Certainly this article is interesting, informative, and rather disturbing.

It is difficult to imagine interest-free borrowing, even among friends. It sounds more like the Kingdom of Utopia, or perhaps the land of OZ, as discovered by Timothy O'Leary years ago. At one point banks were known to invest in bonds and real-estate. so it is difficult to imagine that there is nothing profitable that banks can do with those excess funds. So it does seem to be quite insane!

One fact is certain, though, and that is that there is no such thing a free money, nor really free anything. There is always a cost, although certainly it is sometimes very well hidden.

In the US the hidden cost is the irresponsible accumulation of debt, which will need to be repaid by somebody in the future. And the result of a bunch of that borrowing is the creation of very large, rather expensive, houses, at least in my area. that is, in turn, altering the very nature of the community, and not for the better.

But the worst part is that it keeps blowing the bubble up bigger and bigger. Bubbles are not forever, they always burst. When the current bubble bursts, certainly there will be pain, probably a whole lot of pain, for quite a while. And certainly there will be scars that stay for a very long time. Those scars will be ugly and disfiguring.

How can a bubble be deflated without bursting???

Quite an interesting and educational article, and certainly not of the kind typical to this excellent ongoing collection. But very well said. Without any lamenting as to how the rich are not getting richer nearly a fast as they would want to.

Really, this article is quite a bit to think about. Thanks for presenting it.

The effect of that big stimulus on me is to increase my savings in preparation for the hard times approaching when the bubbles will all burst. Of course my confidence level is very far down. While certainly some folks need financial help, I am NOT one of them, nor are my neighbors in need of help. The one just bought a nice new pickup truck, because it is really cool. But he did not need that check to help pay for it.

So the stimulus checks are the wrong thing to do. The right thing would help those folks who really need it, not me. All pf the pandemic closures have been inconvenient, but they have not done any damage here. THAT DAMAGE will come from the inflation that iis still down the block and around the corner. Coming, but we don't see it just yet.

The biggest problem is that while the median income has not increased, the very intentional inflation has reduced the purchasing power of our incomes a whole lot. I realize that the fed tells us that wall street is all of America, but they are wrong. So those are the people that are damaging our country and taking away from the poor. Consider that if the prices were all rolled back to 30 years ago, today's poor folks would not be so bad off. So one of our very real enemies is inflation.

And the main problem with all the money give-away efforts is that they will all run out of "other people's money."

So how can worth-while jobs be created? Probably by not regulating the life out of every small business and not taxing them to death. At least that would be a start.

The problem with starting huge programs of any kind through creating huge taxes is that no matter what, there will always be provisions to exclude certain privelged groups from those taxes, and so the revenue will not be adequate. It has been that way forever and I don't see any peaceful way to change it. Very unfortunate. And certainly the federal reserve bank team would protect at least some of the stock market interests. So the end result will be rampant inflation.

So why is it that the mistakes made by parts of the government primarily injure those not involved in making those mistakes?

Let me remind folks that what got Mr Biden elected was not votes FOR him, but much more, votes AGAINST Mr Trump. THIS is why another choice is needed: "NONE of the Above!!!"

One more consideration is that all of these are relatively new organizations. The failure rate for startups over the many years is rather high, and so this may just be stumbling as they are getting started.

Quite an article, full of wisdom and insight, all very rational. And I would add that even iff one has no intention of owning gold or silver, they are still valuable indicators and reference points of the general situation. And that information may be important, on occasion.

It would have been better as text. But yes, a stock bid up by greed i certainly due for corrections, possibly even massive corrections. If the actual value does not really exist, except as an emotion, it is difficult to maintain that high price. Eventually folks wake up sober.

Very interesting indeed. And what is learned is that "One should Never Be Where One Does Not Belong." (Bob Dylan, from " The Ballad of Judas Priest")