On gold at $1,000 an ounce

Some readers will know that I invested in gold shares a few years ago. The price was then about $400 an ounce. Today's price doesn't really surprise me at all. It's all explained here for those who can be bothered. Some may think that a bit of schadenfreude is called for. No, not really. I'd actually prefer that the world's economy just continued more-or-less as it's done for the last few years: a world in which my income keeps up with the price of necessities and leaves a wee bit left over for some extras. But I fear that's not how it's going to be.

Just look at this for example:

The Federal Reserve said Friday that it has voted to endorse an arrangement to bolster troubled Bear Stearns Cos. and stands ready to provide extra resources to combat a serious credit crisis.

The Fed announcement came in a brief two-sentence statement that was issued as stocks were plunging on Wall Street over worries that a plan to ease a liquidity crisis at Bear Stearns Cos. might not work.

Of the US presidential candidates only Ron Paul understands what's happening and he's not going to be President. Poor America. And poor Europe as well.

I feel liberated after my departure from party politics. They really are all the same. At least some people get it, but they're not in power:

But it misses the point of how large swathes of British society have been allowed to fall into such a state. Might it be because we have one of the greatest welfare dispensaries in the world, not despite it? We have a dysfunctional tax and benefits system that has encouraged joblessness at the expense of (overtaxed) work. And it is rampant welfarism that has allowed real poverty to spread. That is why rolling it back is surely the great moral mission today.

The welfare state has destroyed the West. It's probably time to just sit back and watch the fun.