Message:

<p>[QUOTE=&quot;ToughCOINS, post: 3640783, member: 20480&quot;]I&#039;ve been on the sidelines with my 401K for a few months now . . . mainly because</p><p>this currency war was destined to happen, tariffs or not.&nbsp; Hopefully, a palatable solution will be negotiated.&nbsp; If not, I think American businesses will repatriate a lot of their offshore manufacturing operations.</p><p><br /></p><p>Another reason to be in gold is the forthcoming wage inflation, due to available jobs outnumbering job-seekers, but also due to the abrupt increase in minimum wage in so many states.&nbsp; While this is just beginning to manifest itself, it will become a MAJOR problem for us.&nbsp; Where I work, we are only 15 miles from a bordering state where the minimum wage just rose $3 hourly.&nbsp; Over the winter we lost about 1/3 of our manufacturing help.&nbsp; We&#039;ve since attracted new help by substantially increasing wages here even though our state hasn&#039;t raised the min wage.</p><p><br /></p><p>What most do not recognize about raising the min wage is the damage it does to our economy.&nbsp; It is not a cure . . . it is a Band-Aid, and a bad one at that.&nbsp; Rather than teaching the skills and imbuing the work ethic / ambition necessary that the underpaid need to justifiably earn more, we just indulged them by saying they should get paid more despite being less productive.&nbsp; The upshot of that is, skilled workers are now requesting and receiving increases to reflect the differences between their productivity and that of less productive individuals recently elevated to the higher minimum wage.</p><p><br /></p><p>Once this change has rippled through everyone&#039;s paycheck, the entire country will be paying more for the same goods and services made at those higher labor rates.&nbsp; In other words . . . the needle will never really have moved.</p><p><br /></p><p>Simplistic, I know, but generally true.</p><p><br /></p><p>We need to be smarter than this . . . My decision to put one foot in gold will help when the USD tanks.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

Your name or email address:

Do you already have an account?

• No, create an account now.
• Yes, my password is:
• Forgot your password?

Stay logged in