Fearmonging is Glenn Beck's most fine-tuned talent

Mr. Beck is the joker on the right highlighting the upcoming hyperinflation on everything from Cheerios to fresh fruits--as a result of Medical Health Reform and last year's reform of Wall Street regulations, of course!

For far more than only the past couple of weeks Glenn Beck has been telling his audience on Fox Cable News [sic] that not only should they consider Food Insurance (which costs between six and seven thousand dollars for a year's supply of food), but that they have a responsibility to purchase such insurance to prepare for the coming crisis. For most of the past year, his show’s commercials have also featured commercials for at least one firm that sells gold—coins, bricks and certificates of ownership while Beck has all the while been suggesting that we are not only headed for a time of high inflation, but of hyperinflation in which the dollar essentially becomes worthless.

My guess is that he will soon go into the Food Insurance business--or at least be endorsing it on TV commercials.

To support his claims Beck uses a peculiar twist of logic (though he has no college degree or specialized training in economics--look him up in Wikipedia!) and the study of the National Inflation Association (NIA). The National Inflation Association has itself come under scrutiny for their partisan leanings and questionable funding sources. It’s worth looking NIA up on the web (Google it!). My second Masters Degree was in Experimental Statistics and Econometrics and nothing I recall from all of the economics courses I took at North Carolina State University would have me come to the same conclusions as Glenn Beck’s gobbledygook.

Beck has gone as far as to claim that hyperinflation will cause the cost of a loaf of bread to rise above $20, and the cost of a Hershey candy bar to top $15. Note: The current rate of inflation is roughly 2% and has been hovering near zero for a couple of years. Unfortunately, my Social Security check reflects this and will be going up by exactly nada/zero/nothing for the coming year.

Anyway, the scare tactics employed by Beck on his show have even made me a little anxious—not that it will cost $400 per can for me to continue feeding my cats, but that people will actually begin to hoard food such that the inflation rate actually will go up by a few percentage points--but hardly hyperinflation unless we elect Glenn Beck president or something equally silly.

And incidentally, I concur with the Mormon faith’s general concern that we all have plenty of food in our homes; I only disagree with the scare tactics that GB is throwing in our faces at a time when there are far more serious concerns about which we should be taking almost immediate actions—spelled: Global Warming, START Treaty ratification, middle class tax cuts, etc.

One of Glenn Beck’s favorite closing lines is, “Don’t believe me! Check the facts for yourself.”

Well I did and I now know, as any commodities trader will tell you, it is entirely possible that food and gold prices will actually go down in the near future. This is why commodities trading is actually seen as a very risky venture.
Personally, I recommend diversifying—get a puppy to play with your kittens or get a kitten from the nearest shelter to keep your dogs exercised. It’s a proven fact that having a pet (or pets) will add far more to your life expectancy than an extra roomful of … food?