REAL ESTATE, THE DOLLAR, SOC SEC, & THE THEFT OF VALUE
Posted By: CliffMickelson
Date: Thursday, 26 February 2004, 7:11 a.m.
Greetings, fellow sheeple!
Please find below, the shear(ed) facts.
#1) REAL ESTATE
San Diego, San Jose, Sacramento, San Francisco, Chico, Paradise, Auburn....
These are just a few of the better known West Coast Real Estate nirvanas.
Or so it would seem over the last decade to giddy investors and home owners who have watched the value of their
"piece of the rock" continue to climb steadily toward the heavens.
But now, it seems that Iccarus may have flown a bit too close to the sun.
In what may be a sign of things to come, on February 27 and 28 HUD, in a radical departure from past policy, will host
an online blowout auction for nearly four thousand repossessed homes.
Many observers feel that this is a pilot program being tested in anticipation by HUD of a coming deluge of foreclosures
across the nation.
An ominous softening in the wax that pins together the under-structure of the West Coast real estate market has begun
to make itself noticed.
Pin feathers are beginning to flutter in the breeze.
How much longer before Iccarus begins his downward spiral?
Not long.
So....
Got equity?
It's time to bail out, Ladies and Gentleman.
Yesterday would be a good time to get started.
There is perhaps, a window of another 10 months.
Those who wait until after the November election to cash out excess paper equity or to sell into a rising market, may find
that they have waited too long.
#2) THE FALLING DOLLAR
Of all the factors influencing the deflation of real estate values,
The falling dollar is currently the most portentous.
It may well provide the push needed to pop the bubble.
In tandem with the obvious downward market pressure exerted by recently unemployed, and foreclosed HUD
homeowners, is the peril (for the gov). Of a growing realization that the dollar is a paper tiger who's claws are taken on a
fading faith.
As more and more outsourcing to overseas locations takes place, the perception of (or faith in) the dollar's seemingly
unshakable base as a yardstick for measuring the value of production will at first hold steady even as the "production" it
measures implodes or shrinks in real value.
Unperceived at first, the whole rotten structure soon becomes unsteady.
Faith, much like love, tends to be a bit blind.
Overseas faith in the dollar is already in trouble and only continues to be propped up by the requirements of an
increasingly inconvenient necessity.
Domestic faith in the dollar however, will blindly endure, until all at once, it suddenly no longer endures. Like a levee
under too much pressure, such blind faith tends to give way all at once.
SOCIAL "SECURITY" AND OTHER FORMS OF THEFT
It would be remiss to overlook the fact that a large part of the organic source of what is left of the dollar's true vitality is
now reaching retirement age.
These new retirees now will begin to consume value instead of adding to the lifetime of stored value they have
accumulated.
The disappearing act from the stage of active wealth creation by the baby boomers is conveniently occurring just in time
to skip out on an incredible amount of paper debt. That burden will be passed on to a younger, shrinking,(relatively) and
increasingly undereducated and underpaid, as well as cluelessly overworked, labor force.
But fear not, there is some justice in the world.....The last laugh may be on the boomers!
Retirement is no guarantee of security. That paradigm has been proved over and over, yet continuously remains a
lesson largely unlearned.
Case in point, Sir Alan of Greenspan has just proposed to Congress that they consider reducing the pay-out of future
Social Security benefits.
Never mind the fact that you and I worked to earn them and they are ours by right of labor. Mr. Greenspan also suggests
that Congress raise the minimum age at which one can begin to receive benefits!
This is a rerun of a game already played.
Readers may recall that it was only a few years ago that the minimum age to receive SS benefits was 55. No more.
Future retirees can look forward to waiting until 65 or even 70.
The end logic here is that sooner or later a person will have to be dead in order to qualify to receive Social Security.
THE THEFT OF VALUE
For those among us who have not already lost their retirement in the great corporate and Wall Street heists of
2001-2002, (Enron, Global Crossing, etc.) be warned....The ways in which your life's work and savings can be purloined
by your own government are legion!
Of course we are all aware of the cynical slow theft of our labor by an induced policy of slow inflation. Americans have
become so used to being robbed in that manner that many would miss it were it to actually cease.
But even better times may await the masochistic faithful.
The devalued dollar, in debtor nations such as America, is in a twisted sense, the same kind of theft, only called by a
different name and implemented in a different manner.
But the real "code red" is a whole other kind of bird.
In the crux, one way that a desperate government may attempt to bail itself out of it's financial and contractual obligations
as pertains to the inconvenience of an aging demographic population, is by instituting a deliberate policy of controlled
(at first) hyperinflation.
In effect, actually stealing the money twice! First time, in slow motion, through the malfeasance of management during
the years it was earned, and the second time by a pernicious high speed theft of value (inflation) from those who
foolishly thought they were supposed to receive the long awaited benefits of their first forced loan to their master.
In a case such as this, there is no refuge. Gold only protects when it is not illegal. The laws that give the power to make
gold illegal again are still on the books. That is no accident. One exception to the last time the government stole the
gold, is collectable gold coin. If things get to the point that those are siezed as well, then.....
Let us simply hope....
Regards:
CliffMickelson |
