“Brevity is the soul of wit,” wrote Shakespeare long ago…and we’re inclined to agree. If there’s one thing lacking in your daily deluge of e-mails, financial media, and other distractions, it’s brief, concise judgment.
- “Dr. Doom” and Jonas Elmerraji weigh in on Greece, the fiscal cliff and the S&P… disagreements arise, but one wants you to help him prove his point…
- Inquiries on gold: Why not gold ask a prime minister and a Republican senator… How much gold would it take asks a U.S. debt calculator…
- Patrick Cox arrives on the scene with another “forehead slapper”… 15 years in the making, one “blueberry cure” is set to change millions of lives…
- One unforeseen consequence of not voting… readers weigh in… and argue… blood, sweat and tears or grumbling, moping and whining? You decide… and more!
“I don’t think markets are going down because of Greece,” our old friend Marc Faber offered as an alternative explanation for the market’s recent malaise to CNBC’s Squawk Box yesterday.
“I don’t think the markets are going down because of the ‘fiscal cliff,’” he added, “because there won’t be a ‘fiscal cliff.
“The market is going down because corporate profits will begin to disappoint,” Mr. Faber dolefully explains, “the global economy will hardly grow next year or even contract, and that is the reason why stocks, from the highs of September of 1,470 on the S&P, will drop at least 20%, in my view.”
“How much gold,” the Political Calculations blog wonders, “would the U.S. Treasury have to pay out from the nation’s bullion depository at Fort Knox to fully pay off the national debt of $16.222 trillion (as of 1 November 2012)?”
For fun, let’s pretend that the U.S. does plan on paying back the national debt… and in gold.
Again, for fun.
How much would it take? As of Nov. 1, Political Calculations writes, it would take “a solid gold cube that is nearly 80 feet tall by 80 feet long by 80 feet wide. Transporting all that gold would require over 431 of those standard 20-foot-long shipping containers.”
There’s a problem: If you add up all gold plucked out of the Earth, it makes up a cube only 66.1 feet by 66.1 feet by 66.1 feet… and fills only 249 shipping containers.
And Obama’s contribution since taking office? $5.595 trillion, or a cube 55.7 feet by 55.7 feet by 55.7 feet, or 60% of the world’s recorded gold.
…..read all items from 0;00 – 5:00 HERE
