"Too OId to 'Get It'”?
by Bill Bonner
YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "Wow… Last week was exciting! But first, a more personal report. Last weekend, we went up to Dublin to see, for the first time, our new grandson You’re not supposed to be doing “non essential” travel in Ireland right now. But we also had a doctor’s appointment in the city, so the trip was A-OK with everyone.
When we first came to Ireland, more than 20 years ago, it took three or four hours to drive from Waterford to Dublin. Tiny roads snaked along the coast and through the many towns and villages. But then, the “Celtic Tiger” – a period of rapid real economic growth – roared in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Almost the entire housing stock was upgraded. And sleek new highways were added. Now, the drive takes only two hours, over a pleasant auto-route with very little traffic.
Sleek and Modern: Dublin itself has retained much of its grittiness. But many parts of the city have been tarted up… Some – the Dublin Docklands, for example, nicknamed “Silicon Docks,” due to the arrival of so many leading technology companies, such as Google and Facebook – are as cool and modern as any in the world.
Our son and his wife live in an attractive residential area. The houses are modest, but charming… red brick, with small yards in front… and many nearby parks – all of them ebullient with flowers in this spring season. Ireland seems especially propitious for flowers of all sorts. It rains. Then, the sun comes out. And then, it rains again. And never does it get so hot – as it does in Maryland in the summertime – that all living things seek shelter and mercy.
“It reminds me of Nova Scotia,” says Elizabeth, our wife, whose grandparents lived there. We would go to visit every summer… packing the whole family in our Chevy van… and later (after the family had grown), using two vehicles. Baltimore is almost unbearable in July. Whole weeks go by with the temperature over 90 degrees. Plants go into shock. Some dry up. People hide away in their air-conditioned houses. The sun beats down like a Biblical curse.
We would try to choose the hottest months to make our annual getaway… driving up the I-95 to New Brunswick, where we’d take the ferry across the Bay of Fundy to Nova Scotia. Arriving in Annapolis Royal, we’d enter a gas station. There would usually be a pair of locals leaning over the counter, discussing the weather.
“When do you think this heat wave will end?” “I don’t know… But I hope it is soon. I can barely stand it.” “Yep… S’posed to get up into the upper 70s again today. But it will pass.” And so it always did. And we were soon in our cabin, gloriously huddled around an open fire.
New Grandson: But enough reminiscing… Our new grandson is only two weeks old. And as you can imagine, he is already in the 90th percentile, along with all grandchildren. “He looks like your father,” said one of the parents. “No… He looks more like my mother,” said the other. “I think he looks like somebody… but I can’t place him…” To us, he looked like every baby we’ve ever seen… mushy and adorable, of course.
Remarkable Week: But let’s look back at the remarkable week just past. It was last week when the long-expected inflation bus finally rolled into town. The Bureau of Labor Statistics – acting like a traffic cop with a faulty speed gun – reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was way over the limit… traveling at the fastest rate in 40 years… That news triggered a brief stock market sell-off… with investors afraid that the Federal Reserve would have to hike interest rates in order to prevent runaway inflation.
Upon closer inspection, housing and some producer prices were found to be hitting double-digit speeds. But by then, the Fed, the media, and the usual sell-side economists were out in force, explaining why the inflation numbers were nothing to worry about. There was no inflation. “We are coming off an extremely low base… from the bottom of the COVID-19 panic,” they said. “Besides, a little inflation is a good thing,” they continued. It “signals a robust recovery”… and it “helps to make up for years of sub-optimal inflation readings.” Together, the two defense arguments were a little like the lawyer who claimed his client never met the girl… “Besides, how was he to know she was underage?”
The second argument undermined the first. But it hardly matters. Birds gotta fly. Fish gotta swim. And the feds gotta inflate. It’s inflate or die. And sooner or later, the inflation’s gotta show up in consumer prices.
Nuttiest of All: And Elon Musk… God bless him… God help him… Dogecoin went down 30% after Musk – the erstwhile self-proclaimed “Dogefather” – called the crypto coin a “hustle” on nationwide TV. Then, bitcoin fell after Elon said Tesla would no longer take it in payment… until it figured out a way to mine new coins without using so much electricity.
Customers turning away from The Doge and bitcoin had to go somewhere… Some must have gone to SHIB… another dodgy doggy coin – a spoof on a spoof. It went up 1,700% in a week… prompting Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin to “burn” 410 trillion of the coins. All of this proves, at least to our satisfaction, that trying to invest in cryptos is like relying on the “greater fool theory” when you are playing poker in an insane asylum. They’re all nuts. And you might be the nuttiest of all.
More Musk Mischief: But wait… the week wasn’t over. And Elon wasn’t finished working his mischief. He later tweeted the Doge back to life – “Do you want Tesla to accept doge?” Musk asked his fans – and then hinted that Tesla might sell its pile of 38,300 bitcoin. The Doge went up almost 50%… and bitcoin went down even further… for a loss of about 30%. Musk added that if The Doge can’t “scale,” he might start his own cryptocurrency.
There are already some 7,800 of these crypto coins. Of course, there were plenty of cars, too, before Elon developed the Tesla. And Mr. Musk was probably encouraged by a recent launch. Earlier this month, the “Internet Computer” – a new crypto, with perhaps the snazziest name in the whole cryptosphere – came out. Within 24 hours, it had a market value of $45 billion (currently about $25 billion).
Out of It: And so… whether we look at the private sector or the public sector… at cryptos or at federal deficits (already headed for an 8-month record over $2 trillion)… at Elon, or at Janet, Joe, or Jerome…well, everyone is nuts. Or else we’re just too “out of it” to appreciate what is going on.
Maybe this is just one of those times in history when you have to be young… or brain damaged… to understand it. No one over 50 can be trusted to “get it.” But we’re not sure if that “50” refers to age or I.Q."
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