Optimist or Pessimist ?
Most of the time, I share Churchill's sentiments, but tempered with a lot of apprehension about the huge amounts of money the government and the Federal Reserve have created out of thin air.
Do you recall a book called "Bankruptcy 1995" written by Harry Figgie and Gerald Swanson in 1992? I found it to be highly persuasive and wrote an article about different ways to cope with hyper-inflation. After it was published, Mark Skousen (an economics PhD, a friend and former co-worker) wrote to me and made the point that the 1995 hyper-inflation pinnacle predicted by Figgie and Swanson was pre-mature. He pointed out that the government has enormous powers and tools to "stretch the rubber band." Of course that was about 16 years ago and we have experienced a huge increase in money creation (inflation) since then with a lot more that will be coming in the foreseeable future. I read Mark's newsletter (Forecasts and Strategies) regularly and he is not predicting imminent doom and gloom but he is cautioning about monetary expansion which leads to inflation.
“For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else. The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
Winston Churchill.
Most of the time, I share Churchill's sentiments, but tempered with a lot of apprehension about the huge amounts of money the government and the Federal Reserve have created out of thin air.
Do you recall a book called "Bankruptcy 1995" written by Harry Figgie and Gerald Swanson in 1992? I found it to be highly persuasive and wrote an article about different ways to cope with hyper-inflation. After it was published, Mark Skousen (an economics PhD, a friend and former co-worker) wrote to me and made the point that the 1995 hyper-inflation pinnacle predicted by Figgie and Swanson was pre-mature. He pointed out that the government has enormous powers and tools to "stretch the rubber band." Of course that was about 16 years ago and we have experienced a huge increase in money creation (inflation) since then with a lot more that will be coming in the foreseeable future. I read Mark's newsletter (Forecasts and Strategies) regularly and he is not predicting imminent doom and gloom but he is cautioning about monetary expansion which leads to inflation.
Instead of having to choose between being a pure optimist or a pure pessimist, a better choice is to plan for the best possible future but hedge your bets with some asset protection and risk management strategies. Having some assets offshore in a foreign LLC or a foreign trust would be worth considering along with some diversification out of the U.S. dollar plus investments in hard assets that are likely to keep pace with inflation. And having a portable business that can function from anywhere in the world would be another valuable hedge against severe inflation in the U.S.
Vern
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