We should FORCE our leaders to bring companies back from Mexico and to stop employers from hiring illegal immigrants. We should stop importing goods made in China. We should “STIMULATE” production companies in the US.

There’s no reason why American companies can’t produce goods of equal quality to that of Japan. Ford and GMC should step up. We should DEMAND that they do.

I’m no economist… I even suck at math, but that’s just my take.

Jeff

Unfortunately, Dave he falls flat when he bad-mouths precious metals as “stupid.” His mantra that “metals are never used in the barter economies that follow disasters” is a straw man argument (though somewhat understandable, given that some metal and coin dealers seem to imply that metals will be money when the feces hits the fan).

Precious metals shouldn’t be bought/held primarily for a “social meltdown” scenario, but as an historically-reliable store of value.

A couple of ignorant things I’ve heard Dave say recently about precious metals:

• “They have no more intrinsic value than a shoelace.” (IOW, precious metals only have value because man assigns it value and does so arbitrarily — we could just as easily assign similar value to dirt!) I’m utterly amazed that Dave doesn’t grasp fundamental principles of value found in precious metals such as world-wide recognizability and desirability, ease of divisibility and transportability, and high value in relation to volume and weight.

• “Precious metals haven’t been a medium of exchange since the Roman empire.” This is simple ignorance of history. What does Dave think the value of US currency was pegged to by law until only 1971? (Not to mention the fact that US quarters, dimes, and dollar and half-dollar coins were 90% silver until 1964!)

It is a paradox that, while preaching so faithfully against personal indebtedness, Dave won’t/can’t preach against our government’s indebtedness and the central-bank-issued fiat currency that aids and abets it. I know Dave is a Bible-believing Christian — well, the Bible vehemently condemns theft by the use of unjust weights and measures, which is precisely what fiat currency is: “faith-based” money that is backed up by absolutely nothing and which results in that most insidious a invisible of taxes, a.k.a. inflation. (Oh, incidentally, Dave has defined “inflation” as price increases due to variables of supply and demand. Yes, prices do fluctuate as a result of supply and demand, but inflation is an increase in the amount of money in circulation at the hands of central banks and government-owned printing presses. When more money is pumped into the system via the printing press or electronic credits, it serves to devalue the money already in circulation, and prices rise in response to that. IOW, long-term price increases are not inflation, but rather they are a symptom of inflation — more money chasing after a fixed amount of goods. The best example I can point to is the artificial boom in home values earlier this decade, which were the direct result of the ease with which more and more people were able to get loans. I.e., more money — in the form of credit — chasing after a fixed supply of houses.)

For a different — and reliable — take on our current economic mess, I would urge you to spend some time reading the articles and watching the videos of Peter Schiff. Just Google him … you’ll find him. Peter is also “death on debt” — but he called the current financial mess a few years ago, based on the fact that Americans and their government borrow endlessly to buy things they simply cannot afford. I.e., rampant consumerism and endless lines of credit.

I love Dave for what he does well, but he has a ways to go to understand the government-monetary-policy basis for the dire straits in which our nation currently finds itself.