100 Years Old Today.

Baltic Dry Index. 2208 +74

LIR Gold Target by 2019: $30,000.  Revised due to QE programs.

Merry Christmas to all and every good wish for a healthy, happy and prosperous 2014. The next LIR update will be on Monday December 30^th 2013.

One hundred years old today.  No not your LIR editor, writer, analyst and go-fer, but the USA Federal Reserve Bank, since 1945 the leading central bank on planet earth. So how has the bank that “Bubbles” and “Bernocchio” built fared? All you need to know is summed up below.  A 2200% inflation rate, although most of it has occurred since 1971.

Stay long physical gold and silver. In 1913 it took roughly $20 to buy a troy ounce of gold. 

In 2013 it takes roughly $1,200 to buy a troy ounce of gold.

“Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value – zero.”

Voltaire.

The Shrinking Value of the Dollar

The CPI inflation calculator uses the average Consumer Price Index for a given calendar year. This data represents changes in prices of all goods and services purchased for consumption by urban households. This index value has been calculated every year since 1913. For the current year, the latest monthly index value is used. In 2008, for example, it took $21.57 to buy what $1 bought in 1913. Note that in 1920, it cost $2.02, and declined in 1925 and through the 1930s, illustrating the effect of the Great Depression, when prices slumped. Prices did not pass $2 again until 1950.

Year	Amount it took to equal $1 in 1913
1913	$1.00
1920	2.02
1925	1.77
1930	1.69
1935	1.38
1940	1.41
1945	$1.82
1950	2.43
1955	2.71
1960	2.99
1965	3.18
1970	3.92
1975	$5.43
1980	8.32
1985	10.87
1990	13.20
1995	15.39
2000	17.39
2001	$17.89
2002	18.17
2003	18.59
2004	19.08
2005	19.73
2006	20.18
2007	20.94
2008	21.57
2012	23.27

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics. Web: http://stats.bls.gov/ .

Information Please® Database, © 2013 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

US Inflation Calculator

Easily calculate how the buying power of the US dollar has changed from 1913-2013; get inflation rates, and inflation news.

http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/

According to an interesting study of the 775 fiat currencies that have existed 599 are no longer in circulation. The median life expectancy for the defunct currencies? Fifteen years.  Perhaps the author was being unfair by focusing solely on the failures. Sadly no, the average life expectancy of all fiat currency is running at a truly underwhelming 27 years. Only a select few have managed anything approaching old age. The British pound sterling is one such example at over 300 years and counting. Before we get too excited by this apparent example of longevity, at inception the pound was defined as 12 ounces of silver.  The pound is now worth less than 0.5% of this original value and of course there is no silver involved anywhere. In other words, the most successful currency in existence in terms of life-span has lost more than 99% of its value.
http://historysquared.com/2012/06/26/fiat-currencies-trend-towards-their-intrinsic-value-often-rather-quickly/

At the Comex silver depositories Friday final figures were: Registered 51.71 Moz, Eligible 121.25 Moz, Total 172.96 Moz.   

Crooks and Scoundrels Corner

The bent, the seriously bent, and the totally doubled over.

No crooked banksters or bent politicians today, at this special time of year, they haven’t gone away, but we take a well-deserved seasonal break from the criminal classes. Merry Christmas everyone.

 Below Merry Christmas from Mozart’s dad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWHzu1FJaOk&feature=related

The monthly Coppock Indicators finished November:

DJIA: +190 Up. NASDAQ: +281 Up. SP500: +232 Up. The Fed’s final bubble continues to grow, until QE Forever isn’t forever. Up will remain up, until one fine day out of the blue the Fed finally loses control, or the next Lehman hits.