This is Why NO $50 Silver

Currencies don't fail overnight like a futures market can. They hyperinflate. That means that you might have 20%, 50%, 100%, or more annual inflation, usually accelerating. But at 100% inflation, that means the currency loses half its value over the course of a year. That's only around a quarter of a percent per day. So if something costs $100.00 today, it might cost $100.25 tomorrow. Next week, it might cost $102. While that is an atrocious depreciation, it doesn't seem that bad as a snapshot. From one week to the next, only a little bit of value has been lost. And it also doesn't go in a straight line. Some weeks will be really bad, some may actually reverse and have prices go down. Meanwhile, politicians will be spinning it five different ways, blaming all kinds of other things like speculators and wars and corporations. Most people won't have a clue that there's a sustained trend, but merely a transient problem. Plenty of pundits will be calling for the commodities bubble to pop any day. Thus it will be easy for billionaires to make an offer 20% above current market value and have lots of people think they're getting a great deal, the billionaire being fully aware that market value will be what he paid in a couple months or less, at which point he'll have all the silver he could get while the dumb masses will have little or none.

 

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Firstly, I stated it as fact in the context of the scenario being proposed in which it was implied that a failed currency would necessitate a failed economy. But while the economy would be severely damaged in such a scenario, the "fact" of a currency collapse does not historically imply complete economic collapse. People do still find a way to survive, even if they're writing checks for a trillion dollars to buy lunch. This is based on my readings of German, Hungarian, Polish, Argentinian, Zimbabwean, and other hyperinflations. It is also a "fact" that all fiat currencies in history so far have collapsed. And it is a very, very strong probability that ours will too, and fairly imminently at that.

 

No it's not. Rising prices throughout the economy is the EFFECT of inflation. Inflation is an increase in the money supply. That has happened and is happening. Silver's recent surge is a result of EXPECTATIONS of rising prices as a result of the monetary expansion, i.e. inflation.

Demand for goods does not cause inflation. Demand for goods causes increased supply and efficiency of production, which causes prices to fall, not rise. That's because we have more goods in the economy than money chasing them, so the money rises in value proportionally. This is the opposite of inflation. You could call it deflation, but that word has taken on a dirty connotation as a result of panicked crashes when in reality it is wonderful to have deflation in a non-fiat currency.

 

I think a more accurate way to describe inflation is "an increase in the supply of money that exceeds the increase in demand for money." So if the money supply is increasing by 3% per year and the amount of goods and services produced is increasing by 3%, there will be no inflation. But if the production of goods and services is stagnant, there will be inflation.

And you are correct that inflation is ALWAYS bad, regardless of anything you read or hear [but it is up to you whether to believe me or not]. It slowly [or not so slowly] destroys capital [e.g., savings] and damages those on a fixed income. People who are not hurt are generally those who are able to increase their income in line with inflation and also have no savings. Everyone else is hurt.

 

I don't think that even this accomodation for monetary expansion makes sense or can be excluded from the measure of inflation because the productivity improvements which increase the amount of goods and services tends to decrease employment. This is the old Luddite argument against the industrial revolution. The counterbalance to decreasing employment is a growing value of the currency so that one can earn less and still keep the same standard of living. By pursuing "price stability" central banks cause unemployment and destruction of the middle class while favoring the owners of production. While reduced working hours and more time off sounds like a good thing, it's only good when the reduced amount of work still provides the same amount of reward. A "stable" currency doesn't permit this when instead it should be mildly deflating/appreciating. Thus, compared to what would happen in a free market with honest money, it's still a form of rising prices.

 

passantgardant

If I were you I would just save my breath. I too tried to deliver such a message. You will never be able to convince
the people who can not nor will not see what is happening. They will be the ones caught by denial, then when it is at full force and effect, understand what the Gov of this Country has been doing for the past 40yrs plus! While not making many post's on this any longer, I am in accord with what you are saying/showing and well under way in the procurement of my little safety net.
I know it may seem difficult for some people to buy a roll of ASE for $815 these days, but wait until they are well over $1000 a roll.

 

The Luddite argument was disproven long ago.

 

Agree :thumb:

 

The Luddites were only wrong insofar as they had honest money. If the currency appreciation was stolen from them by central banks, their arguments would have been right. Productivity improvements decrease the amount of work that people have to do. With the industrial revolution, this meant that we could end child labor and slavery and still prosper. But if productivity improvements do not translate to more buying power, then they merely cause unemployment and poverty.

 

Passant, wouldn't this mean that inflation is a good thing? Improvements in productivity ideally imply added economic productivity in other isolated parts of the stream. If those individuals displaced from the sectors of improved productivity choose to not adapt to new sectors, then they become impovershed. So, the outcomes of improvements of productivity are:

1) Natural inflation. More goods available within the economic space off-set by more dollars being created in said space. More dollars = higher prices.

2) Short-term deflation. Lack of adapters results in less dollars circulated in the economy. Less dollars chasing an equal amount of goods (the entire concept of improved productivity) = lower prices.

3) Government imposed inflation. To off-set the advance of short-term deflation, the government increases the money supply with the hope that spending stimulates demand, which will increase demand for sectors lacking in productivity. This demand, in turn, generates additional streams of dollars as individuals return to work.

Now, the problem is that when the individuals return to work, no one charges them interest for the free money they collected during the down period. The surplus of dollars within the money supply leads to a shock of price increases as the economy tries to catch up with the new revenue streams.

The previous scenario is NOT hyper-inflation. Hyper-inflation occurs when the government chooses to artificially inflate the money supply as a sustained economic policy. This is actually somewhat unlikely in a capital-driven democracy. The ingredients for hyper-inflation tend to accompany times of political instability. Ironically, the very thing that people blame for inflation (large government) is the one thing that prevents hyper-inflation from becoming an issue. If the government downsizes to the point of true "shutdown," we won't see hyper-inflation, we'll see deflation. Government spending, even in excess, is a stop-gap against hyper-inflation. It creates sustained inflation by increasing M3 through job creation. Stopping government (and stopping this natural course of sustained inflation) would create the triggers which could result in hyper-inflationary shock. If that were to happen, the sectors that would see the largest price shocks would be, once again: Food and Energy. Stores of wealth don't have ANY value in hyper-inflation, since no one accepts them as viable currency. You can't eat silver, and you can't heat the house during a cold winter with silver, either.

My thoughts on the lack of viability of any single commodity as a hedge against inflation aren't at issue in this post. I'm concerned more about stopping the talk of silver as a hedge against hyper-inflation, since it's anything but.

And, since I know it's going to come up, this is what hyper-inflation (on the global scale that folks seem to be expecting) would result in:

April 2011 1 oz of silver = 1 Unit of global production = $38/OzT

One year of hyper-inflation @0.7% per week:
April 2012 1 oz of silver = $85/OzT
April 2012 1 Unit of global production = $57

Another year of hyper-inflation @0.7% per week:
April 2013 1 oz of silver = $135/OzT
April 2013 1 Unit of global production = $85.50

Third year of hyper-inflation, but only @0.3% per week:
April 2014 1 oz of silver = $82/OzT
April 2014 1 Unit of global production = $115.50

First year of stablized, but still high, inflation @ 12% per anum:
April 2015 1 oz of silver = $75/OzT
April 2015 1 Unit of global production = $130

Second year of stablized, but normal, inflation @ 4% per anum:
April 2016 1 oz of silver = $80/OzT
April 2016 1 Unit of global production = $135

The numbers are based upon forward expectation of speculation and volume. Hyper-inflation that we think of (WW2 or civil war driven) are short-term phenomena. The fear shouldn't be hyper-inflation, but rather hyper-deflation. But, in either case, silver is anything but a hedge.

 

This was the term I was told that is what happens when a field is pumped too quickly. Too quick of draining a field will drop the supported stone too quickly, cracking the stone and preventing future flows from the oil formation into the well zone. I have heard US deposits are mostly too old, (wells been in place too long), for this to be a concern, but its a major concern to Saudi and other middle eastern well sites. Some fields were harmed in Saudi when they single handedly pumped more oil to sate the world's needs during the first gulf war, and afterwards is when I was talking to a well site manager about the damage caused and how they were trying to repair the damage.

Hope that helps. I am not a geologist, so I really have no way independently of verifying what he was telling me.

 

Let's try to consider it mathematically...

(wages (w) * employees (e) * hours (h)) + external costs (x)
= (goods (g) * price (p) * customers (c)) + dividends (d)

I think that this accounts for the entire flow of labor to products within society. Since it is the entire society we're talking about, d is equal to the aggregate savings. For simplicity, let's assume a zero savings rate, i.e. everyone spends their earnings entirely. And also for simplicity, let's assume zero external costs, i.e. this is a "service economy", so all the costs are labor. Neither of these assumptions invalidates the principles involved, but makes it easier to illustrate. Also, since employees are approximately equal to customers (retirees and independently wealthy are a relatively small percentage), then we can cancel them out and come to the simplified equation:

w * h = g * p

How does productivity interact with this equation? It produces more goods for less hours worked. So, let's say there is a 100% increase in productivity. The equation is now:

w * h = 2 * g * p

That's still a bit esoteric to make the point that it's no longer in fact equal, so let's put some sample numbers in there. Let's assume that the average wage is $10/hr, that the average work week is 40 hours, that the average output is 10 widgets per hour, and the average price is $1 per widget.

So now,

w * h = $10 * 40 = $400 and
g * p = 400 * $1 = $400

So if we double productivity, then we get:

w($10) * h(40) = 2g(800) * p($1)

So the population is earning $400 but has $800 worth of products. Clearly this is an oversupply because there's only $400 worth of demand. So what happens? In a free market, one of two things... the price decreases to $0.50 or the production is slowed back to 400 widgets if there isn't enough demand for 800. Often, in fact, it's a mixture of the two, but for simplicity, let's examine either extreme.

If the price decreases (deflation), then everyone enjoys the benefits of now being able to buy 20 widgets per hour worked instead of 10 like before. Some people may even find that they can voluntarily work half as much time and live with their old full-time buying power. In the case of the Industrial Revolution, it meant that people could support their family without their kids working and so they could send them to school full-time instead.

w($10) * h(40) = 2g(800) * 0.5p($0.5) = $400 or
w($10) * 0.5h(20) = g(400) * 0.5p($0.5) = $400

It balances either way. Less hours worked but also lower cost of living, or same hours worked with a greater bounty of goods and services per individual (richer society). The less hours worked also translates into people having the resources to innovate and start new economic sectors. This is where the Luddites got it wrong. Elastic prices allow for productivity to translate into better quality of life and economic growth.

If production is slowed and prices remain the same, on the other hand, the number of hours worked is going to decrease accordingly and so people will get laid off (since nobody wants to take less hours or a pay cut while the cost of living is the same or higher). This is where the Luddites got it right... so long as prices are inelastic, better productivity means fewer jobs and less prosperity.

w($10) * 0.5h(20) = $200 while g(400) * p($1) = $400

Cutting jobs doesn't balance the equation, because now $200 earned is chasing $400 worth of goods, so we remain at the same impasse. This may not be immediately obvious in the real economy because unlike our simplified example, people do have savings and credit and so spend beyond their means for a little while. But now again, either prices must be cut or workers laid off to reduce production as demand eventually falls off. This obviously creates an unemployment spiral. In the free market, this would work itself out by prices eventually falling and employment stabilizing as a result.

But before the free market solution is able to work, here's where the central bank steps in. Since there's $800 worth of production at full employment but only $400 worth of labor, the central bank prints up $400 out of thin air and buys the excess production in order to "maintain price stability" and "preserve jobs". Well, it sounds easy (and a killer deal for the central bank who now gets 50% of economic output for free), but in a complex economy, the central bank has no idea what the ebbs and flows of productivity are in every sector or exactly how much money to print, when to print it, or how to inject it exactly where it needs to go. So what happens is that they over-stimulate one sector, causing a bubble, and hope it flows to where it's needed to prevent deflation and presumably unemployment. However, while the "excess" employees may find a home in the subsidized sector, there is no true demand for that sector, just central bank printing (or loaning as the case may be). Thus the bubble collapses under the weight of malinvestment and now people are not only unemployed, but paying far more in prices than they should be, which means that surviving in a temporary part-time low-wage job is nearly impossible. The central bank can either respond by trying to inflate another bubble or allow bad debts and malinvestments to work themselves out, but now this reduction of demand truly causes prices to spiral downward in a negative feedback loop, which is what they initially (stupidly) feared. They cannot allow to happen, so another bubble it is.

Note that there was no negative feedback loop for deflation in normal productive times, only in response to a bubble popping. During good times, prices decrease even while demand is strong because everyone is employed, so the pain of not having a particular product while waiting for it to get cheaper is worse than the pain of paying a little too much for it compared to what it will cost in the future. When a bubble pops, people hold off buying until an absolute bottom is found.

So, the outcomes of improvements of productivity are:

1) Natural deflation, not inflation. If the central bank prints up money, it does so in an attempt, not to increase the prices from the current level, but to keep prices from falling to the natural level.

2) Short-term inflation, not deflation. Because the central bank then prints money to keep prices at high old levels, overcompensates, and blows up a bubble, increasing prices of everything.

3) Natural deflation, not inflation. Supply and demand win out in the end, forcing prices lower as the bubble pops. This is a more wild, out of control deflation than would have occurred naturally as a result of productivity. E.g. nobody considers decreasing prices in the computer and home electronics sector to be a bad thing. But the central bank conflates the two and treats them the same way. This is partly because they no longer have any way to figure out when deflation indicates productivity or one of their bubbles popping. So they always use the same tool to "maintain stable prices". But nonetheless, deflation is the natural result of a bubble.

Also, because they cannot tell when deflation is happening til after the fact, the central bank prefers a policy of constant "mild" inflation, so that they have time to react before prices ever drop a single penny. Even at 2% though, prices double in 36 years, which has terrible effects on saving for retirement, long-term contracts, etc.

Also, the central bank creates inflation often by way of the government. The central bank buys government debt and the government then spends this money in the *amost always wrong* targeted areas they want to stimulate. A long trend of having extra money to borrow from the central bank leads the government to profligate spending unhinged from income streams.

The combination of government spending gone wild, distortions due to constant but varying levels of inflation, and cycles of bubbles and panics has brought us to a situation where the economy is performing very poorly, the central bank is artificially depressing interest rates and buying government debt hand-over-fist, and the government is operating on deficits nearly equal to total revenue with a national debt nearly exceeding GDP. Moreover, the malinvestments of the last bubble are still walking around in a partially undead state, animated by legislation and central bank lending. And as we speak, unrealized inflation from the last super bailout is inflating new bubbles here and there.

This situation is unrecoverable. Government cannot borrow any more because interest payments will exceed revenue. The central bank cannot allow interest rates to rise to quell inflation or pop bubbles because the economy is still in the dumps. Allowing bad debts and malinvestments to work themselves out now would mean jumping into the abyss of "Greater Depression" that neither banker nor politician can fathom to suffer. But prices are already much higher than the market would set and rising still as a consequence of monetary expansion. This will soon make government even more expensive than it presently is and force a further monetization of the debt and interest payments. This causes further price inflation, more expensive government, higher interest rates (despite the central bank's best efforts), and still more monetization.

This positive feedback loop of monetary expansion is what is known as hyperinflation. It is absolutely the last choice of any government or central bank, but often the only one remaining because stopping the spiral at any point means economic doom whereas perpetuating it a little longer brings the hope that somehow we can grow out of it.

Inflation does not create jobs. Government spending and monetization only causes malinvestment and eventually hyperinflation. Inflation only has the potential to maintain existing jobs at old, higher prices if applied perfectly, which it never is. There is no mechanism by which inflation actually creates new jobs though.

That's because silver isn't a fuel or a food. Silver is money. Honest money is the most valuable thing during hyperinflation. People still produce food and fuel... the difficulty is in trading them, particularly before they spoil or fill available storage. Silver and gold are natural forms of money.

Firstly, how are you calculating these prices? Secondly, if you think that this is how hyperinflation plays out, you don't know anything about hyperinflation. Hyperinflations don't get a little hot and then cool down, they go exponentially to millions of percent and then the currency is replaced.

There's no such thing as hyper-deflation. There are panics which can cause a downward spiral until people increase their level of savings and buy only necessities, but this is a healing process, not a destructive one. It is only in reaction to bubbles artificially inflated by monetary expansion. The normal course of currency appreciation in response to productivity improvements has no negative feedbacks and is beneficial to all (except the central bank).

But in any case, silver is absolutely a hedge, as born out by history. There is nothing you can say which can reverse the fact that both gold and silver have maintained their value against fiat currencies throughout time. And they are most valuable when fiat currencies fail. It's why long-established wealthy families own lots of silverware, silver flatware, statuary, candlesticks, jewelry, ornaments, etc. There's a reason some families have preserved their wealth for centuries. It's the origin of the phrase "born with a silver spoon in their mouth". Hedging inflation is the most important feat of any dynastic family. It's no coincidence that silverware is one of the most conspicuous assets which set them apart.

 

Who a r e you? WOW! That is an incredible post! I'm going to re-read that a few times, but I think I get what you're saying. Wow!

Thank you very much for explaining ALL of that, so clearly.

FWIW, people say you can't eat it, can't heat with it (silver..gold..) and then what? If anyone is thinking along the lines of protecting themselves for 'whatever' comes down the pike, of course they (I, we) have considered those other items IN our calculations and plans. Silver and/or gold is just another item on one's list of preparations!

Sincerely,
Lucy

 

Passantgardant - clap clap! Excellent write up! Now I just need to re-read it a few times!

 

This is a great thread.

I've enjoyed the debate and learned alot about commodities and widgets.

I have another simple question we can speculate on. China has stopped exporting silver. At what price do you think it will become feasible for them to export again. If silver continues to rise at some point the profits will become so great they will have to. China stopped exporting, they did not stop producing.

I don't have any formulas or links to back it up, but I believe silver will continue to rise. It will certainly go higher than $50/once. Then China will jump back into the fray and the price will fall and it will be bad for the mining companies that have jumped in late and invested billions start producing again.

 

Lucy, I'm glad you found that to be a valuable explanation. I've been researching this topic and trying to explain it to people for going on a decade. I predicted the housing collapse, financial system collapse, and the hyperinflation which would follow as a result of government/Fed reactions to those crashes. Everything has played out almost exactly as I saw it (with the signs of coming hyperinflation clearer than ever). I only thought it would go a little quicker. It seems like slow motion, which is fine with me because it gives me that much longer to prepare. I started buying precious metals and oil related investments in 2002. I sold my suburban house in 2005 right at the peak of the bubble and built an off-grid home in an Amish area of Pennsylvania. I've been learning how to be more self-sufficient in almost every respect. It's absolutely true that precious metals should be among your last preparations in order of importance, although one of your first in terms of ease of doing it and crossing it off your list. Being prepared (not just for hyperinflation, but come what may), involves having alternative sources (preferably more than one beyond your customary or primary one) for every major necessity. Food, water, heat, electricity, communications, medicine, self-defense, etc. Those are all vitally important. But in any given emergency, you may run out of something, or have forgotten to plan for it, so having an alternative money supply allows you to purchase any of these things in whatever remains of the market. Purchasing it should be plan "B" versus already having it, but it is a vital plan "B" at that.

My wife survived hyperinflation in Poland. Although just a kid, she does recall some of the conditions during that kind of economic turmoil... First of all, the store shelves were virtually empty. The government instituted rationing whereby each individual was given ration stamps which permitted them to buy only a limited number of goods, if they had the money to pay for them. She recalls her grandfather standing in the long line every morning at the bakery to get their daily loaf of bread. They would use the previous night's chicken fat or lard as the spread with some chopped scallions on top. To make stale bread more palatable, it was softened with a bit of tea and sugar. She says that tending small garden plots just outside the city was the primary occupation, source of income, and source of food for many residents of the city, as rationing wasn't sufficient to provide enough food for everyone. Every Saturday was market day, when all of the families would bring their garden produce out to sell. This kept variety fairly decent. However, the usual fare still tended to be dishes containing potatoes, cabbage, locally caught fish, and kielbasa. Her grandfather also made fresh noodles. And her grandmother preserved some of the fresh produce for the winter as well. Without the garden plots, many people would have gone hungry or would have been severely malnourished.

Crime was high. People would try to break into the apartment regularly. Few people could afford to drive cars, but those who did dared not leave them on the streets... garages were the rule. But most people didn't drive cars, they either took public transportation, walked, or rode bicycles or motorcycles. The water was shut off a lot, sometimes for weeks at time. The only source of relatively clean water was a manual pump down the street, from which the water needed to be hauled up to the third-floor apartment. If not for that source, they would have had to have gotten it out of the river. Electricity service was also spotty, shutting off randomly. My wife recalls doing her homework by candle light. Phone service was too expensive for most people and was considered a luxury. Sometimes only one or two families an an apartment building would have a phone, and everyone else would go to them if they needed to call someone or report an emergency. Heating was generally done with coal, but deliveries could be few and far between. People scrounged up every bit of wood scraps they could to burn. Often, only one room in the apartment would be heated so as to conserve their resources. Lacking toilet paper, they would simply wash off in the bathtub instead of wiping. Clothes had to be washed on washboards or with primative agitating machines and then hung on lines in the attic.

Times were tough, but at least my wife and her grandparents had her mother sending them food, money, clothes, and various other things from the United States on a fairly regular basis. She had come to the U.S. seeking a better life while my wife was still very young and would eventually send for her to come join her in the U.S. (where we met some years later).

Well Poland was a backward communist country right? That could never happen here, some might say. Remember that Germany in the 1920s was an affluent, industrial, constitutional republic at the center of the arts and entertainment world, and they plunged into hyperinflation too, with prices doubling every 3.7 days. So did France during the Mississippi Bubble. Argentina, Chile, Brazil, and others were likewise western, affluent, relatively capitalist countries prior to their episodes of hyperinflation. Zimbabwe was the bread-basket of Africa, exporting food around the continent, before they fell and ultimately had a monthly inflation rate of approximately 79 billion percent. Compared to that or Yugoslavia's doubling of prices every 34 hours, Poland's was very tame and also relatively short-lived. It could have been much worse. In every case, inflation only came to an end when the government pegged their currency to some external standard which they could not devalue. In Zimbabwe and some South American hyperinflations, that outside standard was the U.S. Dollar. In Germany it was real estate and then gold. Our hyperinflation will probably end when we link the Dollar to either gold or some other basket of commodities (of which gold will be a component).

I discuss some of these ideas in my blog at passantgardant.com. I'm thinking of publishing some info about how to prepare for hyperinflation in the next few days. Over the years I've written plenty, so it's just a matter of compiling some of that into a short-as-possible article which considers current circumstances and timelines.

 

North Korea
A great deal of your formula depends on U.S. production what will need or not need a work a force……..The U.S. no longer produces a great deal of what it consumes … Last I looked, the products I see available are imports and more imports. This condition is a new twist to your possibly outdated answer, time will tell.

 

Passant, output = labor * productivity. If productivity is improved in all industries, it results in an excess of labor. The excess of labor results in a drop in prices resulting from two forces: abundance of supply and reduction in dollars due to a reduction in labor.

Now, ideally, as technology improves, the excess labor gets retooled and the excess fixed capital assets get reutilized. This increases the overall output of an economy. On a macro scale, this results in inflation. How? Because people are inherently stubborn.

If we have $200T in the economy and there's a sudden shock of 100% productivity improvement, we'll see $200T in output, but only $100T in labor to consume that. Since producers are unwilling to drop prices 50%, the outcome will be a smaller drop (say to $180T) and an accompanying increase in labor costs. The 50% of labor that remains would see an increase in their dollar based contribution to offset a portion of consumption. In turn, existing fixed assets and variable costs would also increase. This is a result of balancing the producer costs part of the economy.

Once those displaced individuals generate additional dollars, we will see an increase in price as they demand equivalent dollars for lower productivity occupations. Result: More dollars chasing less productivity.

The increase in dollars demanding goods will result in producers increasing production. To off-set the decreased labor base, the producers will increase labor costs (through rehiring formerly displaced employees) and fixed asset utility.

Saying that the resultant situation only leads to deflation is applying micro-economics to a macro environment. Although hyper-deflation doesn't get publicity like hyper-inflation, it DOES exist. It's called a depression. We've witnessed it several times, actually. People just call it different things.

Rope: I wasn't looking at just the US economy. I'm looking at PMs and the economy as a global dynamic.

 

Thank you for your reply; this too, I will have to re-read. It contains a lot of info! Myself, I was the most avid and active and studied Y2K bug you will ever come across. Guaranteed. I have been in the process of de-bugging for a while now (just a little pun there) in that my husband and I planned and prepared for our whole town (and I am not exaggerating). I have of late been looking over many of the books predicting these economic conditions (though they were a bit off in their timing) but in truth I am glad I have them -- I have given away many of my Y2K preparations, including relief effort to Louisianna, and local food banks in Michigan. But of course, not all I could go on and on, but this is more than off topic, and I apologize for that.

Thanks again, and sounds like you know your stuff!! I'll be sure to look at your web blog.

My husband was from Western PA (just an aside)

 

Thanks… North Korea
Global view, that helps me understand your well put point, and I am sure it will help others as well. My laymen’s views were based on the U.S. and our so-called inflation problem. Good job.