"Who Really Killed Kennedy?" by Joseph Corsi If You Love America, You Must Read This

     I read today's article "50 Years Ago Today... and Today" and quite frankly,it STUNK. So you retraced the economic history since Kennedy but many of your facts were WRONG. Do just a little research
about Kennedy. I have read 70 going on 71 books about him. Read just one so you have some idea
what you are talking about: "Who Really Killed Kennedy?" by Joseph Corsi, Harvard University ,
Poltical Science,Ph.D.  This guy does research like you would hope a Harvard Ph.D. should.
You do not. Follow his example,please. Oh, and by the way, he is a Republican and I am a Democrat.
But this man leaves no stone unturned. You need to do the same.
     Thank you for your cooperation,
                       William Stewart

 From
"50 Years Ago Today... and Today":
Redefining the Country

Today, we can only speculate on the kind of country that might have been had JFK not been assassinated. Of course, it's the same thing with what might have happened post-Lincoln, post-Garfield or post-McKinley, too. Killing a president -- as with regicide since time immemorial -- bends the arc of history in ways we can scarcely begin to comprehend. We know what happened, after a historical fashion. Or do we?

A presidential life cut short -- and with it, the heart of a political administration -- makes for all manner of counterfactual speculation in a "what if" sort of way.

Indeed, as the superb instructors at the Naval War College used to emphasize, sometimes you cannot truly understand what happened with a historical event unless you take the facts and dissect what did NOT happen. (For example, "what if" Japanese carriers had been able to launch more fighters as air cover during the Battle of Midway?)

As one who was young when President Kennedy died -- third grade at Shadyside Junior School, next to Pittsburgh's Frick Park -- I "lived through" tumultuous events. But it wasn't until many years later, as I began to absorb the scope of historical record, that I really started to comprehend what happened on Nov. 22 half a century ago.

Along those last lines, I'd say that culturally we're still figuring JFK out. His legacy is unfixed, if not unmoored. That is, it changes with the times, and often as not to suit the current needs of those who invoke his ghost.

But at root, even when we think we "know" something about JFK, we really don't know all that much that we can trust. Consider a few common JFK-assassination concepts: Lone gunman? Former Marine? Soviet defector? Cuban connection? Mafia hit? Single bullet? J. Edgar Hoover? Lyndon Baines Johnson? Warren Commission... and with Gerald Ford on it? (Hmm... so THAT's how Jerry Ford wound up succeeding Nixon!)

Consider one key crystal from the Warren Commission report, its explanation of a single crazed gunman. Then toss in myriad of other facts that don't quite make sense -- and there are many. It's possible to come up with all manner of conspiracies, and then you need other conspiracies to hide the first conspiracy. Will we ever know?

Follow the Facts, Especially the Money

There's history and there's karma, too. Not long before he died, President Kennedy approved the assassination of President Diem of South Vietnam. Not long after the JFK assassination, President Johnson escalated the Vietnam War.    ( NOT TRUE - The CIA killed Diem against Kennedy's instructions.)

As the 1960s wore on, the country's Roosevelt-era New Deal morphed into the Johnson-era Great Society. Paying for all of this, plus that distant Vietnam War, began to wreck the value of the dollar.

By 1967, the U.S. government was frantically pulling silver out of circulation in coinage. Then in 1971, President Nixon took the U.S. off the gold standard. By 1973, oil prices quadrupled, and by 1979 they quadrupled again. What saved the U.S. economy was an international agreement for oil to be priced in dollars. (That deal is wearing thin, by the way.)

It's not overstatement to say that post-JFK, from the mid-1960s to today, our economy has been a credit casino based on Federal Reserve Notes and the government's promise to tax people in the future to pay for overspending now. Which leads me to those investment comments I said I'd give you back in the early part of this note.

On this 50th anniversary of the death of President Kennedy, it strikes me that JFK was the last "hard money" president. Certainly, Kennedy's was the last administration in which the American people used silver coins for the duration and carried silver certificates (remember those?) in their wallets.

Consider silver coins. Back in Kennedy's day, a 25 cent "silver" quarter (actually, 90% silver and 10% copper alloy) was worth... well, 25 cents. Today, just based on melt value of metal, an old silver quarter is worth about $3.60 -- meaning the current value is about 14.4 times the original value. Or look at it this way -- we've seen a 93% erosion in the purchasing value of an "old" silver-based dollar versus a new one over the past 50 years.

Or look at the price of gold. In Kennedy's day, the monetary value of gold was $32 per ounce. Today, it's about $1,250 -- depending on the day, of course. It's a diminishment of value by a factor of nearly 40, respecting the dollar versus gold. That's over a 97% decline in 50 years.

Or oil? Back in the early 1960s, a barrel of crude went for $2 or so. Today it's north of $108 (Brent quote). It's a change by a factor of 54 -- a decline of 98.2% in dollar purchasing power for oil.

Looking back, we may or may not know the truth -- and the whole truth -- about what happened with JFK long ago. But we can clearly see what has happened with the value of the dollar over 50 years. Its value has plummeted.

Looking ahead, we still may never know what happened with JFK. People have died off. Evidence has gone missing. The "conspiracy" industry has picked up a bad reputation, which is probably what the conspirators always wished would happen.

But also looking ahead, I foresee more and more inflation and further declines in the value of the dollar. I see no coming correction for government overspending and no way for the future economy ever to repay the debts of the past -- absent another 97% or so reduction in value of the dollar.

So here in OI, we'll keep looking for ideas to help preserve your wealth and keep you ahead of the inflation curve. Some periods in the market are better than others, but we're always looking for new ideas in things that will hold their value over time.

That's all for now. Thanks for subscribing to OI. Have a good weekend.

Best wishes...

Byron W. King