"This portfolio is a half step away from a cellar-full of canned goods and 9-millimeter rounds.” *

An examination of U.S. Representative and GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul's financial disclosure documents by the Wall Street Journal shows that he holds cash, silver and gold mining stocks, and real estate. Less than 1 percent is in stocks and none is in bonds, derivatives, futures or other paper assets. Paul thinks that a financial collapse is on the way and has bet his net worth on that assumption. I have mixed feelings about those predictions myself, but say what else you will about Paul you still  must admit that he puts his money where his mouth is.

*William Bernstein, an investment manager at Efficient Portfolio Advisors as quoted in The American Conservative.

Barbarization and Narcocultura

An interesting essay from Small Wars Journal. Mexican drug cartels are openly attacking Mexico's social institutions as well as its state apparatus just as the Colombian drug cartels did in the 80's and 90's.  Simply amazing. America has an essentially open border with a failed state who is engaged in a losing war with several drug cartels while  militarily and diplomatically protecting the territorial integrity of western Europe, Israel, Japan, Korea, Afghanistan, and Iraq (amongst others) and using borrowed money to do it too.