About the Nothing Store

As Obama and crew print and borrow more and more money, the U.S. dollar faces an uncertain future.

But three cheers for our Unmighty Dollars -- print as many as you like. They're already worth Nothing, so they can't go down in value.

Comments? Email The Nothing Store team!

The Nothing Store issues new currency weekly.

Counterfeiting Instructions:

Click on a denomination above, print the bills, cut them out, and stuff in an envelope. Send to your congressman or senator marked as a CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION. They'll get the message! For the address of your congressman, click here for senators and here for representatives.

THE STUPIDITY BOMB

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.
-Benjamin Franklin

The difference between smart people and dumb people is that dumb people don't know how dumb they are.
-S. Rowe, Chief Know Nothing

Ah Ben, if only you were here, perhaps it would be easier for us to laugh at the stupidities that surround us. Everywhere we look it seems we are approaching a Critical Mass of Stupidity, a radioactive pile of political nonsense that could explode at any moment and destroy all remaining pockets of rationality.

When this Stupidity Bomb finally explodes, will the survivors even be capable of recognizing intelligence? Will humanity have to start from scratch, clawing its way towards civilization and once again slowly developing respect for rational thought? It gives us a headache even contemplating such stuff.

So let us not dwell too much on the failings of politicians. We are too busy trying to figure out how to stay solvent and protect ourselves from the follies that spew from Washington. Let us instead try to focus on finding intelligent voices in the din.

What about markets? How intelligent are they? Supposedly, markets act rationally and with the balancing intelligence of almost infinite inputs, but sometimes they make us shake our head. What are they seeing that we don't see? Over time, the facts come out, but at the point when we must make investment decisions, the truth is often hidden. During the boom in housing a lot of people wondered how that market could behave so irrationally. But we now see that the housing market was just reacting correctly to a Federal Reserve policy of artificially low interest rates and a "progressive" government push to make everyone a homeowner. Those that saw through the noise and who correctly predicted the collapse are the ones we are listening to now.

Prices for commodities are creeping upwards. Each has its own fundamental reality, dependent on its own supplies and demands. How much of this price appreciation is due to those fundamentals and how much is due to government money printing we do not know, but commodity prices, especially precious and strategic metals, are quietly talking. Smart people, who know how dumb they are, will listen.

Are we listening to Fed Chairman Bernanke when he says the economy is improving? Not likely.

And Obama? At least he acknowledged that stupidity exists. After all, he mentioned it in his comments about the police action in Cambridge, so we guess he knows it when he sees it. Obama must be a smart guy - everyone says so. What are we missing?

How can one think that more government control of health care can fix a system whose faults flow from the increasing government involvement since the Nixon years?

How can anyone believe the creation of another convoluted government-enabled speculative scheme--the trading of carbon credits--will not descend into a morass of political cronyism and corruption?

How can more government control of education, where costs have gone up while quality goes down, be something any smart person would wish for?

All simple questions, and Obama seems confident of the answers. But then we remember that a glib sureness is often the cover for an unthoughtful mind.

Perhaps Obama is the Democratic leader because he's an Idiot Savant, brilliant at spinning wondrously tall tales about the utopian future, but with an untempered intelligence not connected to reality.

As for us, we know we are as dumb as clams. That's why we have to work so hard to figure things out. We wish we were as smart as Obama, or the people who revere him, or the broadcasters on the evening news. They're so lucky, being smart enough to know just what to say and do without much effort.

We are reminded of what the great sportswriter Red Smith said about the craft of writing: "Writing is easy. You just stare at a blank piece of paper until little drops of blood appear on your forehead."

We feel the same way about thinking. It doesn't come easy.

Post script: After we wrote the above, we ran across this interesting quote from Nobel laureate* Friedrich A. Hayek in "The Constitution of Liberty."