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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (98438)	3/30/2003 11:56:59 AM
From: Terry Maloney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

KT, apparently you have to. This from an interview with the German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, in Der Spiegel: Fischer: I did that. Ever since September 18th or 19th, 2001, when Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz in Washington roughly outlined for me what he thought the answer to international terrorism had to be. SPIEGEL: And? Fischer: His view was that the US had to liberate a whole string of countries from their terrorist rulers, if necessary by force. Ultimately a new world order would come out of this - more democracy, peace, stability, and security for people. nytimes.com

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (98438)	3/30/2003 12:42:24 PM
From: Tommaso	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

In the 1920s, with the US dollar firmly on a gold standard that had been reestablished over several decades following the Civil War inflation and the greenback era, it was easy to get a fixed return of 4% to 6% in real, lightly-taxed, gold-backed dollars. If I knew exactly where I could get an inflation-proof 6% return on my money that was perfectly safe, that's where I would go right now. I might even settle for as low as 4%. But I don't know of such a place. You get a return of almost 6% on FCO right now and 8.5% on FAX--but worldwide inflation, competitive devaluations, and rising interest rates could cut the principal by 25% or more over 3-4 years. The fluctuations of the value of gold are more exciting than I care to be much exposed to. You can't get zilch for return on money market funds and in case of a major chain of bankruptcies there might even be some principal losses on these. The Canadian energy royalty trusts pay as high as 20%, and they do try to constantly acquire new producing properties, but there is the risk of bad management and even fraud in any given trust. I think I may continue to put a lot of money in an assortment of these, as well as other energy plays. The best I can do for my wife's pension fund is 100% TIPS. But a large part of my "investment" situation is pure short term speculation, mostly bearish, and bearish speculation has to be abandoned well in advance of any new bull market. I suppose I could sell everything, pay taxes, and put the cash into ordinary inflation-protected U.S. Savings bonds. But even there, I do not trust the government to be honest about adjusting for inflation. I mean, if they take out food and energy prices and call what's left "core" inflation, what kind of figure is that? So here I am, day after day, playing blackjack with a screwed-up economic system, counting the cards as best I can, and with the IRS always there to take their hefty cut if you get ahead. Oh well, what the hell, I am having a pretty good time.