Commentary

Monopo or Resorso?

By Gary Tanashian

June 13, 2007

Frustro

Recent events centering around the hot button issue of immigration reform have many Americans livid as president Bush, upon the bill's apparent defeat, confidently uttered something to the effect of "we'll see you at the bill signing ceremony" and promised to move forward in bi-partisan support of "amnesty" measures for illegal aliens.

On my commute home I sometimes listen to a local talk radio program hosted by conservative commentator Jay Severin. Callers have expressed extreme dissatisfaction and outright anger at the state of affairs being promoted by elected officials at all levels of local and federal government while turning a deaf ear to average Americans' wishes. "How can this be?" they wonder. Mr. Severin calls on citizens to "do their patriotic duty" and make themselves heard for the good of the Republic while calling for the impeachment of officials, including the president who are seemingly putting the country at risk of losing what made it great, of losing its very identity.

I can understand the bewildered frustration that many people feel, with the government seemingly on auto pilot in service to policies that are detested by the people and not in the best interests of a Constitutional Republic. The URL of this website, biiwii.com stands for "but it is what it is", a commonly used phrase that denotes a resignation to reality, whatever that reality happens to be. Unfortunately, that may be the stance I will have to take on the issue due to my focus on modern Ponzinom... I mean economics and finance.

Monopo

I plan to vote for Ron Paul, a dyed in the wool constitutionalist and man of integrity who I became aware of because of his long time "voice in the wilderness" stance against government living beyond its means and by extension, the American people living beyond their means. I will vote for him even though I think a return to the purity of his ideas is all but impossible. Once again I trot out my first article from 2004 FrankenMarket Lives, that probably said all I ever really had to say. I would wager that many of the people demanding that the government now operate more like a Constitutional Republic have been right there all along, enabling our debt-fueled ways to the heights of hubris, where we now find ourselves; confused, angry and disoriented.

Sadly, most folks do not understand economics and they certainly don't understand money. "Money is paper here in my wallet. I give it to the cashier and she lets me walk out of the store with neat stuff. Same goes for my credit which is a call on my money. It's great, I have lots of this green paper." Well, so too does the rest of the world; lots and LOTS of it. So much of it in fact that it is no longer money. It is now munny, really funny munny. It is created through currency carry trades, bond carry trades, leveraged derivative vehicles and of course, central banks. Truth is, no one knows how much munny there is out there. But it's expanding in uncontrolled fashion the world over even as the central banks try to rein it in. In certain dark corners of the financial sphere there is folklore about the coming of the 'Amero', a new currency that would tie in the merger of the United States with Canada and Mexico. With the debt burden it hauls around, enabled and exacerbated by we the people, the current US Dollar may as well be referred to as the 'Monopo' because intrinsically if not functionally, it is worth about the same as that stuff that will buy you a tiny little plastic house on Park Place.

Resorso

As in "resources".

With our sense of entitlement that was born of the productive sweat of the people who built this great country - especially that of immigrants from whom most of us are descended - we have been conditioned to believe that it really is just as easy as reaching into our pocket for the green stuff. But alarming and ongoing federal debt says that this is a confidence game. It goes on as long as people believe this is money. If a time comes that confidence falls and it is seen instead as munny, then the proverbial game of musical chairs ends. In light of a global rush to resources amid geopolitical tensions, it is not a stretch to imagine some ultimate good (among lots of unfortunate fallout and trade-offs along the way) that would come of a union, a Euroesque tie-in between the resource rich Canada and Mexico with the technology, innovation and financial infrastructure of the United States.

Please resist the urge to blast the writer as an anti-constitutional blasphemer. I have done my part; built, backed and sustained a productive American manufacturing business, paid my taxes and upheld what I feel is great about this country, including the right to free speech. That is what this article is. Free speech that is trying to offer at least a partial explanation or hint of some of the dynamics that could be at play in these very confusing times. Canada is rich in resources such as the oil sands, lumber, gold, silver, uranium, copper and nickel. Mexico is a major silver producer with gold, oil and base metals as well. And oh yes, all that available labor. There seems to be an imperative, an urgency behind statements like Mr. Bush's "we'll see you at the signing ceremony" and that urgency is likely not born out of stupidity.

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