Monday Morning Hangover

Not me ... the government of the United States of America.  After a fifty year binge on spending, as Ronald Reagan said, like a drunken sailor, the hangover hits hard and the pain begins.  Will the government take a cold shower and some black coffee ... or succumb to some "hair of the dog"?  That is the question.

The Treasury is squawking that S&P is wrong.  Readers of this blog know otherwise.  On Monday, July 25 of this year the title of this blog was USA ... AA.  S&P was generous giving the "+".

There are three major reasons why the ratings were cut:

(1) the 2009 stimulus was mostly squandered on government pork and not worthy projects, and on state spending subsidies, causing the recovery to be subpar, which in turn both hurts tax receipts both short & long term and elevates various support programs for those who lost jobs & incomes;

(2) a general refusal to cut government spending (Has anyone heard true "shared sacrifice", meaning cut the pay of Congress and govt. executives making over $100,000/year?); and

(3) the dishonorable actions of the Tea Party people in refusing to fund new debt to pay off old debts, in effect saying "screw you" to debt holders (who lend the government money for PAST spending).

The entire Washington crowd is the problem, as are the media dupes who propagandize the same old baloney and shams. The US is obviously a AA and would default if a 1930s level depression hit.

This is not a disaster.  The US and world economies worked OK for decades - over a century - before the credit of the United States was considered "gilt edged".  Perhaps those with no historical education might have trouble adjusting, but that's not Bunkerman.

Futures are getting hit fairly hard - down about 1.5 to 2% across the board.  Gold is over $1,700/oz.  Oil is down

Today, Bunkerman will be hiding in his bunker, probably loading magazines and oiling some "equipment" ;)  Overnight Krypto will be at work after today's deluge, looking for values, and ... thinking.

PS:  Bunkerman made pemmican over the weekend, ostensibly for the upcoming wilderness Epicurean canoe trip.  The recipe was the best ever, cutting the beef jerky component down a bit and adding some dried blueberries.  Ingredients:  beef jerky, chopped walnuts, orange-flavored dried cranberries, and dried blueberries, all melded with Jif Reduced Fat peanut butter.  Mix well and mold into a bar that is cylinder shape about 3" long and 1" in diameter.  Wrap with wax paper and use Scotch tape to hold.  For the canoe trip, I put three wrapped pemmican bars into a quart sized Ziplock bag and seal it.  I made a dozen bars, good for a midday meal for six days in the wilderness.

Word of the Day

"Discarnate" - adjective [$10] a T. S. Eliot word.
Discarnate means having no physical body, separated from the flesh.
Sentence:  I expect discarnate investing to fade in favor of investing in productive assets.  That means all this emphasis on "liquidity" is miss-guided.  An investor in better off with owning, or lending on, tangible assets.