And here’s QE Explained, for those who haven’t seen it yet:

• 1984: (warning of a surveillance state)
• 2001: “This [housing] bubble will burst, as all bubbles do”.
• 2002: “Over the next decade, Americans will become poorer and less free”

So when an influential idiot like Christina Romer says, “the spectre of inflation is quickly fading”, as she did on Bloomberg TV recently, it makes one wonder. What is the time period these people are looking at? A week? A month? Only ones when commodities are down?

Stop to consider the fact that these price increases have occurred despite stagnant wages (the Keynesian’s preferred deflation argument being that inflation cannot occur without matching wage hikes) AND crawling money-velocity since the crunch. No matter what the Fed does, it is screwed going forward.

1. Tighten? Raise rates. Crush increasingly credit-dependent zombie economy (and banks, for some reason the Fed seems to favor the institutions who own it)
2. Expand lending? Massive inflation, continuation of zombie economy.
3. Keep lending slow, monetize debt. Hyperstagflation, ugly.

If I had my pick, I would of course go #1. Every time. But that’s not likely to be the case (for a while yet).

And regarding investment choices today, they’re a bit like a school cafeteria; sh1tty choices, but clear winners. I am looking to buy more precious metals and foreign bonds (pizza & french fries).

Weimar Germany may be a bit of an extreme example to use, but it does demonstrate the point rather well … (note that the x-axis is in months, not years).

I took advantage of the recent dip in silver prices, bought more. There are few things I want to own today more than gold & silver bullion. Global printing just getting ramped up. Bad as things are today, I believe this is the calm before the storm.

h/t Robert Wenzel.

Rogers warns against such economic blunders, noting “We had a trade war in the 1930′s, it led to the Great Depression.”

Shortly after that bludgeoning remark, Rogers adds “We already have small signs of trade wars breaking out in Brazil, France, other places, now America. This could be very dangerous in the end.”

Use the search function (top-right) to find more Jim Rogers stuff. Lots of videos in the archive from this wise investor.

Check It:

1) Jim Rogers Supports Ron Paul
2) Ron Paul 2012 Plug - Shameless

h/t Silver Doctors

Guest post by Jesse of Jesse’s Cafe.

Please bear in mind that the DX dollar index will become increasingly irrelevant because of its outdated structure, heavily weighted to the euro yen and the pound, to the exclusion of the emerging currencies and the precious metals.

The shorter term chart has been rallying largely on euro weakness. We might see another eurodollar short squeeze if things continue to deteriorate in the European banking system.

A stronger dollar is something that the wealthy and the financial sector may enjoy, to the detriment of the rest of the country and any hopes of economic recovery.   However the realities of things make a stronger dollar problematic.

So the next best thing is to slowly devalue the dollar by printing money and selectively distributing it, with tax benefits, to the most powerful and fortunate members of society.

In a ‘free market’ for currencies the dollar would have been much lower by now because of the persistent trade deficit, and the enormous dollar balances held by some of her trading partners.

The financial engineers favor a slow decline so as not to disclocate any of the major banking concerns. The currency discussions between China and the US are political theater for their respective peoples and the currency tourists, i.e. the small speculators who provide a snack for the wolves.

For more, visit Jesse’s Cafe.