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"[Greek] Savers are anxious that their cash might be forcibly converted to a new Greek currency." – The Economist, January 28, 2012.
The entire western world has lost its collective mind. Today, the plight or fortune of billions of people in Europe and North America is now decided by a handful of academics who sit inside of bunker-like buildings and issue dictates.
Rarely – even during the brutal monarchical dictatorships of the middle ages – have so few ruled so many.
"We live in a democracy" you might hear someone say.
But in what democracy that you've heard of do unelected officials get to decide not only what is and is not money, but how much that money is worth, and how much of it exists?
You don't need guns or soldiers to control people if you can change the value of their money with the stroke of a keyboard.
Moreover, these groups of central bankers have little to no oversight. They graciously publish their meeting notes 30 days after their meetings occur.
They print money and scatter it to well-connected banks and businesses – in essence deciding who wins and loses as a function of which people and businesses are most closely tied to the central banks in Europe and North America.
When their policies and dictates begin to crumble, it's not bankers and politicians who pay the price. It's savers – like those folks in Greece who are now "anxious" that their holdings are favorably converted to a new Greek currency.
All the while, for the past 3 years, all we've heard from the Euro-zone is that Greece will stay solvent, and remain a Euro-based country.
Today, however – no one wants to touch Greece. It's the same type of uncertainty that's been chipping away at the dollar.
What's the root of that uncertainty?
It's the fact that no small autonomous group of people can manage a system so large and complex as an economy very well for very long.
Ben Bernanke may be good and smart – and lucky so far – but even a score of PhD economists can't write enough papers or create enough charts or equations to manage an economy.
Every lever they press or button they push has a multiplicative effect on a dozen factors they didn't or couldn't consider.
The world's largest Rube Goldberg machine doesn't respond to academia very well for very long.
Today, while you still have the chance, don't wait to be "anxious" like Greek savers currently are right now. Take the levers out of the hands of Ben Bernanke and his Euro-zone stooges.
I'm currently and constantly pulling savings out of banks and putting it into physical gold and silver.
Will gold and silver prices fluctuate – sometimes drastically lower?
Yes, of course. But unlike the Federal Reserve Note or the Euro, I can make certain that my savings will not be blinked out of existence by some unelected official's fiat or whim.