So how’s the news lately? Everything working out the way you thought it would? Your retirement savings doing well? If so, then don’t read the rest of this column. As the late great Satchmo once sang, “It’s a wonderful world.” Be like two fried eggs, keep your sunny side up.{mosimage}
    World events keep getting more eventful. We have a new set of terrorists in India called the Lashkar-e-Taiba with a new terrorist leader, Yusef Muzammil. Might get a nuclear rumble between India and Pakistan. Somali pirates continue their attacks on shipping off Africa, now upgrading their assaults to luxury cruise ships hoping to snag lots of rich folks who will bring a dandy ransom. Never one to miss a bet, our modern day Hessians, Blackwater, is exploring hiring themselves out to shipping companies to ride on ships to fight off the pirates. A private army fighting pirates in the 21st century. I can hardly wait for the movie version. Do you get the feeling that Willie Yeat’s lines about “things fall apart; the center cannot hold;/ Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world” is playing out all around you?
    A recent U.S. government report predicts a terrorist attack with weapons of mass destruction within the next five years. The economy is withering faster than UNC’s football team did against the Wolfpack. Bush’s acting president, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson came up with the Troubled Asset Relief Program to save the economy. It hasn’t worked but does have the clever acronym of TARP. Maybe he thought TARP was to buy tarps for foreclosed homeowners to live under after the banks booted them out of their houses? TARP is running out of money as more supplicants line up with their hands out for a federal bailout.
    Keeping up the cheerful drum beat of gloom, let us consider the contribution of the Big Three Automakers who are now imitating Somali pirates demanding their own ransom. The boys from Detroit are threatening to channel Sampson and pull down the walls of the American economy unless Congress meets their ransom demands. The vice president of Chrysler threatened Great Depression II if Congress didn’t ante up billions to keep Dodge Ram trucks on the road. Stand and deliver, your money or your economy.
    When the Boys from Detroit first flew down in their private jets to testify, they initially demanded $25 billion to save them. When they came back two weeks later they demanded $34 billion. Guess a lot can happen in two weeks. Kind of makes you wonder how much they will demand in January to save the Titanic.
    Just so neither of the readers of this column get so depressed that they consider jumping off a bridge, there are some hopeful signs. Britney Spears has just released a new album and is going on a come back tour. Britney’s reappearance in the news again will keep the Paparazzi Association from seeking a federal bailout. Chemical Ali, Saddam Hussein’s evil cousin who gassed thousands of Kurds has just collected his second death sentence from the Iraqi courts. If they can kill Chemical Ali twice, that’s positive.
    Ordinarily I do not give investment tips. However, in light of the demands for financial bailouts from various interest groups, I feel it is a public service to tell you how to invest your money now. It’s pretty simple. Congress is going to be passing out money left and right. Congress doesn’t have the money in the bank that it is going to give away. We will either have to borrow the money from the Chinese or just print it up. Unfortunately, even our dear friends the Chinese don’t have enough money to pay off every group in America that is looking for free money.
    Since we can’t borrow all the money that Congress will give away to avoid Great Depression II, the U.S. Mint is going to be working overtime to print all that cash. Your best investment at this time is buying stock in companies that make engraving presses that produce money. The U.S. Mint is going to be running 24 hours a day printing $100 bills. The mint will be burning up engraving presses like Rusty Wallace burns up tires at the Charlotte 500 on a hot day. Engraving presses are going to be a growth industry for the foreseeable future. Invest in America, find a good printing press company and put your money in it.