If you have been anywhere near a grocery store or a gas station in the last year or so (and who hasn’t) you might have noticed that things seem to cost more…. a lot more.

If you listen to traditional thinkers you will hear that “high oil prices due to unrest in the Middle East” or that “droughts and floods affecting this years grain crops” are responsible. In reality, the price of oil has been falling and, on Friday, the price of a barrel of oil fell to its lowest point since February of 2010. Why haven’t gas prices changed? According to the US Dept. of Agriculture total world food grain production will be 427 million metric tons more than what is consumed. Have you seen any savings at your local grocery this year? It might be that your food and gas prices are in the same range as usual but every dollar you are paying the bill with is worth a lot less. Let me rephrase that. It is worth a lot less.

When evaluating a currency you have to look at it in relation to something else (i.e. a commodity like gold or the currency of another country). When we look at those other things in relation to each other they are still in what would be considered a normal range. (An ounce of gold will still buy roughly the same amount of grain, Euros, iron ore, or whatever). What’s different is the amount of U.S. dollars it takes to get into that exchange.

Take a look at the value of the U.S. dollar vs. other world currencies since President Obama took office in 2009 (just before the last peak in the gray area on the right):

Depending on who you listen to, it’s generally agreed that the dollar has lost somewhere between ten and fifteen percent of its value in the last two years. You can run the numbers yourself. How much does a 10% “dollar-related” increase amount to on $3.50/gal. gas or a $100 grocery bill? How about on an ounce of gold or silver? Hey, the stock market’s going up, right? (Well, at least until last week). Here’s a question; are the values of the companies going up or does it just take a higher number of U.S. dollars to buy the same value as before?

The level of overspending in the last two years has crossed over into an area that can only be labeled as insane. We currently fall $4.2 billion further behind every day. This slow motion suicide has been supported by the printing of money out of thin air (QE1 and QE2). Can you imagine playing Monopoly with someone who owed you and all the other players fantastic sums of money and just strolled on over to his computer and printed up enough to pay everyone? Not only did he just pay you in “money” he didn’t earn, he also diluted the value of everyone else’s  money which they did earn. In this case it is the Federal Reserve Bank printing all the money but that’s a story for another day.

The bottom line is it simply takes 10% more dollars than it did two years ago to buy an equal amount of anything .

   After roughly a year’s “sabbatical” the Chronicle has returned with a new look and a new mission. The so-called “debate” over the debt limit plan was so outrageous that it seemed necessary to address the ridiculous new level of deception being thrown at average Americans by Washington and the media. The Chronicle will spend the months running up to the election (and thereafter as well) attempting to document how the American public is being “played.” Although the President, the Democrats, and the liberal media lapdogs are the worst offenders the Republicans are not without blame in the fleecing of the American public.

After weeks and weeks of wailing about the impending crisis, massive media coverage, all the meetings, all the proposals and counter-proposals, what finally came out of Washington amounted to almost nothing. The massive media show designed to impress the American public with a false show of government “responsibility” was nothing but Kabuki theater and just enough to resurrect the Chronicle from inactivity.

Oh sure, they threw around some big sounding numbers. A trillion dollars sounds like a lot, right?  Here’s where we find deception number one. All of these proposals were based on a ten year period. So, when they said a trillion, they meant $100 billion a year. Sounds bigger to say a trillion, doesn’t it? Those who pay little or no attention might be impressed with a “spending cut” of a trillion dollars. Not here.

Then there’s deception number two. Most of the cuts are set to take effect near the end of that ten year period which means, most likely, they won’t happen at all. In the first year the so-called “cuts” amount to $22 billion. At our current rate of borrowing of $4.2 billion per day that will save us from borrowing for roughly five days. That’s right, a five day savings in the first year.

And then there’s the third deception; the granddaddy of them all. All of the so-called “spending cuts” they put forth are in relation to their assumed baseline. The baseline is always the amount spent the previous year plus built-in 8% growth. Washington’s baseline is an ever growing number designed to ratchet up spending every year. And, remember, what we spent last year includes the trillion dollar stimulus bill (with interest it cost at least that much). Wasn’t that emergency spending? If so, why do we have to spend it again with an 8% increase? The baseline assumes that we will add $9.5 trillion to our $14.5 trillion debt over the next ten years. To translate Washington’s doublespeak, this plan will reduce the amount of money we overspend from $9.5 trillion to $7 trillion over the next ten years (if all of the cuts even happen). So we’re only going to increase the debt we’ve amassed over 235 years by 50% instead of by 66%. Now there’s Washington making some hard choices.

Folks, this is just the tip of the iceberg. In the coming months, the Chronicle will attempt to set straight as many lies, deceptions, and exaggerations as time will allow and discuss the issues of the day. Please join us in doing the job that the mainstream media used to do before they became propaganda peddlers. Follow the Chronicle, pass us on to others, and take part in the discussions. Relevant stories and information are always appreciated.

Good to be back.