A toast to the president of the USA

Three score and a year or two ago, in the days when television was little more than a cathode ray tube with images in various shades of gray, one of my favorite and most memorable shows was called "The Big Brother Bob Emery Show." Big Brother Bob Emery was a non-menacing Mr. Rogers type whose influence on me has lasted to this day.

Every afternoon at 12:15 p.m., he paused the program to lift a glass of milk in a toast to the President of the United States. I drank many gallons of milk to President Eisenhower, the first president I was ever aware of. To me, it was symbolic of our duty as citizens to celebrate the office, if not the office-holder.

There has been a lot of water over the dam since then, but the impulse remains in me to celebrate, whenever I can, the President, no matter what his stripe or bent. At the moment, I see that the Incumbent has brought us to the point where we, who are associated with the mining industry, are fortunate to be able to obtain approximately $1,500 American dollars for a single ounce of gold we recover. Surely this is something to celebrate.

I am no economist, but I have long held the view that there is an inverse correlation between the number of dollars an ounce of gold can buy and the value of that dollar. Obviously, in a world of chaotic currents, the line is squiggly; however, at the end of the day, the axiom has long been that a man could buy a good handgun or a decent business suit for an ounce of gold, and that seems to hold true today.

The federal government derives money from the tax base. In a perfect world, that relationship would be totally inelastic. In our world, the money is stretched and twisted, but at the end of the day, even government can only spend what it has. The United States has the unique privilege, though, of printing money; and while we may speak in terms of value or purchasing power, it seems clear enough that when tax revenues are less than governmental expenditures, the election to fill the gap with freshly printed money makes that money incrementally less valuable.

As always, I use the word tax loosely. By (my) definition, a tax arises whenever the government puts its hand into your pocket and takes what you have. Taxes come in two flavors: progressive and regressive. Under a progressive system, the taxman takes more from successful people, whereas under a regressive system he treats everyone equally. In the world of fuzzy logic where I live, when the Incumbent failed to cause the so-called Bush tax system to be repealed, he fell back onto inflation, which is nothing if not a regressive tax.

Stating it otherwise, when the government pays bills with devalued currency, the man on the street surrenders buying power to support government programs, and the government has reached its hand into everyone's pocket, rich and poor, old and young, smart and silly, red statesman and blue statesman alike.

As we knew when the snowfall in the upper Midwest was reaching record levels in December, the floodgates along the Mississippi would have to be opened in May, so we know that when the economy moves toward cradle-to-grave entitlements, the economic system will implode.

It is said that Medicare will run out of money in 2024 and that 10 or 12 years later the Social Security system will endure the same fate.

Should that happen, when that happens, people who have come to rely on government instead of their own productive capabilities will face unimaginable hardship.

Since the impending disaster is foreseeable and unavoidable, reason suggests that those who live in the floodplain should make alternative arrangements now.

The sooner that can happen, the better off everyone will be.

So, I drink a toast to President Obama. Not only has he breathed greater value into every ounce of gold that comes out of Alaska's gold mines, he has inspired more people to look for gold, which creates new jobs. He has set a course for eliminating unsustainable entitlement programs and he will inspire self-sufficiency among those who may choose to feed themselves and their families by their ability to produce and market the goods and services necessary to keep our nation strong. Hail to the Chief.