Follow-up news on the economy

Following my big article last night about our economic woes, a few interesting items of corroborating evidence caught my eye today.

• Remember what I said last night about debt tying you down, reducing or negating your economic mobility?  Karl Denninger reprises exactly that topic today. Money quote:  "Mobility, if you have it as an asset, will allow you to find somewhere else with an opportunity, and there you will head.  Why do I bring this up?  Because the very antithesis of "home ownership" and "putting down roots" is required to take advantage of those opportunities.  And the rub, in the end, is this: Those opportunities always exist somewhere no matter how bad the economy and market is in the general case ...  In short don't bitch if you're "down on your luck", unless you just like complaining -- instead get off your ass and go where the opportunity is."  Read the whole thing.  It's worth it.  Then do all in your power to get out of debt and 'clear the decks', financially speaking, so that you can 'go where the money is' if you have to.
• CNS News reports:  'Price Index for Meats, Poultry, Fish & Eggs Rockets to All-Time High'.  Money quote:  "The index for meats, poultry, fish and eggs has risen 7.7 percent over the ... last year".  Remembering (as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago) that monetary inflation is running about twice the rate of price inflation, the picture looks even worse.  I do most of the shopping for our household, and I reckon I've seen an overall increase of about 25% in food and household consumables prices over the past year alone.  Those of you who shop for your own households are invited to give us your impressions in Comments.
• In an advertising e-mail to his subscribers, John Mauldin provided some interesting graphics today.  This one in particular caught my eye.  Remember that the amount of government debt in 2007 was one of the factors precipitating the financial crisis of 2007/08.  Looking at the levels of government debt today, can anyone doubt that another and worse crisis is coming?

It seems our political and economic masters have learned little or nothing from the events of the recent past . . . which means that we're probably doomed to repeat them.

Peter