I have not had a chance to read the book, and I avoided the movie due to several recommendations similar to yours.

If I can get through the next 10 or so books on my "to read" list, I will see if can get a copy. Thanks.

Middleclass America embraces your thinking, and those that have never owned a firearm are now pawning motorcycles and other things inorder to purchase their first firearm............They recognize both incompetance and tyranny!..........Our Democracy has become a joke to the average citizen.

It amazes me when I hear and read paleos blame the "free market" (would that we actually had free as opposed to managed markets); they sound like rank liberals when doing so. Meanwhile, the Austrian school economists have been predicting this meltdown as it precisely unfolded for at least six years or so.

Wolfe's four characterizations of New Journalism were:

* Telling the story using scenes rather than historical narrative as much as possible
* Dialogue in full (Conversational speech rather than quotations and statements)
* First-person point of view (present every scene through the eyes of a particular character)
* Recording everyday details such as behavior, possessions, friends and family (which indicate the "status life" of the character)

Imagine what such coverage (especially the 2nd and 4th characteristics) of Gore, Kerry and Obama would be like.

Re "A country that decides to stop making things will soon lose any notion of money for product value. ":

This sentiment was one of the themes of Tom Wolfe's "The Bonfire of the Vanities", especially his portrayal of "The Masters of the Universe" [Wall Streeters]

Have you read it? One of my favorite books.

[Don't confuse it with the execrable Tom Hanks movie version. I believe that particular piece of celluloid dreck was directed by Brian "Redacted" De Palma.]

I got the 16% from a guest on the Ron Smith Show on WBAL. His guests are generally pretty reliable sources. When I went to the Feds website I got 9.4%, and we can all trust the government to help us, right?

I don't know the truth about the Fed or the Open Market Committee, but I think they should be audited.

Thank you for your thoughtful and informative reply to my queries on inflation and its manifestations.

It is very much appreciated.

H.F. Wolff

Mr. Wolff @15,18. Inflation of the dollar is a general effect. Housing or other prices is a quicker moving local effect (on top of the inflation effect). House prices are coming down to try to sell off the over supply of houses that had been built up and sold off under false economic signals of the past several years. These false signals were caused by government intervention in the economy, which created a bubble of prices (the price is above the value). The bubble of prices spiraled into an even greater over-supply of inventory, which, when the prices became unhinged from the government fantasy revealed a drop in value (too many houses lowers the value of existing, interchangeable houses), not an increase. So then prices fell dramatically to try to match the new value. Though they are probably going to fall below that to compensate.

Other commodities might be dropping in price not because we've made too many of them (cars), but because people are too freaked out right now so demand is dropping. Lots of people lump their house value into their wealth, and when you see your wealth dropping in your house and the market by a bunch, you might delay buying a new car.

Other commodities such as food and services are going up because of general inflationary pressure, emerging middle class demand pressure in asia/india and increase in energy and other inputs (corn) via more government involvement.

Inflation as a phenomenon takes awhile to work its way through a system. It does not affect the value of a thing or the supply/demand for a thing, just the price of it in dollars. The reason this bill is deceiving and criminal is because that $700 billion is fresh money which carries with it today's purchasing power. That is a false handout to those who get it first. If you imagine it were literally green cash, and you put a red mark on each bill, by the time you or I actually handled such a bill, it would be worth less than it is today as inflation would be manifesting itself in general pricing.

That is also why inflation is such a devastating "tax" on almost all people. You don't need to be in the stock market or have any assets at all to be hit by it.