Captain Capitalism

Monday, January 26, 2009

How to Invest

If you are interested I have two online classes you can take.

One is a class on basic personal financial management.

The other is a more advanced class on stock valuation and analysis.

Both are OUTSTANDING classes and people of all ages are welcome!

Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions at; CAPTcapitalism@yahoo.com

Investment Classes

Retirement Planning

Roth IRA's

IRA

401k

How to Research Stocks

Investing in Stocks

How to Invest in Stocks

Retirement Planning

Personal Financial Management Classes

Personal Finance

Right, Like That's Not Going to Cause Inflation

The beautiful and illustrious Kate sent me this chart this morning;

It shows the monetary base (the actual cash money supply) skyrocketing up as idiots in Washington think somehow printing more money will save this economy.

But to get a real feel for how much money is being printed you have to compare it to GDP, the amounts of goods and services we're producing;

Typically, the monetary base as a percent of GDP has hovered around 6% during times or relative peace and absence of war or Great Depressions. However, many thanks to the sub prime dead beats, socialist housing policies, nepotism and cronyism in the incompetent financial sector, as well as simple greedy bankers, the monetary base has effectively doubled in just months to over 12% GDP.

Now, I know this is ignoring other measures of the money supply such as M2, M3, and the long abandoned L, but this chart provides an excellent explanation as to how inflation occurs and why you just can't print off more money. The reason why is it juxtaposes the two main factors that determine inflation;

1. The supply of money (Monetary Base)
2. How much stuff we're producing (GDP)

Understand that money has no value in itself. It is just worthless coinage or paper. The only real reason money has value is that something can be bought with it. So for example, you can print off a trillion dollars for every person in America, but without a proportionate increase in the amount of X-Boxes, cars, food, clothing, housing, etc., "stuff" nobody is any richer. Ergo, all you do in printing money is increasing the amount of money to buy the same amount of goods (GDP, or as I like to call it "stuff"). Therefore, you have more money per unit of "stuff" which is the definition of inflation.

Now, as I said before, it is a little more complicated when you factor in things such as other money supply measures, but not much. The founding principle stays the same;

If you print off more money without a corresponding increase in the amount of stuff (GDP) you produce you will have inflation.

Get ready for the 70's all over again folks. It's what you pay for when you believe in hope and change and flowers and Skittles and free lunches and clouds and fairies and unicorns social security.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Today is Forward the Captain Day

In a shameless effort to boost traffic as well as boost readership I declare today (Monday technically, even though this is being written on Sunday), the official

FORWARD THE CAPTAIN DAY!

Yes, during this dearth of holidays between New Year's and St. Patrick's Day, why not engage in excessive mirth and jovial times by forwarding the Captain to friends, family, foes and those you are relatively indifferent about!

You will not only be doing me a favor, but spreading the good word of the Captain and teaching those about the merits of capitalism (or pissing off leftists which they richly deserve). Scroll below or just search the archives for a favorite post of yours and forward it to those that might be interested. And, as is the thousand year old traditional of Forward the Captain Day, you are hereby authorized to pour yourself a martini as you have done your part to fight ignorance and socialism.

Go, do it now! Quickly!

Ice Age 3

Oh, it's on.

Businesses Should Stick to Business

I walked into Office Max today which was right next to the now bankrupt Circuit City, and when I walked in I immediately noticed that it was like one of those independent gas stations that are purchased by foreign immigrants who do not have the training in maximizing their space for inventory and thus the isles are sparse, spread apart, inefficiently organized and more or less being underutilized.

It led me to believe like it's neighbor Office Max may be going through a bit of a difficult time during this recession and may not be too far behind in terms of bankruptcy. But as I was at the check out lane, I noticed something that was about to become as irrelevant as global warming;

Office Max's "community responsibility statement."

It was some gobbledygook about serving the community and working with non-profit charitable partners to blah blah blah and it reminded me of a rule I learned from one of the few experienced professors I had in college;

"Business should stick to business."

Understand that as an economic entity, like labor, like government, businesses have a purpose. Their purpose is to make a provide a service or good to the population at the cheapest price possible, all the while attempting to make a profit. Their purpose, despite the brainwashing 20 something business majors are told, is not to be everything to every one. It's not to be a charity. It's not to be a non-profit. It's not to be a savior. It's not to be a vehicle used for employment. It is to be an entity that makes it possible for humans to consume the services and products they need necessary for the sustainability and enhancement of their lives. It's based more or less on the simple economic concept of the division of labor. And now that Office Max has been mismanaged or perhaps tried to deviate from its sole purpose of being a business, this branch not only looks like it will be shut down, but will also now be unable to continue its "community service."

Sadly, and to the dismay of leftists who don't understand basic economics, the shutting down of this branch will have more costs than just the loss of charitable contributions to the "community." The closing of the branch now has resulted in the loss of jobs and now has given me and customers in the area and added inconvenience of having to drive further to find the same products.

Another company does this and even prides itself on the "community service" it does and that is Target. Target donates (I recall) 3% of its pretax profits to whatever charities, schools and other community causes in the local community its at

I stopped shopping at Target because I know they do this as a marketing ploy, tugging at the heart strings naive people who want to think they are doing "something for the community" while shopping at Target.

The sad truth is that as this recession clamps down and pressures margins, Target is going to have to rethink this faux-altruistic marketing ploy. Wal-Mart is not even immune to the effects of this economy and given people are going to have to cut back on spending, Target will have to make its goods and services cheap as possible, not only to remain competitive, but to survive.

Of course this will come at hoots and hollers as people who were loyal to Target because of this charity will complain they are no longer helping the community, but one should ask themselves whether Target serves the community more by all the jobs it provides and the products it sells and being a BUSINESS or by being a cute little faux charity.

President Barack Obama Murders 16 Innocent Civilians

It's true!

Sorry, I'm going to be just an intellectually-dishonest, lying pain in the ass as the left was about George Bush for the past 8 years.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Then and Now

Time for another exciting episode of then;

And now!

Don't worry, society's going the right way.

Global Warming Dead Last on People's Mind

Well, if the planet was actually warming, then people might be concerned. But since it's cooling and these Global Warming Zealot Psychos are so desperate to keep their religion going they've had to convert it to "global climate change" I don't think the population is THAT stupid to believe in it any more, let alone give a damn;

Hope and Change Index

Hope and change and flowers and ponies and candy and ice cream and puppies!