Update on Everything: Obama, Gold, Silver & Ron Paul

Since I was a kid, I have been able to pick three things: Presidents, stocks, and Super Bowl winners.

In 1998, ABC News played a puff piece on George W. Bush, then Governor of Texas. He was the bilingual, all-American son of a President. I knew right then he would be the next President. He obviously had the mainstream media support, he engaged voters on a personal level, and the Democrat – Al Gore – was as charismatic as cardboard. Granted, the Supreme Court helped Bush win, but Bush’s Dad helped pick the judges, one of the home-court advantages of being son of a President and brother of Florida’s Governor.

In 2004, when John Kerry introduced Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention, I knew Obama was the next President. Not only was Senator Obama young, black, telegenic, well-qualified and well-spoken, he had the backing of the Democrats at a time when the Dems couldn’t lose and the people were primed for a black President.

In 2007, after the Democrats had taken control of Congress and acted no differently than the Republicans, I knew that President Obama would be no different than Bush. The biggest fallacy people buy into is “Obama/The Democrats comprised/were changed by the system.” That is 100% wrong. Obama, and many other Democrats in the current Congress are already working for the same people as the Republicans when they take office.

Many Congressmen on both sides of the aisle were financed by the same military manufacturers, unscrupulous banks, and other corporations making a legislated killing. Nancy Pelosi, for instance, is paid by people from Northrop Grumman, which manufactures military aircraft. The politicians paid by companies profiting from the war aren’t going to broker peace, and the Democrats didn’t “compromise” on health care. Health care was comprised when we elected politicians paid-off by the insurance companies!

If you want candidates who are pro-peace and pro-worker, you might start by looking at the people marginalized by the media purportedly slanted towards their own party. When a conservative is called “kooky” by Fox News or a liberal labeled a “longshot” by MSNBC, that’s often a sign of an honest politician with winning potential. So who best fits these criteria?

In the 2007 Presidential primaries, the big winners under this standard were Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul. In 2007, I told anyone who would listen to register Republican for the primaries and vote for Ron Paul. Why? While Obama had a good grip on the Democratic nomination with Hilary Clinton a popular second, but the Republican field was a mess, and enough swing voters could have produced a Paul victory. In the end, people voted for “Hope” and got fooled again. To quote The Who, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Now its 2011, primary season once again. With nary a Democratic primary in sight, you need to vote in the Republican primary and nominate Ron Paul. “But why?” you ask. Isn’t he a pro-life racist who would cut all the social programs? To which I say, Who cares? Even if Ron Paul were a racist pro-lifer that would cut every social program in existence, he would still be a better nominee than Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney.

For one, Ron Paul would bring home all the troops from around the world, saving us trillions of dollars. Paul would bring attention to the billions the Federal Reserve gave to the people that need the money the least. Paul also wants to legalize marijuana, restore civil liberties, and end the IRS.

Perhaps most important of all, candidate Paul would bring a real presidential debate to the table for the first time since I’ve been alive. Romney or Palin or Huckabee or Giuliani v. Obama would not bring a real debate to the table. They both work for the conglomerates, not the people! Paul v. Obama would bring consciousness to the presidential debate and spark an international dialogue about the case for peace and the best way to use our budget. Paul might even open up the race for a third party candidate, perhaps Dennis Kucinich running as an independent. Think about the information that would become “mainstream” then!

As for the knock on Paul’s gold standard stance, I don’t care about that either. However, I did mention that I could pick stocks since I was a kid. When I was 10, I tried to put my Dad onto a little known company called Amazon.com, which was trading at $12 a share. A year later it was trading at $240. In 2009, I put everyone I know onto GLD, an electronic transfer fund (fancy stock) that trades on the price of gold. (Gold goes up, stock goes up). At the time, GLD was $85 a share. Today it is over $140 and rising.

Whether or not a return to the gold standard makes sense, you personally should be hedging your dollars with metal. With the government printing trillions of dollars a year, the value of the dollar goes down relative to tangible things, like gold and silver. A trader friend of mine informed me that silver is undervalued compared to its historical ratio vs. gold. With gold already very high, that made silver a great bet last year. I was sounding the bell on SLV (another electronic transfer fund, or ETF, that trades on the price of silver) was at $20. Today SLV is over $39, and I believe it will climb past $50 by the end of the year. (Trading on scottrade.com costs $7 a transaction, and if you own dollars alone you are losing more than $7 every day.)   Despite my “earnings,” I do not want gold and silver to keep skyrocketing in value compared to the dollar, because that means our dollars are becoming worth-less. I tell you to buy metals simply to protect yourself against massive inflation, but this is no cure-all.

The answer to our problems lies in informing ourselves and our neighbors and taking action. We need to start searching for and promoting politicians who share our interests on a permanent basis. We need to make sure that our votes count. And most importantly, we need to change ourselves, because we will not be able to achieve peace externally until we conquer our demons internally. How can we expect to change our neighbor’s political opinions without speaking to them with love that comes from knowing we may have different understandings, but truly we are the same. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” is not a slogan. It is the solution that will help us create the world we want to see. Oh, and as for the Super Bowl? Last year, I picked the Packers…before the season started.