{"id":67343,"date":"2021-06-26T02:15:22","date_gmt":"2021-06-26T09:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/?p=67343"},"modified":"2021-06-29T08:29:48","modified_gmt":"2021-06-29T15:29:48","slug":"black-coffee-26-june-2021","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lenpenzo.com\/blog\/id67343-black-coffee-26-june-2021.html","title":{"rendered":"Black Coffee: Destroyers at the Wheel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"It’s time to sit back, relax and enjoy a little joe …<\/em><\/p>\n

Welcome to another rousing edition of Black Coffee, your off-beat weekly round-up of what’s been going on in the world of money and personal finance.<\/p>\n

I hope everybody had a wonderful week. And with that, let’s get right to this week’s commentary, shall we?<\/p>\n

Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men’s protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced; paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked: ‘Account Overdrawn.’<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

— Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Credits and Debits<\/strong><\/p>\n

Debit:<\/strong><\/span> Did you see this? Thanks to the new federal holiday that was created last week, there are now 44 paid days off<\/a> for the average federal employee annually — that’s almost nine full weeks of paid-time off each year based on 11 federal holidays, 13 sick days and 20 vacation days per year, which costs taxpayers $22.6 billion annually. If only the average private sector taxpayer was so lucky.<\/p>\n

Credit:<\/strong><\/span> In other news, this week a commenter at the TFMR blog<\/a> shared the following 12-year weekly chart of the S&P 500, noting that “ever since the great financial crisis, when an established supporting trend line breaks, a new trend line is established with a steeper slope<\/a>. Maybe the market will go vertical soon, sending prices to infinity. I wonder how this compares to Weimar Germany?” Good question; with the chart exhibiting the behavior of an exponential curve, I’d say it compares to Weimar quite nicely.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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This is bullish for magic internet money.<\/p>\n

unbound (@JoshS_unbound) June 24, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n