[ In today’s guest commentary, Rick’s Picks forum regular Doug Graham sounds a note of deep despair over the political economy.  There are too many incentives, he says, for our corrupt and deeply dysfunctional system to stay just the way it is.  And even if we possessed the fortitude and resolve to put things back on track, the looming inflation of the dollar to the point of worthlessness will render any such efforts moot.  RA ]

Pretty weird having front row seats to the destruction of the dollar, but here we are.  The leaders keep claiming they have a strong-dollar policy, yet the price of nearly everything, excepting housing and perpetually deflating technology, is now rising.  Every metal.  Grains?  Fuggeddaboutit. Energy?  Well natgas kind of threw us a curve, but even it is double its price from ten years ago.  We can argue the deflation debate forever, but the fact is your dollar buys you less of nearly every single commodity than it did in the Nineties.  Some, as much as 80 percent less.  You could not say this in the Eighties or the Nineties. 

At the same time we have a government which evidently can do nothing but stimulate inflation, insisting on growing.  It is widely stated that governments produce nothing.   This is not entirely true.  Other than dollars, they also can produce national security and they do provide some services such as moving mail around.  In general, however, they do produce nothing.  If they were a part of the human anatomy, they are more like the colon (my apologies to the colon, an effective and efficient organ)  than the quadricep: vital for the whole to function, but not all that pleasant.   And yet, the only significant job-growth sector of the economy in the last two years has been government. 

So our currency is losing value, our tax obligations are increasing, and nearly every economic indicator shows the barometer dropping and bad weather continuing.  I “Fear The Beard, and I’m not talking about S.F. Giants pitcher Brian Wilson.  I fear BS Bernanke and his beard.  He was the one who, a year-and-a-half ago, said “green shoots” were popping up everywhere.  He was the one who said in 2006 that subprime was contained and housing, nationwide, would never go down.  Fear the Beard!  The Beard who said this:  “The U.S. government has a technology, called a printing press, that allows it to produce as many dollars as it wishes at essentially no cost.” And this:  “Under a paper-money system, a determined government can always generate higher spending and, hence, positive inflation.”

 Hang ‘Em High?

I believe the nasty stuff hasn’t even hit the fan yet.  But it is coming, and nothing will stop it. And when it does, all wrongs will be righted.  It will be an economic “Control-Alt-Delete,” power-on reset.    The system will have to be completely rebuilt and re-booted. It is a mess.  So obviously, we all recognize the mess and want to clean it up, right?  Throw the bums out?  Renegotiate untenable pensions?   Hang ‘em high?

Will we correct what needs correcting? I doubt we grow a conscience and the will necessary – at least not until the allied forces overcome those benefiting from the fascism/ corporatism/ corrupitalism.  Call it whatever you want, but if you are getting a lot more out of the system than you put in, you are a beneficiary, and you are the problem. This spans from CEOs (not all), and from the poor (not all)  gaming the welfare system, to public servants gaming their benefits (sometimes voluntarily, sometimes systemically), and likely a very varied list of others.