Has Buffy the Bozo Been Reading My Blog? Buffett Predicts Inflation—Bernake Does Not.

If you watch carefully and listen to people natter about themselves you can frequently construct a caricature of some interesting outer shell this person might  possess and, in the case of Warren Buffett, this apparition materializes to be a piece of moldy cheese with torturous caverns that contain forbidden cashes of truth. The object has an interesting glittering surface patina on the exterior with a lot of hidden rot on the inside. Buffett is known as a slick and far-seeing investor who made billions with his investments. He is actually an inside influence peddler who made a vast fortune with privileged information and intimidation of those with lesser finance muscle  although his public advice, egocentric posturing and grand self aggrandizing performances  and ostensive  “wise counsel” defiantly omit basic facts about finance and economics. He now confesses that massive government spending of the O’Bozo variety will sink us in inflation. We already knew that. Where was his wise counsel before all this?

We should live in a world where, like physics, some reasonable laws are known to govern many of our interactions and economics is clearly one of them. The elementary tenets of capitalism are well known since ancient times and the salient fact that massive spending by governments lead to inflation is obvious. Such warnings are common[1] such as outlined in the book Money Mischief by Milton Friedman published some 20 years ago. But, there are economic ‘experts’ and investment ‘oracles’ like Buffett  who criticize much about our economy [mostly for political reasons]  and Republicans in particular yet seem to get sweetheart deals with preferred stocks in companies like Goldman Sachs , Dow Chemical,  Rohm & Haas and wallow unobserved in other deals that the public is not privileged to participate in. [2] Warren relishes his perch on Olympus as the Sage of Omaha and boasted that his tax rate was only 19% in federal taxes for 2006.[3] While posing as an investment guru he taught [4] this.  He and many other Democrats supported the massive Obama spending follies that will surely sink our economy with silence about the cliff we are approaching. His politics is more important than our economy although he wants to make money from the current chaos.

Buffett own words on inflation:

“The arithmetic makes it plain that inflation is a far more devastating tax than anything that has been enacted by our legislatures. The inflation tax has a fantastic ability to simply consume capital. It makes no difference to a widow with her savings in a 5 percent passbook account whether she pays 100 percent income tax on her interest income during a period of zero inflation, or pays no income taxes during years of 5 percent inflation.”

He hates gold like Keynes, but current gold spot prices tell us that an ounce of gold sold for $19 in 1805, about the same price in 1905 and after FDR costs $900 per ounce. So, we get an O’Bozo Tax and an Inflation Tax combined in one neat political bundle of ‘change.‘

Facts from yesterday:

“After a testy exchange with Sen. Judd Gregg, who suggested that President Obama’s plans to hike federal spending would only increase the nation’s staggering national debt, Buffett relented by stating that, in the end, the U.S. government simply will do what every other government has done in such circumstances. [Emphasis is mine in all quotes]

“A country that continuously expands its debt as a percentage of GDP and raises much of the money abroad to finance that, at some point, it’s going to inflate its way out of the burden of that debt,” Buffett said.

“Experience proves that, he points out.”

“Every country that has denominated its debt in its own currency and has found itself with uncomfortable amounts of debt relative to the rest of the world, in the end they inflate,” Buffett explains.

“That becomes a tax on everybody that has fixed dollar investments.”[5]--Buffett Sees Massive Inflation to Handle Staggering Debt. Monday, May 4, 2009 2:34 PM By: Dan Weil

A translation: This means your annuities and pensions will become worthless. Your long term CDs and bonds will crumble away. High taxation in an inflationary era will mean a transfer of wealth to the government, the least adept entity to handle any social or financial problem in my view. Has anybody noticed the 30-year Treasury bond soared to 4% from 3%. It is going much higher.

The Real Buffy the Bozo:

Here we have a sage that omits predictable terminal economic and financial events while reaping applause from his subjects and big profits from troubled corporations. He peddles his trust like a North Beach hooker. He can see the pit ahead and yet drives us into the depths with his positive blather about Obama and his taxes. His omission of such basic economic fundamentals in finance while offering himself as an expert and opening his Oracle for the unwashed masses is deliberate and criminal. He is some kind of self-styled philanthrocapitalist—what ever that means. Oh, let’s listen to Warren Buffett—he is so successful and wonderful and egalitarian. He didn’t mention any inflation. We can trust him.

His lust for money is illustrated in this quote:

 “I’ll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It costs a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar. It’s addictive. And there’s fantastic brand loyalty.”[6]

This reads better as:

I’ll tell you why I like politics. It costs a penny to make a tax bill that swells into a dollar, then a million, then a billion, then a few trillion. And there’s fantastic brand loyalty from the low-class voters who get paid for their votes. Just keep the welfare payments high and the jail terms light. It’s addictive.--rycK

I hate to be one of the persons to say: “I told you so![7]” but this was predictable. I have several blogs in this point in the references below.

There is no way to recover from this massive debt but to print more money, probably default on some bonds here and there as O’Bozo wants secured bondholders to do to save the UAW at Chrysler and other instances. Our currency might collapse.

We will test the luster of gold again and very soon as our currency becomes worthless. The government will rush to limit ownership of gold if they can.

A quarter hour ago one of the case stooges, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress this about inflation:

“However, he added that even after the recovery begins, "the rate of growth of real economic activity is likely to remain below its longer-run potential for a while."

“That will leave slack in the economy, keeping inflation low, which in turn suggests that the central bank will keep interest rates low for some time”[8]-- Bernanke says U.S. recovery ahead, housing near bottom.” Tue May 5, 2009 11:32am EDT

If Bernanke knows, and he must, that massive spending is inflationary then how does he know the inflation and interest rates will both be low?? These policy vectors generally run in opposite financial directions. He is either lying or has some ‘secret ‘ plan to claw back the Fed money from the banks at  propitious moment or, more  likely, he is just stooge parroting the O’Bozo political line about spending and that is not a problem.

What is slack? Is this a mental disorder or a physical ailment such as slack jawedness? Did Buffett give us some ‘slack’ when he held back on the impending massive inflationary pressures by his silence? I will cut Bernanke some slack and suggest is just a lying stooge thus encompassing both ends of the argument. This slack appears to be some kind of Neo-Marxist cramdown. We are going to pay big time for all this. Those who wanted ‘change’ are going to get a bundle.

Where do we get these fools?

rycK

Comments: ryckki@gmail.com