Re: Why the US Economy is Tanking (OT)

"Have you not noticed the boom in gold investment? [...] That's the wealthy man's equivalent of sticking money under your mattress."

Yes, I've noticed that, and yes, you're right.

Have you considered why there is a boom in gold investment?

It is because there are many investors who no longer have faith in the U.S. dollar, and they have lost that faith because the political class and the American people have shown absolutely no willingness to live within their means, primarily because of the recent upsurge in government spending.

The natural consequence now will be that people will invest in things like gold, foregoing financial returns or taking losses now in return for greater security of what they still have, or invest in countries where they believe the government and the people will act more responsibly. That pulls investment and spending out of the United States (and countries with similar policies, like Greece) and these economies will not recover until these nations can regain the confidence of investors. They will not regain the confidence of investors until they start being economically responsible.

Of course, there is also a problem due to mathematical illiteracy, which I see frequently in real life. Our schools do not teach math well - in fact, in one recent informal study a researcher found that out of 50 elementary school teachers only one understood how to calculate the area of a square.