Source:Â Wikipedia.
Dear Diary,
We’re still in the lazy days of August, with little going on in the stock market. So let’s use this time to look at deeper trends.
We left off last week with discouraging words.
First, we noted that, according to Washington’s own budget people, Social Security is going broke 20 years sooner than forecast. It’s already $15 trillion in the hole, with a deficit that’s up 300% (mistakenly reported as 400%) in the last five years.
Second, we sympathized with our new dear readers of our new venture, The Bill Bonner Letter.
It must be difficult coming into a conversation that has been going on for so long. Especially when many of the ideas we are talking about are complex and confusing – at least to us!
Many are those who have tried to understand economics and markets in a simple and definitive way. They’ve laid out their diagrams and made their forecasts.
The graveyards and insane asylums are full of them. Because no matter how much you think you grasp… there is always more that gets away from you.
The Real Triumph of Civilization
To remind you, we were wondering why the Social Security system exists.
If government really were the parasitic zombie we think it is, why would it set up a retirement pension system that seems benign… and that now has the support of an overwhelming majority of Americans? (Especially those over 65!)
Is it possible that modern democratic government really is a different institution – of, by and for the benefit of the people who are governed?
Does it represent real progress in the life of mankind?
The answer we came to on Friday was “sort of.â€
Civilization (including the rules and customs we associate with modern, democratic governments) makes possible trade, commerce and entrepreneurship. This allows people to become wealthy.
Wealth allows them to build new and better weapons. Less civilized governments (dictatorships, Communist countries and other basket cases) fall behind.Civilization triumphs because it pays.
