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The Golden Goose

Frank Lechner
whynotgold@msn.com
Jan 10. 2006

A certain man had a goose
That never failed to produce,
For daily, lo and behold,
She laid him an egg - all gold!
But the man had a miserable itch
To become very rapidly rich.
So he killed the goose, like a dunce,
Since he thought that he all at once
Would get all the goose's gold treasure.
But dead the bird gave him no pleasure.
"There's no gold inside her," said he.
"Just a simple old goose - like me!"

I am amused. You want to know why I say buy gold and silver? Read on... for one day the banksters will finally kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

The stories that are coming out of the banking industry are incredible to say the least. From the credit card industry to the mortgage industry, credit has exploded. Our government of course, has lead the charge with its deficit spending that never ends. The banksters will get what they deserve one day into the future, although I have no idea how long it will take.

As the credit card industry has grown, so has the addiction to return on cash for the banksters. This has resulted in a continuously growing animal which now resembles King Kong. From its smallish beginnings, where only the most credit worthy could get cards, it has grown to include, and I would argue embrace, those of low credit quality.

It has gotten so out of control, that even the dead, the bankrupt, those of no physical means of support, are getting cards. The 'risk quotient' is spread over so many users, that it is considered acceptable risk to continue to put the cards out there.

It has become so convenient, that one who pays at the grocery store with cash or check is considered a dinosaur. The preparations for the digitized economy are in full stroke.

A person who charges, and then pays his credit card bill on time monthly now is considered a deadbeat. The prime customers are those who pay any interest rate, and virtually minimum payments. With the recently passed bankster protection laws, or the new restrictions on bankruptcy proceedings, they have now been given carte' blanche to screw the customers. This is as if they hadn't already been doing it.

Out the door have went the maximum usury rates of 18% +- in some states, and in come even more excessive rates. For instance, you may be a great credit risk, but you have paid a credit card bill a few days late a few times in the past year. You have never been 30 days late, but your interest has climbed to a previously criminal 30+ %. So you have never been a credit risk, as you don't pay past the 30 day period, and your credit score remains the same. You look good on their customer lists for regulators and investors, but yet they are creaming you with criminal rates.

This will all end badly some day, when the customers actually revolt and say to heck with it. I don't care about bankruptcy laws, you ain't gettin' nothin' from me. The legal claim will be to garnish his wages, so he'll quit his job. Hmmm, lost his job, or quit, so now that mortgage can't be paid either. Or that car payment can't be made. Hmmmm.

The car manufacturers have jumped into this swimming pool, claiming to be one of them. They have created full divisions, where they act as the bankster for their customers. It is widely known that much of the car manufacturer profits are derived in the financing division, and their operations divisions run at unending losses.

Of course, a full industry has been created for credit towards vehicles. They too have gone down scale. Offering loans to even the most severely credit deprived. The creative financing available due to the very high prices for vehicles has become a hide and seek game. You rarely see a vehicle advertised at X price. It is always described at some low monthly payment amount. Sure, people haggle over price at the dealership, but in reality, it always comes down to monthly payment and affordability. Don't forget that part of that equation is also the bankster credit rating association. If you are a 'supposed' good risk, you get the best rate, and the rate of course declines as the customer quality does. Customer quality is not to be confused with honesty, integrity, and so on, it is strictly based on a computer generated 'score'.

The big prize in all of this is mortgage banking. Americans love home ownership, and the politicians and banksters love to give it to them... literally. With the tax structure set up to encourage home ownership, and the funds made available through government organizations such as Fannie and Freddie, the government is full steam ahead behind this increase in home ownership. Read further tax capacity because of this.

Now the funding industry comes along, having an outlet to dump generated mortgages onto, Fannie and Freddie, and have taken the financing of homes to a new level. Interest only mortgages, longer terms, lower credit quality, no money down, 100% + mortgages, and the full basket of other offerings have all filled the banker toolbox. You have to be almost dead to not get a home loan of some type, (that is reserved for the credit card industry :0)

The industry has again morphed into the 'monthly payment' syndrome. The value of the house, perceived or real, doesn't matter anymore. The real questions are appraisal value, monthly payment, and credit score. The appraisal must support the documents, and many are false appraisals for exactly this reason. The monthly payment is the customer affordability. And the credit score is used to set the term and interest rate.

With the now average family consisting of two working parents, in lieu of the one of yesteryear, the unions decimated (allowing a working wage with benefits and retirement), and globalization (allowing our workers to compete against an Asian worker making peanuts literally), the standard of living is actually dropping. Wages are not keeping pace with the monetary inflation. The expansion of the monetary base, that has been so choreographed, that has gotten every fiat currency in history in trouble, resembles the inverted pyramid. Less and less backing more and more credit expansion.

One day the culmination of this will be complete. The final fiat reckoning will be made clear for all to see. The hole in the bottom of the funnel will open, and the now ruined fiat will be pouring out. A deflationary contraction is the anti fiat expansion. It becomes a boulder rolling down a mountain, ending in a horrible thud. As loans are called, discharged, wrote off, or otherwise removed from a financing institutions books, what were assets, disappear. With a leveraged fiat monetary regime, or fractional reserve lending, this destruction works too in reverse. At a 10:1 fractional ratio on the way up, a bank that receives $1000 cash or assets gets a bank $10,000 lending capability. On the way down, a $200,000 mortgage default, with a corresponding fire or foreclosure sale at $150,000, relieves the bank of $50,000 in assets. This is excluding additional costs. This $50,000 is $500,000 in LOST lending capacity for the bank.

This lost lending capacity, results in tighter requirements to borrowers and so on. Effectively, it becomes a self-perpetuating spiral downward, as more and more loans are called, lower prices are received on the flop in foreclosure, and costs rise dramatically. Jobs are lost because of this lost capacity, and decreased 'velocity' of money in the system. This decreased velocity will show up in credit lending of all types, mortgages, business, credit cards, vehicles, furniture, and all other manner of products. Less product is sold, and more jobs are lost, more manufacturing disappears. This continues to happen until the funnel empties the rubbish that is a 100% fiat currency.

This is why I have been pushing the purchase of gold and silver. This is why I have been saying for quite some time now that it is the 'inflate or die' syndrome. This is the reason that I have been saying that this period will resemble the 70's for product inflation, as this newly created fiat continues to manifest itself in all things 'real'. This is why Bernanke was recently elected the head printer at the fed reserve. His comments argue that he wholeheartedly believes that he can continue this shell game. The monetary expansion and velocity must continue, or the death of a fiat currency will be the end game.

Your only safety net in such a scenario is gold, silver, and other things 'real'. At the very least, you know something is amiss. You would have to be dead (and getting a credit card offer), to not see it or feel it. Worst case scenario regarding gold and silver, you purchase some for insurance, and it decreases in price. So? It isn't going to zero, and I would certainly argue that it is going much much higher before this is all over.

When this does finally come to an end, it will be nothing like what Volcker and Reagan dealt with in the 80's. It will be much grander, and much more painful than the depression of the 30's. The future is already known, it is just the words to the final chapters that must be written yet.

The gold and silver bull market will be grand for sure, but there will be many who will sit it out on the sidelines, having lost their stake as emotions drive their actions.

Best of Luck To You,

Continue to accumulate physical gold and silver on the breaks.

Get Physical and Stay Physical !

Frank A. Lechner
email: whynotgold@msn.com

Frank A. Lechner is a private investor, and makes no allowances for stupidity or insanity as each chooses his own investment battles. "Past performance is no indication of future direction, nor do I even care about govt mandated disclosures. You make your choices and you live with them." He does in fact believe "that we are indeed in a time of turmoil, a time of increasing prices, much as wrote about before, and that this period will resemble the 70s. Those that fail to learn from history are destined to repeat, or so I hear. Good investing to you."

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