Are Hard Times Coming?

On December 13 the US mint announced that it was putting in place rules banning the melting down of our pennies or nickels. They have also made it a punishable offense to ship more than a hundred dollars in these coins out of the country at one time. These offenses carry a penalty of up to five years in prison and or up to a $10,000 dollar fine. They tell us it is to protect the U.S. tax payer. (I personally think that the American tax payer is in far greater danger from the spending habits of our elected officials.) It seems that some entrepreneurs have been melting these coins down for the metal. There is something dangerously wrong with our monetary system when the base metals that are in these coins are worth more than the face value. I take it as a warning that our dollar is on a downhill slide. Soon to go the way of the British Pound. For those who don't remember there was a time when the Pound was the trusted currency of world commerce. The move away from the US dollar will wreak havoc with our economy because we have become a debtor nation. We owe other countries a great deal as a result of our purchasing more foreign goods than we have sold of our goods and services. Could this collapse of the dollar be what Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad be talking about when he says our downfall in near?

The question is, how long can we continue on this path before this whole economic thing comes crashing in on us. If we want to know what this would mean to the average citizen we only have to look to the former Soviet Union. When their economy came crashing down people faced great shortages of everything. Those who relied on the government for an income were no longer paid. For those who think that we cannot go the same route because we are a world power I would like to remind them that the Soviet Union was at one time the other world power second only to the US.

Things don't look good. Hard times are ahead for us as the world of commerce abandons the dollar and turns to the Euro.