Here’s a long-term dollar chart. There’s no vertical or horizontal scale, but I don’t think it really needs one.

Japan Finds Plutonium One Mile Away From Fukushima, Doubles Radiation Leak Estimate

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 06/06/2011 20:36 -0400

In a double whammy of bad news from the mainstream media blackouted Fukushima (or perhaps the general population just doesn't care any more) today we learn that not only did The Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) double its estimate of the radiation leak in the early days of the Fukushima catastrophe, something we had predicted would happen eventually courtesy of the secretive Japanese government, but that Plutonium from Fukushima has now been found in the town of Okuma, over 1 mile away from the stricken Nuclear Power Plant.

Precious Metals and Currency Dilution

As we saw recently during the May take-down of the gold and silver markets, not only was there a large cast of buffoons referring to the silver market (in particular) as a “bubble”, but an even greater number were asserting that at the least there had been a “top” in these markets. It is really difficult to envision a conclusion which demonstrates more fundamental stupidity.

When I head to the supermarket to do my grocery shopping, the same loaf of “premium” bread which I could purchase for about $2/loaf three years ago today costs me roughly $4 today. Obviously since it is the same loaf of bread, there can be no argument that I’m getting a “better” loaf of bread for twice the price. Instead, it is unequivocal that the purchasing power of the paper in my wallet has fallen by half in just three years.

I could come up with numerous other examples of items with such massive “price increases” (i.e. equivalent collapses in purchasing power) – especially with respect to food items. This broad-based explosion in prices totally rebuts any possible argument that particular items are “getting expensive”. The only exception to that would be with respect to goods where there are now acute shortages. In those cases however, prices have tended to explode by an even greater amount.

What this translates to is that the rampant inflation which has already sparked rioting (and revolution) in many poorer nations is totally a phenomenon of out-of-control currency dilution, which is the same thing as saying out-of-control money-printing. Yet we observe the inability of practically the entire body of “experts” to understand the concept (and effects) of currency dilution, despite the fact that these same individuals have no problem understanding the concept of “dilution” when it is applied to the share structure of a corporation.

Should the experts in our markets spot a company which is printing-up new shares at an excessive rate, these analysts will tell you to dump that stock faster than you can hit the “sell” button on your trading platform. And they won’t hesitate to tell you that only a “fool” would hang onto a company which is undermining shareholder value in that manner. Yet when these same experts watch Ben Bernanke running the Federal Reserve’s printing-press “white hot” year after year after year, at any given time roughly half of these clowns will be advising people to “buy dollars”.

The argument these esteemed financial advisors will use when they “recommend” that people increase their exposure to this rapidly-disintegrating paper is that “other currencies” (i.e. other paper) is supposedly even worse. Putting aside the fact that no paper is currently more worthless than the U.S. dollar, let us assume that the U.S. dollar would “win” a least-ugly contest. What does that imply?

With the same media talking-heads claiming that most European nations are near bankruptcy and Japan’s economy is in ruins, claiming the U.S. dollar is slightly less worthless than its “peers” is hardly an endorsement. Indeed, it is like watching two people being dropped out of an airplane on identical platforms – except that one platform was dropped a millisecond later than the other. And then the person perched on the slightly higher platform says to the person on the slightly lower platform “climb up here and save yourself.” Read more: Precious Metals and Currency Dilution 





 

Bob Rodriguez: The man who sees another crash.



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BBC HardTalk:  Jim Rogers



Moody's Threat of US Downgrade Departure from S&P's Warning