Doomsday Inflation Crisis

 

Fear sells. When you were a kid it used to be fairy tales like Little Red Riding Hood and the wolf. Today millions get scared to death listening to talking heads tell them how the world will end with our savings evaporating in a nano-second because of excess government spending.

In my entire professional lifetime the worst kept economic secret has been how government spending will eventually lead to odious inflation.

Without a doubt inflation and higher taxes are on the horizon as sure as there’s a Foo in Egg Foo Yong. The problem is that no one knows exactly when higher taxes and inflation will arrive. Its not an exact science this predicting of economic events. No one really knows for sure, especially the ubiquitous ‘they’ who pretend they do- but they don’t.

I am reminded of the Y2k crisis where people stocked cellars with bottled water, dehydrated food, wine and olive oil (according to some olive oil was to be the currency of the future), and plenty of ammunition for the automatic weapons to be used to repel the coming hoard of neighbors who were not as far sighted as those hunkering in their basement bunkers. At the stroke of midnight, we were told, the world would turn into the Night of the Living Dead as rampaging PTA and Kiwanis members ravage their own neighborhoods. ATMs would stop spitting out cash. Banks and brokerage firms would lose customer accounts into some sort of ether. We would all be beggars selling each other apples from opposite street corners. Why even airplanes would fall from the sky because of the computer glitch.

I was told that the creatures running loose on the day of reckoning would be far scarier than anyone you’d ever bump into, even at a Blockbuster store after midnight.

And here we are a decade later doing it again.

If there is anything we Americans love more than Wheel of Fortune, cold beer and apple pie it’s a good conspiracy. We buy into this stuff so easy I am amazed that we won any wars let alone the big ones. A little disinformation goes a long way with us.

Here’s the deal – if you want to believe in cabals, secret societies and two guys in Jersey who really control the world, good for you. It just doesn’t happen to have any veracity except to entertain those of us who also enjoy Ghost Hunters and Bill O’Reilly. One’s scary and one’s not.

Sure this tax-flation is serious stuff. There are ways to prepare and deal with it. There are a lot of other serious issues such as jobs, home sales, jobs and jobs.

Register for my webinar on inflation. Go to my website www.primaryplanner.com and do it now. I’ll help make it sensible and easy to understand and not so scary.

If you have any questions on anything contained in this blog write Paul Stanley at pstanley@westminsterfinancial.com or call him at 877 783 7080.