Addison Wiggin, (still) shaking his head at reader comments...
Addison Wiggin
"The tone of this article is more than a little disturbing." charges one reader about yesterday's episode.
"Would it be a stretch for me to summarize it as: 'A new sector in the military industrial complex is booming - invest in it!'
"To hear a message like this from the Daily Reckoning is eerie. What the hell?" she continues.
"Calling totalitarianism an investment opportunity is no different from calling a company that wants to manufacture infect billions of innocent human beings with the Ebola virus an investment opportunity. That is sick."
"My money will go to those companies who can provide me with personal cyberdefence, for their courage to defend my sovereignty over myself - and they are welcome to it."
Oy...
Our beat is offering contrarian assessments where markets, money and politics meet. We're here to help you find ways to build wealth in uncertain times. Hopefully, we provide a few laughs along the way too. All we can say is, thank God we don't take "policy positions".
In Empire of Debt, one of the books we co-authored with Bill Bonner, we wrote that "A sensible man may not know the hour or the place of his demise, but he does not doubt that it is coming. If he is smart, he is ready for death any day of the week. So is a sensible investor ready for the day a great empire collapses."
We don't know when the empire will fall. And we know that because it hasn't happened yet our position isn't popular. But nothing lasts forever... least of all, empires. Its demise can be slowed down and even paused, but , for the most part, the trajectory doesn't change.
And right now, it looks as if it's speeding up...
"Grab a chair" writes Politico's Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei.
"In the next two months, the most unpopular institution in America will decide the fates of a president's power, a military strike, defense contracts, the budget, health-care implementation, the Federal Reserve chairmanship, illegal immigrants, and all of us who would be hit by a debt default."
But these problems didn't coincidentally crop up in the Fall of 2013. They're all the same can that's been kicked down the road for fifty years. We don't like it anymore than you do, but we at least expect it. It's how government works. When top Congressional aides were asked for their expectations of the next 90-120 days, they answered: "just muddling through without a catastrophe". How's that for rolling up your sleeves?
Here's another. The House of Representatives has until Sept. 30 to pass a spending bill. Otherwise the government will shut down. How many workdays does it have scheduled this month? Nine. What's they're solution if they can't pass a bill in time? Simple. Pass a temporary, one month extension.
By that time in October, Congress will have to decide whether it will raise the
debt ceiling for the 90-something time in our history. Politico's Allen and Vandehei aren't sure if they'll raise it or default. Heh. We can assure you, though we think the Empire will default there's not a chance in hell it will do it honestly.
No... in the meantime, they'll debate striking Syria. Who knows how much that will cost. According to ThinkProgress, the first few weeks of the U.S. intervention Libya cost $300 million. Of course, they don't have the money to pay for it... so the problem grows.
"Washington's empire," we quote Paul Craig Roberts in today's episode, "extracts resources from the American people for the benefit of the few powerful interest groups that rule America... The U.S. Constitution has been extracted in the interests of the Security State, and Americans' incomes have been redirected to the pockets of the 1%." Eventually, the system becomes top heavy. When all of the resources have been extracted, the whole house of cards comes down.
You can jump up and down about the investing in the military industrial complex all you want. But this empire's collapsing...with or without you. Question is: will you channel those "extracted" dollars back in your pocket and come out the other side intact?
In today's episode of the Daily Reckoning, we take a detailed look at another specific form of the empire's "extraction": charter schools. Read on below to learn how, if at all, you can reclaim your tax dollars from fat cats...
Then in today's DR PRO our own Ryan O'Connor follows up on one of his recommendations that's again popped 10% today after alright shooting up 16% yesterday. "Get in before the squeeze begins in earnest" he advises. If you
haven't upgraded to the Daily Reckoning PRO, you still have time to get in. Click here to "go PRO."
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