Gold and the Great Inflations

“Civilizations are fragile, impermanent things.”

Joseph A. Tainter, ‘The Collapse of Complex Societies’, 1988

“Unseen, in the background, Fate was quietly slipping the lead into the boxing glove.” PG Wodehouse, ‘Jeeves and the Old School Chum’, 1930

Forget CPI, PPI or even CSI. Inflations that really matter - some of them ‘hyper’, most irreversible – are now breaking out all over. They’re devaluing life as we know it. And they’re making the world a scarier, dumber though funnier place. And it’s to these evil eruptions that gold has been responding and will continue to respond. While we’ve chosen to bury our head in the sand, there’s been a golden thermometer stuck in our rectum.

Goldand the

Great

Andy Smith Dubai Precious Metals Conference 2013

Dubai – which will be nice when it’s finished – needs no reminding about inflation. After all, it’s home to the biggest erection in the world. Totemic projects like these tend to be either a celebration of virility, or compensation for the lack thereof. Some delicate research reveals neither is obviously the case in Dubai. Only the UAE’s ‘measurement’ is available, but this is actually ‘medium’ (or ‘commendable effort’).

Great…

Egyp

t

Fran

ce

USA

Mal

aysi

a

'Tai

wan

'

Cana

da

Pola

nd

'UAE

'

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Great…erectionsPenis length, inches

Source: targetmap.com

Height, metres

BurjKhalifa

(Dubai)

- 1 -

However, the symbolism of placing one of the world’s shortest men on top of the world’s tallest building is confusing. Perhaps King Kong was not available? We’ll revisit this pr...ecocious personality later.

Speaking of egos – weren’t we? – we are in fact statistically correct in suspecting what a big ‘ego’ hides. (Bahrain is the nearest I could get to a local measure of intelligence to accompany ‘

Size matters?

SingaporeUK

Bahrain

India

Cameroon

3 4 5 6 7 8Penis size [inches]

60

70

80

90

100

110

120

Inte

llige

nce

Inde

x

Source: http://www.targetmap.com/viewer.aspx?reportId=3073

'best fit' line

manhood’.)

Some will pay anything to appear to have a bigger ‘ego’ - almost $5 billion at last count. It’s a vanity, a pill-popping flight from reality - one of many - duly noted by gold. To get a hand[le] on this, consider cause and effect – could male ‘enhancement’ pills be a response to an outstanding female ‘augmentation’? We live in a surgically-enhanced world of mutually-assured inflation. It looks (more than) fine. But it doesn’t feel right. To cut to the chase: “when you borrow a lot of money to create a false prosperity”, as Michael Lewis put it (‘Boomerang’, 2011), “you import the future into the present. It isn’t the actual future so much as some grotesque silicone version of it.”

- 2 -

95 2000 2005 20100

1.5

3

4.5

6

0

500

1000

1500

2000

(Via

gra,

Cia

lis, L

evitr

a)Er

ectil

e D

ysfu

nctio

n pi

ll sa

les,

$ b

illio

n

Gol

d pr

ice

$/oz

Erectile Dysfunction pill sales

gold price

Sources: 10k reports Pfizer, Eli Lilley, Bayer

Rising markets

1995 2000 2005 20100

1

2

3

4

5

(Via

gra,

Cia

lis, L

evitr

a)Er

ectil

e D

ysfu

nctio

n pi

ll sa

les,

$ b

illio

n

0

100

200

300

400

500B

reas

t aug

men

tatio

n op

erat

ions

US

(000

)

Sources: 10k reports Pfizer, Eli Lilley, BayerAmerican Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery

Erectile Dysfunction pill sales

Breast implantoperations USA

Enhancing growth

In a world where appearances matter so much, every Johnny must have a prize. Witness the devaluing of the ‘Gold Standard’ of the English education system. With so many now winning an ‘A’ at A-level - and remember, breast enlargement studies is probably on tsyllabus these days - what is the ‘standard’ for laboproductivity? It’s like some cruel credit rating agency has run amok and given everyone ‘Triple A’ – welcome to sub-prime youth.

he ur

Off ‘The Gold Standard’

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

% g

aini

ng 'A

' at A

-Lev

el e

xam

, UK

0

500

1000

1500

Gol

d pr

ice

$/oz

% awarded 'A' at A-level

gold price

Source: University of Buckingham

Most of which feels ‘entitled’. Whose only ‘issues’ are psycho-babble denials of responsibility, not the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Whose perception of ‘risk-taking’ extends to losing an I-phone, I-pad, or I-tune. A ‘Me, Me, Me’ generation who wants it all, now, on credit, or, better still, free. “We’ve sacrificed the high art”, Aldous Huxley lamented in ‘Brave New World’, but “we have the feelies and the scent organ instead.” The only ‘failure’ in this award inflation is shrinking growth potential, a withering of the backbone that’s supposed to keep us upright when the ‘leaded glove of Fate’ slaps us in the face. And we’ve been here before - as Edward Gibbon recorded in ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’: “the decline of genius was soon followed by the corruption of taste.”

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

15

25

35

45

55

Inde

x of

'Me'

on

'Goo

glet

rend

'

0

500

1000

1500

2000

$ go

ld p

rice

weekly correlation 0.98 !!

gold price

'me' on Google

It’s all about ‘Me’

And lo! Almost everybody is famous. Is it a coincidence that this inflation in ‘celebrity’ - here Halls of Fame established in the USA - followed our departure from the ‘Gold Standard’? Honest opinion has gone the way of honest money. Hard to come to grips with 8 wrestling Halls of Fame, isn’t it? And, fittingly for the Left Coast, there’s now a California Social Work Hall of Fame. Roger Kimball, in ‘The Fortunes of Permanence’, perhaps describes this eulogy of non-entity best: “It might …be worth asking what had to happen in English society for there to be such a thing as ‘Sir Elton John’.” Coming soon - a ‘Precious Metal Conference’ hall of fame? Another perch for Mr Cruise?

Gold price freed

1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s0

10

20

30

Source: derived from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_halls_and_walks_of_fame

Halls of Fame opened in USA by decade15 minutes for all !

- 3 -

We’re dumbing down our children into babies almost as fast as we’re regressing adults into children – soft, irresponsible over-emoters who expect and vote that everything is done for them. ‘Super-nanny’, the world’s most sustainable bubble, the inexhaustible Big Government teat – the biggest breast enlargement in history – will provide. My gut feel is that at least entrails make provision for the elimination of waste. ‘Big Gov’ is about the least efficient form of grand larceny. It makes Mr Madoff look like an engaging amateur.

Obama-care…

Obama-care… entrails

Take (please) the Babel that is ‘Europe’. It charges a ‘spread’ or (as the European Court of Auditors has put it, for 18 straight years) a “material error” of 3.9% on average, at last guess. But that’s OK, this skimming only affects spending in the “agriculture market and direct support; rural developments, environment, fisheries, and health; regional policy, energy and transport, employment and social affairs as well as research and other internal policies”. That’s ‘for ‘the whole schmeer’.

Eurospeak’

rograms ’ youth, 10 agencies to promote exports, 342 programs for economic development, plus 47 different job-

emember Reagan’s nine scariest words in the English language? “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

S

the

- 4 -

And there’s nothing the EU can teach the US about public waste. There the government runs 50 different programs for the homeless across eight agencies, 23 programs for housing aid through four agencies, 26 programs for food and nutrition aid through six agencies, 27 programs on teen pregnancy, 130 pfor ‘at-risk

Government (toilet) paper

19901992

19941996

19982000

20022004

20062008

20102012

0

200

400

600

800

EU le

gisl

atio

n te

xts

(000

)

0

500

1000

1500

2000

$ go

ld p

rice

Source: http://eur-lex.europa.eu

EU legislation texts

gold price

training programs. Welcome to Brussels on the Potomac. RA warning posted (‘R’ in the chart below) when ‘payments to individuals’ – ie. pay-offs levelling the wealth playing field to ‘scorched earth’, turning the ‘work ethic’ to the ‘shirk ethic’ - still counted for less than half Ugovernment spending. But the ‘Great Communicator’ was only echoing another president, fifty years before: “Continued dependence [on government support] induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fibre. To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer ofhuman spirit.” That was the Father of Big Gov, FDR, in his State of Union in 1935.

nd here we are: from Great Communicator to Great Entitleist. In a hole, in one… or at least two terms.

A

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2012

0

25

50

75

Paym

ents

to in

divi

dual

s as

% U

S fe

dera

l spe

ndin

g

0

500

1000

1500

$ go

ld p

rice

Payments to individualsas % US govt. spending

R

gold price

When the going gets trough…

Source: Office of Management and Budget

…the

troughers

get golfing

century before FDR, Alexis de Tocqueville s

he

t f

but

ut aren’t Americans too big to fail, as the inflation in

u

e

d from

1950

1960

1970

1980

1990

2000

2010

10

20

30

40

50

% U

S no

t pay

ing

Fede

ral i

ncom

e ta

x

0

500

1000

1500

2000

gold

pric

e $/

oz

Source: Tax Foundation

gold price

% US not payingFederal income tax

No skin in the game A(‘Democracy in America’) had his finger on thisomething-for-nothing US public drip-feed: “As tgreat majority of those who create the laws have no taxable property, all the money that is spent for the community appears to be spent for their advantage, ano cost of their own…In other words, the government othe democracy is the only one under which the power that votes the taxes escapes payment of them.” Result: “the public treasure was exhausted in order to relieve indigent citizens or to supply games and theatrical amusements for the populace.” The arithmetic of dependent democracy doesn’t add up, to anything penury. Bthe gastric by-pass surgical community implies? As youweigh this productivity-squishing over-consumption, this addiction to comfort food over hard choices, as yowitness the first nation that actually does march on its stomach, the irony of there being too MUCH skin in thgame will not be lost on you. The World Health Organisation calculates that world obesity double1980 to 2008, but half of that was added from 2000 to 2008, gold’s charging bull market.

19921994

19961998

20002002

20042006

20082010

20120

1000

2000

3000

4000

for M

etab

olic

and

Bar

iatr

ic S

urge

ryM

embe

rs A

mer

ican

Soc

iety

0

500

1000

1500

2000

Gol

d pr

ice

$/oz

Members of American Societyof 'gastric by-pass' surgeons

gold price

Source: http://www.americanbariatrics.org/

Too much skin in the game

- 5 -

Obesity-related treatment was one fifth of US health sp in 2005. No surprise that it’s gastrically linked to

e

endingThe Heritage Foundation’s measure of ‘government dependency’ (an index weighted 30% housing, 25% health and welfare, 20% retirement, 15% education, 10% rural and agricultural services) which has tripled since 1980. Ware all Mississippians (66% obese) soon, beeping as we reverse into socialised medical care? As we speak Mr Cruise is probably bulking up for a sequel, perhaps his biggest picture.

1980

1990

2000

2010

2020

2030

0

100

200

300

400

US

mal

e ob

esity

(set

to 1

980

= 10

0)D

epen

dend

y on

US

govt

(Her

itage

Fou

ndat

ion)

0

500

1000

1500

2000

$ go

ld p

rice

Source: UN, Heritage Foundation, 'F as in Fat' - www.healthyamericans.org

Mississippi

Colorado

% US obese

Dependencyon US government

gold price

Mississippian

Possible?

GASTRIC

ut enough good news. As Mark Steyn put it (National

BReview, 29 March): “The most reliable constituency for Big Government is single women, for whom the state is a girl’s best friend, the sugar daddy whose checks never bounce. A society in which a majority of births are out of wedlock [true in the US for women under 30] cannotbe other than a Big Government welfare society.” 19

9319

9419

9519

9619

9719

9819

9920

0020

0120

0220

0320

0420

0520

0620

0720

0820

0920

1020

1120

12

30

32

36

40

42%

birt

hs to

unm

arrie

d m

othe

rs, U

SA

500

1000

1500

gold

pric

e $/

oz

% births to unmarried mothers USA

gold price

Source: US Dept Health & Human Services; National Vital Statistics System

(Illegitimate) birth of a nation

At the other end of the demographic spectrum, it’s a grey area. But that – the ‘Great Age Inflation’ - is another expanding part of the problem. As we extend the shelf-life of the average Pillsbury Doughboy, by beggaring those left standing, the underbelly of our economies becomes softer. Japan lost two decades (and counting) after the ratio of its geriatrics to working population overtook that in the US. China, the maker of most that’s cheap and dis-inflationary in the world, is about to reach that crossroads, signposted ‘Go Slow’ or ‘Public Purse’.

1950

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

2020

2025

2030

2035

2040

2045

2050

0

10

20

30

40

50

Ove

r 65s

as

% w

orki

ng p

opul

atio

nD

epen

denc

y ra

tio

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

gold

pric

e $/

oz

Source: United Nations

Dependency ratios: Japan USAChina

Age… Age…concern

1950

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

2015

0

10

20

30

40

50

Ove

r 65s

as

% w

orki

ng p

opul

atio

nD

epen

denc

y ra

tio

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

gold

pric

e $/

oz

gold price

Dependency ratios: Japan USAChina

Source: United Nations 6 - -

umour has it the ubiquitous Mr Cruise is

Rworking on this script too.

GERIATRIC

he upshot is algebra even an ‘A’ level student could understand. (Though we now see why the young have to be

ey.

the long run Plato would recognise that the ancient

on it!

P

rinting

Tdumbed down – they are about to be robbed blind.) The Big Beast of government swallows responsibility and defecates a self-perpetuating, growth-eroding, public debt dependency. Hard choices are as quaint as hard mon“The welfare state is a kind of zoo”, as English commentator Malcolm Muggeridge put it, “which provides its inmates with ease and comfort and unfits them for life in their natural habitat.” Plato noted that “in democracythere’s no compulsion either to exercise authority if you are capable of it, or to submit to authority if you don’t want to”, and quipped “it’s a wonderfully pleasant way of carrying on in the short run, isn’t it?” InOlympian ideals of ‘faster, higher, stronger’ flip to ‘fatter, older, dumber’. Public debt (D) expands inexorably, by choice, democratically – ‘depend’And real output (O) waddles and withers so grows more slowly. All that’s left to balance the Debt/GDratio, ie as D↑/(P*0↓), is more P↑: inflation. Which happens to rob savers to help debtors, aka ‘the majority’ in most democracies, who return governments with the fastest hands on the ppress. Onward, upward!

Public DEBT

G D P

Pr ices

Output

m

A Towering Proble

Dumber,fatter, illegitimater, older, bigger governmenter…

Burj-eoning

DEBT

OUTPUT

By-pass

Pensext ion

…requires ‘P extension’, and QE, and worse

- 7 -

we’re lucky. According to official exponential

d

nk

Ifprojections of US public debt/GDP – basis health spending grows ‘normally’: belly laugh now – erecting inflation isn’t easy. So, along the way, enjoy ‘financial repression’ by QE; cosmeticallydepressed interest rates so The Big Beast can be fecheaply. Or worse. FDR confiscated Americans’ gold, remember? How could those who were almost robbed of their “guaranteed” Cyprus badeposits by the Brussels Gang forget? Oh, and thiswheel of misfortune is only likely to miss a turn through crises…which always beget even bigger government!

1940

1960

1980

2000

2020

2040

2060

2080

0

100

200

300

400

500

US

Fede

ral d

ebt h

eld

by p

ublic

as

% G

DP

0

1000

2000

3000

4000

5000

$ g

old

pric

e

gold price

US public debt/GDP

If health spending grows 'normally'

'Base case'

Source: Congressional Budget Office; Office of Management and Budget

Beast AugmentationUS public debt

But if it ain’t broke – equity markets at all time

t) highs, after all – why fix it? Well, consider (righthis familiar, perpetual-looking upward motion. Turkeys don’t see Christmas coming, much less vote for it – they have no choice. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

0

5

10

15

20

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Weeks fattening

0

5

10

15

20

Source: 'Growth evaluation of turkey heavy hybrid by means of asymmetric S-functionZ. Skrtic, G. Kralik, Z. Gajcevic, 2007

Turkey live weight in kilos

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

Weeks fattening

0

5

10

15

20

Source: 'Growth evaluation of turkey heavy hybrid by means of asymmetric S-functionZ. Skrtic, G. Kralik, Z. Gajcevic, 2007

Turkey live weight in kilos

- 8 -

nlike European elites, we should not s

In in

Ucount our turkeys, or chickens. Work hajust begun on a ‘House of European History’, celebrating the perpetual ‘progress’ of the European project. 1913 the Peace Palace was completed The Hague, avant le déluge. Halls of Infamy.

House ofEuropean History:

Work started November 2012 The Peace Palace:Completed 1913

urely not all our turkeys will come home to roost (and be slaughtered) simultaneously? The remarkable inflation

And

Sin living standards since the Federal Reserve was hatched is more than mere monetary magic, isn’t it? Superimposethe rise and fall of the stock of the South Sea Company, albeit on a daily scale 1719-1720, and you’ll see that exuberance is timelessly irrational. How wise was Wodehouse (‘Something Fresh’, 1915): “It is curious how frequently in this world our attempts to stimulate and uplift swoop back on us and smite us like boomerangs.”how timely Tainter: “the citizens of modern complex societies usually do not realize that we are an anomaly of history….It is little surprise that collapse is viewed so fearfully.” Statistically, civilised life as we know it is a multiple standard deviation blip.

1600

1700

1800

1900

2000

2050

2100

0

1000

2000

4000

6000

8000World GDP per head, $1990

Federal Reserve born here

Erectile…

1600

1700

1800

1900

2000

2050

2100

0

1000

2000

4000

6000

8000

Wor

ld G

DP

per h

ead,

$19

90

0

200

400

600

800

Sout

h Se

a C

ompa

ny £

sha

re p

rice

[dai

ly, A

ug 1

719

- Nov

172

0]

World GDP per head

South Sea Company share price

Sources: Angus Maddison; Yale School of Management

Erectile…Dysfunction

rguably all that’s missing from a perfect parallel between our and Rome’s decline are the orgies – though if you

- 9 -

Abrave any English town centre on a Saturday night you may disagree. Tainter is pretty explicit (about Rome’s demise, not the orgies): “Emperors, upon accession, were often faced with an insolvent government”. They adopted the same ‘cure’: “debasing the currency”.

This had “the politically expedient

e cost of

e

“those

ic

ous

advantage of shifting to some indefinite point in the future ththe current crisis…the inflation that would inevitably follow would tax thfuture to pay for the present, but the future could not protest.” Why ‘politically expedient’? Becausewho lived off the treasury were more numerous than those paying into it.” Nero’s fiddling was only the start. Emperor Nerva established a “publsystem for the care of Italian orphans” (Obamacare, The Early Years?). And Gibbon records more generally that “alarge portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specidemands of charity.”

NeroGalba Otho

Vite

llius

Vespasian

Titus

Domitian

Nerva

Trajan

Hadrian

Antonius Pius

Marcus A

urelius

Commod

us

Pertinax

Didius Julianus

Septimus S

everus

AD

54-

68

68-9 69 69

69-7

9

79-8

1

81-9

6

96-9

8

98-1

17

117-

39

138-

61

161-

80

180-

92 193

193

193-

21150

60

70

80

90

100

Denarius silver percent

260-

268

Gallienus

Emperors…

Source: Joseph A.Tainter – ‘The Collapse of Complex Societies’

Compare and contrast the debasement

cuses’

.

of

ad

of the dollar under presidential regimes since the ‘bread and cirbegan (with Nixon welching on the promise to back the dollar with gold)In less than half the time (Nixon to Obama) America has achieved twicethe debasement of Rome. Perhaps we’re asking the wrong question – ‘when will it end in tears’? “Insteadinquiring why the Roman empire was destroyed,” Gibbon argued, “we should rather be surprised that it hsubsisted for so long.”

Nixon 1

Nixon 2Ford

Carter

Reagan 1

Reagan 2

Bush Snr

Clinton 1

Clinton 2

Bush W 1

Bush W 2

Obama 1

NeroGalba Otho

Vitel

lius

Vespasian

Titus

Domitian

Nerva

Trajan

Hadrian

Antonius Pius

Marcus A

urelius

Commod

us

Pertinax

Didius Julianus

Septimus S

everus

AD

54-

68

68-9 69 69

69-7

9

79-8

1

81-9

6

96-9

8

98-1

17

117-

39

138-

61

161-

80

180-

92 193

193

193-

21150

60

70

80

90

100

Denarius silver percent; $index normalised to Nero

260-

268

Gallienus

1969

2009

Emperors… with no clothes

- 10 -

o, what can you do faced with these Vandals, the inflating tribes of The Obese, The Ageing, The Stupid that will

o be

or example:

he Head of the German School of Bariatric

rgentina’s leading cosmetic surgeon (5’ 4”)

nd for a ‘buddy/buddy’ movie, why not this

Snot be denied, the gathering ‘Clan of Dependency’ over-running democracy to rape and pillage your wealth? Get a powerful friend, maybe? Why not try out for the lucrative position of Mr Cruise’s next sidekick? This will be difficult - you’d have to be smaller than Mr Cruise (under 5’ 7”). But one part at least is easy - you only need tless dominant on a global scale. F TSurgery (5’ 5”) probably has the guts for it. Awould (nip and) tuck in nicely. AIranian nuclear option, a (5’ 2”) pocket rocket?

r maybe, in such a scary world, there’s nothing for it

let holes

Obut to pass the ammunition? P.J. O’Rourke (‘Don’t Vote’, 2010) astutely calls his .38 Special his “MasterCard of the future.” If you join the bulto make a trend, you’ll see that it’s…golden.

00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12

400

800

1,200

1,600

FBI b

ackg

roun

d ch

ecks

000

s

FBI gun purchase checks

3 month averages

How many Bullet Points …

00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12

400

800

1,200

1,600

FBI b

ackg

roun

d ch

ecks

000

s

FBI gun purchase checks

3 month averages

How many Bullet Points …make a trend?

Time trend

00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12

400

800

1,200

1,600

FBI b

ackg

roun

d ch

ecks

000

s

200

600

1000

1400

1800

gold

pric

e $/

ozFBI gun purchase checks

gold price

3 month averages

- 11 -

lternatively, suppose Edmund Burke was right three

ow

Ahundred years ago; that “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”. Then hmuch worse can it get when ‘good men’ head for hills? Their votes with their feet (and skills) out of the labour force, leaving our benighted A-levellers at the wheel of stalling economies, are being counted by the (real) gold price.

1980

1990

2000

2010

0

250

500

750

1000

1250

1500

1750

Rea

l gol

d pr

ice

(201

2 $/

oz)

33

34

35

36

US

labo

ur N

ON

par

ticip

atio

n ra

te %

Real gold price

US labournon-participation rate

Source: US Bureau of Labour

Head for the Hills?

Plato’s day The Have-Nots, the “class of thriftless

on

Inidlers…drones”, found The Haves “a plentiful and most convenient source to extract honey from.” In 1955 Ayn Rand (‘Atlas Shrugged’) imagined such men of substance would leave the “looters” to their unhappy lot (Hayek called it ‘Serfdom’) by escapingto a Hidden Valley. Her nightmare is now reality in the flight from high- to low-tax American states. There can hardly be a clearer sign of the desperatiof The Haves than Belgium being chosen as a hide-away by the French-tax-fleeing Gerard Depardieu. (Maybe gastric by-passes are cheaper in Brussels?) Surely Dubai has more than a sporting chance to become a haven of choice?

New York

New Jersey

California

AlaskaWyoming

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14State taxes as % income, 2010

-15

-10

-5

0

5

10

15

20

% employment growth [NF payroll] 2002 - 2012

HappyValley

Serfdom

Sources: Tax Foundation; BLS

best fit line: R2 0.44Texas

It’s a taxing problem

our mission, should you decide to accept it, is

ith their

ut if you do go for height, you’d also provide a

Yto build it – a meritocratic, low tax, small government temple (neither western-style democracy nor record-breaking height required!). And they, the ‘good men’ wassets and ideas, will come. Bplace for their gold safe from prying eyes.

Andy Smith

icola Shiels of JefferiesBache and to Ted Arnold for their comments on this tall story.) (I am grateful to N