Left coalition called the Unidad Popular—the Popular Unity (UP, pronounced “oo-peh”). This coalition—Socialists, Communists, and assorted Left parties—took over the administration of the country, and quickly implemented several “reforms”, which were designed to “put Chile on the road to Socialism”.

Land was expropriated—often by force—and given to the workers. Companies and mines were also nationalized, and also given to the workers. Of course, the farms, companies and mines which were stripped from their owners weren’t inefficient or ineptly run—on the contrary, Allende and his Unidad Popular thugs stole farms, companies and mines from precisely the “blood-thirsty Capitalists” who best treated their workers, and who were the most fair towards them.

Allende’s government also put UP-loyalists in management positions in those nationalized enterprises—a first step towards implementing a Leninist regime, whereby the UP would have “political control” over the means of production and distribution. From speeches and his actions, it’s clear that Allende wanted to implement a Maoist-Leninist regime, with himself as Supreme Leader.

One of the key policy initiative Allende carried out was wage and price controls. In order to appease and co-opt the workers, Allende’s regime simultaneously froze prices of basic goods and services, and augmented wages by decree.

At first, this measure worked like a charm: Workers had more money, but goods and services still had the same old low prices. So workers were happy with Allende: They went on a shopping spree—and rapidly emptied stores and warehouses of consumer goods and basic products. Allende and the UP Government then claimed it was right-wing, anti-Revolutionary “acaparadores”—hoarders—who were keeping consumer goods from the workers. Right.

Meanwhile, private companies—forced to raise worker wages while maintaining their same price structures—quickly went bankrupt: So then, of course, they were taken over by the Allende government, “in the name of the people”. Key industries were put on the State dole, as it were, and made to continue their operations at a loss, so as to satisfy internal demand. If there was a cash shortfall, the Allende government would simply print more escudos and give them to the now State-controlled companies, which would then pay the workers.

This is how hyperinflation started in Chile. Workers had plenty of cash in hand—but it was useless, because there were no goods to buy.

So Allende’s government quickly instituted the Juntas de Abastecimiento y Control de Precios (“Unions of Supply and Price Controls”, known as JAP). These were locally formed boards, composed of loyal Party members, who decided who in a given neighborhood received consumer products, and who did not. Naturally, other UP-loyalists had preference—these Allende backers received ration cards, with which to buy consumer goods and basic staples.

Of course, those people perceived as “unfriendly” to Allende and the UP Government either received insufficient rations for their families, or no rations at all, if they were vocally opposed to the Allende regime and its policies.

Very quickly, a black market in goods and staples arose. At first, these black markets accepted escudos. But with each passing month, more and more escudos were printed into circulation by the Allende government, until by late ’72, black marketeers were no longer accepting escudos. Their mantra became, “Sólo dólares”: Only dollars.

Hyperinflation had arrived in Chile.

In the aftermath of the mortgage company deciding to sell my house with out, you know, letting me in on the secret; I decided that this was in fact a perfect moment to pause and take stock of my situation.

So I did.

In many areas of my life, things are groovy.  I'm down 20lbs.  I'm exermacizing.  I've got a decent job.  I've got great kids, and a great wife.  Even my dog and cat are well above average.  I've no credit card debt, I'm current on all my bills.  There's just one gaping, gangrenous sore on the face of my happiness, and that is the house situation.  And it occurred to me, after consulting runes, oracles and qualified professionals, that my current housing situation was not only not all that great it is unlikely in the extreme to improve anytime in the near future.  Given my recent unpleasantness in the job market, and the general unpleasantness still extent in the housing market, the likelihood of getting a decent refinance on my home is vanishingly small.  So until the housing market rebounds (which might happen before the world ends in 2012, but I'm not betting on it) I am stuck paying a large mortgage on a house that is worth less than that mortgage, and said mortgage is a much larger fraction of my monthly income than it was when I bought the place.

Since I want to enjoy my last couple years before the world ends, and since I want to get some petty vengeance on my mortgage company for stabbing me in the back, I'm moving.  It seems that now I can get a house twice as big and almost as nice as the current one for 2/3 the price I paid four years ago.  Such is modern life.  So, the next few months will be consumed with the vast logistical enterprise that is relocating a household consisting of a pregnant wife, three kids seven and under, a dog, a cat, and all the crap we've accumulated with the efficiency of a black hole sucking in light.  Packing, looking at houses, trips to the dump, dealing with realtors and finance, and a thousand other tasks large and small will consume most of the time I don't spend working or sleeping.

So blogging will be light for the near future, as it has been for the last couple weeks. I do intend to finish up a couple nearly finished drafts on formalist type issues.  I'll throw up some links now and again.  (Isegoria seemed to disagree with my last bunch being labeled, "Of mild interest.")  And I'll probably steal some time away from work or sleep to get things off my chest. 

o assuage your pain, here is teh funny:

Normally, I have a typically lame excuse for not blogging.  Apathy, work, illness, family, the like.  This last hiatus, though brief by the standards of previous lapses, was more scary.  (For me - if it was scary for you, I am concerned about your mental health.)

Last week, I almost lost my house.

There is a prologue to this story, of course.  I have been gainfully employed for the last year.  The two and a half years previous to last summer were rather more chaotic.  Between January 2007 and August 2009, I was laid off three times.  Once, just five weeks into a year long contract.  This had a profound and deleterious effect on my finances - every time I'd get a new gig, I'd struggle to get caught up, get there, and then immediately be on forced retirement.  With help from family, and by adopting a spartan lifestyle, I managed to make it through.  Except for what I owe my parents, I am no more in debt now than when I started the whole nightmare.  I have no credit card debt, and my only loans are car loans, and my mortgage.  But I did not get through without constant run-ins with the most wonderful and understanding people on Earth, the bill collectors.

My largest debt is my mortgage, and my mortgage loan company is a smallish one.  I'd fall behind, get a job, get on a plan, get laid off, get behind...  Last fall, hopeful again that this job would last a little longer than the last few, I got on a plan.  I scraped up a few thousand in earnest money, and started making payments.

Life is good!  The house is saved, a major worry is de-worrified, and I focus on catching up on other bills.

Now, part of the process is filling out endless paperwork.  I did, back in October of last year.  A call to the mortgage company revealed that they were missing a signed page two of my tax return.  No problem - I'll fax it.  As I made my last scheduled payment on the plan at the end of March, this came up again.  Didn't get the first one?  I'll fax it in again.  I continued making payments, as agreed.  I asked when I'd find out what the new terms would be, they said that the underwriters would look at everything and get back to me.

Okay.

Understand that from January of this year through my departure for Ohio three weeks ago, I received exactly one piece of mail from the mortgage people - a form letter saying that my interest rate might (or might not) change in August.  Got that in May.

'Round about June, I became concerned that I hadn't heard anything.  I gave them a call.  "Oh, hi, Mr. Buckethead!  We don't have your signed page two of your tax return."  Well, shit, okay, I'll get it to you.  I asked where we were - no problem, they say, just get that to us, and we're cool.  So alright.  I faxed it in, for the fourth time.  Busyness ensued - getting ready for the trip, other issues.  I leave for Ohio.

Last Tuesday, two weeks into my trip to Ohio, I called again, to check on their progress.  And discovered that my house was scheduled for a sheriff's sale yesterday - the 10th of August, a week away.  Holy mother of fuck.  I say, well that's mildly outrageous, seeing as I never got anything in the mail, or a phone call, or by smoke signal indicating that my house was going to be sold out from under me despite the fact that I had made every single agreed payment.

In fact, I discovered that the decision had been made four days before I talked to the guy in June - rejected because they had only an unsigned version of page 2 of my tax return, and not a signed one.  They had somehow failed to mention that in the phone call, or the sale.  And it appears that my signature on the initial agreement gave them the right to do that.

I seriously considered just giving them the keys.

My house is worth no more than what I paid for it in 2006, maybe slightly less.  Thanks to missed payments that will be tacked onto the end, I'm at least somewhat underwater.  If I sold the house, I'd lose money.  Having the bank sell the house would mean they lose the money.  I could find a rental for significantly less than my current mortgage payment, even as low as half; and I wouldn't have the burden of hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.  The upside would be a thousand more dollars in my pocket every month - not an insignificant sum.

Downside, of course, is that my credit rating would be savaged for years, useless.  That's a hell of a trade-off, freedom and more money with expulsion from the ranks of the credit-worthy; or continued paycheck to paycheck wage-slavery to maintain my status and nice home.

I find that the monkeybrains was arguing for status.  Losing the house would be a real hit to my pride.  But in the end, I decided to go with monkeybrains and keep the house for a couple reasons.  One, employers check credit reports when they're hiring. Two, I will need a viable credit rating to purchase a new, larger vehicle to accomodate my soon to be larger family sometime before next January.  Three, I have plans for the future that require home ownership.  It's involved, but take my word for it.  I'm trying to think long-term, and the short term happiness of more money is not outweighing seven years bad luck for defaulting on a mortgage.

So last week, I spent several hours on the phone, arguing, bargaining, negotiating, and managed to avert disaster.  So far as I know, they did not sell my house yesterday.  It came down to me agreeing to pay two payments instead of one, all for their screw up.  A reach-around would have been appreciated, but was not offered.  A timely short term loan from Mom covered the shortfall (thanks mom!) and finally we were able to move on.

The frustrating thing about this is (aside from nearly dying of shock, and then having to fork over an extra mortgage payment for someone else's fuck-up) that I had not refinanced the loan back in March. I didn't because the people I talked to said that I wouldn't be able to get good terms while I was still technically in default, because the plan wasn't complete.  I figured a couple more months wouldn't be a bad thing, especially if I can get a better deal at the end of it.  Now, thanks to this most recent ass-rape, it will be until January of '11 before this new plan is finished.  (Needless to say, I am going to pursue refinancing rather more relentlessly, I want to get away from these people.)

If anyone knows of any good house refinancing resources, I'd welcome a tip.

From what mom was telling me, this sort of thing isn't exactly uncommon.  Others have had houses sold out from under their feet despite having made regular, agreed-upon payments.  And usually, without notification.  Which strikes me as curious - it's one thing to foreclose on someone who isn't making payments, but given the near certainty of massive losses on the sale, you'd think they'd want to keep raking in the interest money.  Unless, of course, it's cheaper for them to write off the loss and get bailout money from the government.

Looking a lot like 1932?

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard thinks so.

Roughly a million Americans have dropped out of the jobs market altogether over the past two months. That is the only reason why the headline unemployment rate is not exploding to a post-war high.
Let us be honest. The US is still trapped in depression a full 18 months into zero interest rates, quantitative easing (QE), and fiscal stimulus that has pushed the budget deficit above 10pc of GDP.
The share of the US working-age population with jobs in June actually fell from 58.7pc to 58.5pc. This is the real stress indicator. The ratio was 63pc three years ago. Eight million jobs have been lost.
The average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks. Nothing like this has been seen before in the post-war era. Jeff Weninger, of Harris Private Bank, said this compares with a peak of 21.2 weeks in the Volcker recession of the early 1980s.

Then there's the devaluation:

It is obvious what that policy should be for Europe, America, and Japan. If budgets are to shrink in an orderly fashion over several years – as they must, to avoid sovereign debt spirals – then central banks will have to cushion the blow keeping monetary policy ultra-loose for as long it takes.
The Fed is already eyeing the printing press again. "It's appropriate to think about what we would do under a deflationary scenario," said Dennis Lockhart for the Atlanta Fed. His colleague Kevin Warsh said the pros and cons of purchasing more bonds should be subject to "strict scrutiny", a comment I took as confirmation that the Fed Board is arguing internally about QE2.

This lays out the just really uncanny similarities between Madoff's ponzi scheme and that third rail of American politics, Social Security.  I can't say I'm surprised to discover this.  I've thought this for some time, and anyone who is not just about to retire is truly delusional if they're counting on getting anything out of the thousands of dollars they've put into the SS 'lock-box' over the years.

If only I could have kept that money, and used it to buy canned goods and ammunition.  That'd be a better retirement plan than anything the government is likely to be able to provide for anyone my age (vintage 1969, baby) or younger.

Of course, this is merely one more example in a long line of similar comparisons - "if anyone in the private sector did x, they'd be in jail - why do these politicians stay in office and get sweetheart real estate and commodities deals?"  Makes you wonder about that whole "we're a nation of laws, not men" concept, don't it?

Ran across this today - the Dollar ReDe$ign Project.  In it, many have submitted their ideas for replacement designs for the dollar.  This is a good thing - seeing as the new C-note is trending a little faggoty.  Most of them, sadly, are even more fagotty then what we're getting.  But a couple of them I really liked.

This one, by one Michael Tyznik, is kinda cool.  Oddly, he flips the sides - the face is on the reverse, the picture on the front.  The obverse is nice - a clean design.  The reverse, maybe not so much, but I like the idea of including the full text of the bill of rights on our paper currency.  If the portrait were set off, it might make the reverse a little stronger.

Tyznik feels that the $1 bill is wrong, and should be replaced with a dollar coin. Hmm, that reminds me of something. Take a look at all of them here, and read his thoughts on the design here.

And then this one, well it's a little odd - it imagines a federal union of the US, Canada and Mexico. And all the faces on the bills are bankers.  Cheeky, what?  But I like the layout of the bills - it's not busy, but it keeps the idea of the traditional currency.

You can see some of the imagined back story here, with more pics (in an easier to view format) here. What this reminded me of was this, from the archives (I've included it below because the special characters are mildly hosed over at old.perfidy):

I Want Real Money

Emperor Buckethead I.  That has a nice ring to it, don't you think?  When I become Emperor of the United States, there's a few things I want to change around here.

Last weekend, my mom came out to help celebrate the birthday of my son, who turns four this coming weekend. As part of the bag of gifts that she brought out for greedboy, she included a couple of the new dollar coins, the ones with George Washington's portrait on them. I was underwhelmed with this latest effort from the Bureau of Printing and Engraving.

The coin feels like what Monopoly money would feel like if the game used coins. It's light, as if it had a plastic core. The sheen is distinctly unreminiscent of gold. The quality of the art work is poor, I mean really, from some angles it looks like poor George is missing his eyes instead of his teeth. Zombie George is not what I want on my dollar coin. The fonts are ridiculous. And once again, we have a dollar coin the same size as a quarter.

Now, I am in favor of dollar coins. Ever since I spent time in England, I have been for dollar coins. The pound coin is a nifty thing, and we by rights should have an equivalent. A large value coin that is easily distinguishable from other coins. This, our government has signally failed to provide for us for far too long.

One of the problems, of course, is inflation. Precious metals, the ones that make the best coins, are now far to expensive to use in coins - people would melt them down for the metal rather than use them as currency.  That's why our dollar coins are made of anodized aluminum, and our quarters are made of tin foil.

To make things right, we can't just make better coins.  We must make more far reaching changes to our system of currency. To wit, we must revalue the currency 10:1. That is to say, ten current dollars would equal one new dollar. With this simple change, we can return to decent coins.

A quick peak at the internets reveals some key facts:

Gold= $21.63/g
Silver= $.43/g
Copper= $.008/g

Penny= 2.5g (3.1g before 1982)
Nickel= 5g
Dime= 2.3g
Quarter= 5.7g
Pound Coin= 9.5g

So what does it all mean?

• A ten gram gold coin would be worth over $200 now. But, under the new dispensation, it would be worth $20.  The return of the $20 gold coin.
• A silver quarter would be $2.44, or very nearly .25 in the new order.
• Current dimes in silver would be $.99, or almost exactly ten cents.
• Old half dimes were made of silver, and weighed 1.3g - $.56, or 5.6 cents in the new money. Perfect.
• A 3g penny, made of pure copper, would be worth about 2.5 cents. Double the size, and you have 5 cents current currency, or ½ cent in the new system. (The old large penny was 10g.) Our lowest denomination coin would therefore be 5 cents, and the eliminate the penny crowd would be simultaneously thwarted and victorious.

So, the new coinage:

• Twenty Dollar - pure gold, 9.25g, about the size of a British Pound coin.  Worth $200 in current money.  Obverse: Liberty with sword and shield; Reverse: "Give me Liberty or give me death"
• Ten Dollar - pure gold, 4.75g, about the size of a nickel.  Worth $100 in current money.  Obverse: Eagle; Reverse: U.S. Space Series - Armstrong on Moon, Mercury Capsule, Gemini Capsule, Docked lander and Apollo Capsule, Space Shuttle, Skylab, Voyager, Burt Rutan and SpaceShipOne
• Five Dollar - pure gold, 2.5g, about the size of a dime.  Worth $50 in current money.  Obverse: Gouverneur Morris; Reverse: Seal of the United States of America
• Dollar - gold/silver alloy, 8.75g, about the size of a pound coin.  Worth $10 in current money.  Obverse: Grizzly Bear; Reverse: American warplanes series: P-38 Lightning, P-51 Mustang, F-6 Hellcat, F-86 Super Sabre, F-4 Phantom II, F-15 Eagle, F-14 Tomcat, F-18 Bug, F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning II…
• Half Dollar - gold/silver alloy, 4.5g, about the size of a nickel.  Worth $5 in current money.  Obverse: John Hancock; Reverse: Liberty Bell
• Quarter Dollar - pure silver, 6g, about the size of a quarter.  Worth $2.50 in current money.  Obverse: Buffalo; Reverse: American Generals series: Patton, Sherman, Grant, Washington, Sheridan, MacArthur, Eisenhower, Lee, Jackson, no Omar Bradley.
• Dime - pure silver, 2.5g, about the size of a dime.  Worth $1 in current money.  Obverse: George Washington (from current quarter); Reverse: U.S. Capitol.
• Half Dime - pure silver, 1.25g, about half the size of a dime, and the size of the old 19thC half dimes.  Worth 50¢ in current money.  Obverse: Walking Liberty; Reverse: Independence Hall.
• Two Cents - copper/silver alloy, 5g, about the size of a nickel.  Worth 20¢ in current money.  Obverse: John Adams; Reverse: Statue of Liberty.
• Cent - copper/silver alloy, 2.5g, about the size of a penny.  Worth 10¢ in current money.  Obverse: Abraham Lincoln (image of his statue in the memorial); Reverse: Lincoln Memorial.
• Half Cent - pure copper, 6g, about the size of a quarter.  Worth 5¢ in current money.  Obverse: Liberty Head; Reverse: Wreath.

Italicized coins would be relatively rare. The Gold/Silver alloy would be about 4% gold.  Every coin will have the motto "Liberty" and the year on the front; and "United States of America, E Pluribus Unum," and the value on the back.  The value will always be indicated in words, not numbers.  Americans should be literate.  The series of coins is not a bad idea, but we need some new topics.  The idea of the Buffalo is cool, and looks good, too.  So I combined the two.  The Buffalo, the Grizzly and the Eagle each get a coin and a series.

And while we're at it, why not change the folding money?  I think the bills should be a little bit bigger, like the old money before 1929.  Maybe about 7 by 3, instead of the current 6.14 x 2.61 inches.  As for colors, screw the new colors.  We can add enough other counterfeit countermeasures to return to the traditional green for the front of the bill.  On the back, though, we could, conceivably, use other colors.  Some of the older bills had blue, orange or even red in addition to black for the reverse side.  I'm open to change there.

I've never been completely satisfied with the choices on our bills.  Jackson was a terrible president, and doesn't deserve a place on the $20 bill.  Hamilton was important, but he's worn out his welcome.

I think we need really large denomination bills again.  I know that electronic transfers make them largely unnecessary, but the idea is just too cool to pass up.  The new bills should have a portrait on the front, and a painting that is relevant to the portrait on the back.  And the portrait should have a oval border around it, like we used to have.

So, a new order for the paper money:

• One Dollar Bill - ($10 in current money); Obverse: George Washington; Reverse: Washington Crossing the Delaware.
• Two Dollar Bill - ($20 in current money); Obverse: Thomas Jefferson; Reverse: Declaration Signing.  (Same as current $2 bill.)
• Five Dollar Bill - ($50 in current money); Obverse: Abraham Lincoln; Reverse: Surrender at Appomattox.  (Screw the southern prideniks.)
• Ten Dollar Bill - ($100 in current money); Obverse: FDR; Reverse: Engraving of Iwo Jima flag-raising.  (Screw the japs.)
• Twenty Dollar Bill - ($200 in current money); Obverse: Ronald Reagan; Reverse: Engraving of the Berlin Wall being torn down.  (Same to the commies.)
• Fifty Dollar Bill - ($500 in current money); Obverse: Albert Einstein; Reverse: Engraving of the Trinity nuke test.  (Same to the enviro-anti-nuke weenies.)
• Hundred Dollar Bill - ($1000 in current money); Obverse: Nikola Tesla; Reverse: Engraving of a couple Tesla Coils going nuts.  (Same to Thomas Edison.)
• Five Hundred Dollar Bill - ($5000 in current money); Obverse: Wilbur and Orville Wright; Reverse: Engraving of the first flight at Kitty Hawk.
• Thousand Dollar Bill - ($10,000 in current money); Obverse: Werner von Braun; Reverse: Engraving of a Saturn V rocket lift off.  (Screw anyone who says von Braun was a Nazi.  Maybe he was, but he became a good American.

How cool would it be to have a $500 bill with a picture of nuclear explosion on it?  Or pay for groceries at the whole foods store with a Reagan twenty?  Or carry fifty dollars in change in your pocket instead of a reinforced canvas bag, and each coin with a picture of an American warbird?  This new money would kick ass.

So there it is, the Buckethead plan for American monetary reform.

I think either of those bill designs would work well with my scheme.

Actually, it's a pretty old story, but just hit my inbox today, for reasons unknown.

I used to fashion myself as some form of entrepreneur, but clearly, I need to rethink that.

Funny.  I wonder what other ordinary transactions could be productively and imaginatively re-imagined as sordid criminal activity?

I've decided that rather than worry about the current economic crisis, I'm going to enjoy it. Not because I enjoy seeing people suffer, but because I have great respect for the concept of chaos, and undoings of any sort intrigue me. I love giant snowstorms, for example, not because I like snow, but because nothing thrills me more than watching Ma Nature incapacitate Cleveland as if to serve a bitch-slap reminder that she is still in charge, godammit.

So, yes, chaos, and I keep looking up at CNN to watch the Dow drop lower and lower and lower. As I type this, it's thinking about dropping below 8,000. Fascinating. This makes me wonder. If the market, say, drops to zero, what happens? Will all the bespectacled brokers on the market floor snap entirely and turn on each other, feasting on each other's flesh and triumphantly waving human femurs in the air as the big electronic screens rain sparks on the bedlam below? That might be fun.

When we hit the zero mark, does that mean we just bag money entirely and go back to being agrarian? I've given this substantial thought, and I'm considering that the best investment any smart American could make right now is in the Sheep Industry. You know, for barter. I have a rather substantial backyard that I believe could accommodate a head of sheep, assuming that a "head" constitutes a number less than 50. Mapgirl has already agreed to help with shearing and wool processing. I think I'd also plant stuff so we could eat.

Ministers, I have your backs. At the culmination of the decline of the American infrastructure, you shall all be welcome here in Cleveland Heights. I'll feed you, keep you warm, and make sure the WiFi stays churning. You bring the booze and guns.

So, the economy is in the pits, and if I listen to the media, I will be lead to believe that at any second, the earth will split open and suck us all into a vortex of poverty and anarchy.

Here's the thing ...

My kneejerk reaction to the massive bailout is "Hell no! Screw those companies! Where's the help for the middle class?"

However ...

I realize that, as is the case of most kneejerk reactions, my feelings only scratch the surface of a much larger issue. I'm 32. My husband and I do not possess large 401Ks or IRAs whose continued existence depends on the performance of the markets. No one's taking away my retirement fund at the moment. My parents, however, are nervous, as they're sitting on quite a few pension/retirement bucks that they're worried could disintegrate in the wake of a spectacular economic implosion.

I'm aware that my parents' retirement could very well be contingent upon the success of a bailout. Yet, on the other hand, I despise that our economic livelihood is largely debt-driven. Some debt is inevitable, yes, but is it smart practice to provide a solution that simply enables business as usual?

Part of me wants to watch Wall Street burn and let our economy rebuild itself by forcing us all to become more fiscally responsible. Everyone gets screwed in the short-term, sure, but at the end of what will certainly be a long recession no matter how Congress decides to vote, would we find ourselves among a nation of people who only buy what they can afford without the help of extraneous credit and without the need for a subprime market? I'm not necessarily saying we should all start paying cash for huge purchases like homes and cars, but what about those who charge plasma TVs when their old tube set could easily suffice?

Talk to me, smart people! Educate me, people-who-understand-economics-better-than-I-do! What's the answer? Is there a right answer?

This is shameless self-promotion, but it's also free self-promotion, so I'm putting it to good use.

I have a little shopping blog called SmartLassy, and since May, I've been using it to point people toward cool stuff that might appeal to goofy, geeky girls like me.

Recently, I decided to stop promoting other people's stuff and make an attempt at selling cool stuff directly from my site. My goal is to eventually sit atop a giant Scrooge McDuck pile of money, cackling with glee whilst drinking a pink libation from a martini glass. Ah, dreams.

Anyway, won't you please go check out the site? And if you're feeling generous, you could tell other people about it. That would be awful nice of you.

It occurs to me, after reading the articles about the money mules, that you could:

1. Set up a fake paypal account, tied to one of those super-market pay-as-you-go credit cards.
2. Set up a fake email address, and sign up on Monster.com with a fake resume, etc.
3. Sign up for money mule scheme.
4. Wait for them to deposit money in the paypal account.
5. Keep the money.

Seems like it would work better than the average

1. Collect underpants
2. ???
3. Profit!

schemes.

...seems it's never too early to, you know, get my preferences out there.

I figure if everyone at the Ministry kicked in merely half of their economic stimulus money, you could all easily swing this for me.

And I can't tell you how much that would in turn stimulate me.

I have broken my embarrassing six-month bloggy hiatus (self-imposed due to infant, my job, and my other job, plus the realization that nobody in the world gives a rats' red ass about my "learned" opinions on world affairs) to tell y'all this: I'm famous!

Or at least notable.

Ahhhh, hell with it. This week's edition of the Basic Brewing Radio podcast features a 40-minute interview with yours truly, expanding ya'll's consciousnesses on the topic of capturing, keeping, and working with wild yeast and wild yeast sourdough bread. The brewing connection to baking being, obviously, ancient and fundamental. And delicious.

I might be a fraud, but I'm a very convincing fraud. Download, listen, and learn.

So says the heading at Long or Short Capital. The reason, below the fold.

Since I'm a master of the obvious, that's almost certainly the result of some funster fucking around at end of day. But still.

The wise men at LoS close with:

Recommendation: Sell through to the end times.

Marginally related, since I'm fake-blogging anyway, also at LoS:

The Cephalopod Story Strengthened