Some years ago I watched (through news reports) China quietly take over what might be the largest remaining great oil deposits in the world, in Sudan. Human rights activity in Canada and the U. S. forced Western oil companies to abandon the area, accusing them of supporting slavery and radical Islam. There's been little news out of the area that I have noticed, but the oil fields may be comparable to those in Saudi Arabia. or maybe not. But the Chinese got them.
China may just have to write off its U.S. Treasuries as a bad investment, accepting whatever residual income and value is there. They won't be a total loss, like Czarist bonds after the Russian Revolution.
The time has come for any prudent U. S. citizen and resident to consider very carefully how to preserve wealth. To me, the confiscation of gold by Roosevelt (enabled by Congress, of course) seems more and more the act of an arbitrary dictator. I never used to understand the depth of anti-Roosevelt hatred felt by some Americans, and it's true that those who were hurt the most by the confiscation and subsequent devaluation of the dollar were the very wealthy who had been enjoying a luxurious life style in Europe. But to confiscate real, tangible, wealth was a truly radical move. Fortunately Roosevelt was a good man, genuinely bent on improving the lot of most Americans.
Ownership of gold has been legal now for more than a generation, and I expect interest in it to surge again, even more than it has already. Since it is not the basis of the currency, there may be no reason for the government to try to control it.
Examining my own feelings about gold, I recall how I wanted to own some when it was $35 an ounce and illegal to own, even outside the United States. So I obeyed the law. I felt the same way about gold as I now feel about marijuana. <G> |
