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"...the burning roof and tower, and Agamemnon, dead."
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There is certainly no doubt that 2014 was 'the Year of the Dollar,' as King Buck staged a rally, based on a comparison to some historically important currencies as embodied in the DX index.
I have shown this is the latest update of the US Dollar Very Long Term Chart here.
In fact, the greenback has hit levels not seen since the last financial crisis. You know, the one in 2008 that everyone has already forgotten, and which seems just as likely to reoccur as if we had done little or nothing about what had caused it in the first place.
I was amused to see a chart posted over at Zerohedge that shows that the next best performing currency in the world after the dollar was gold of all things. That chart is shown below. This presumes that one would count gold as a proper 'currency.'
I would say not quite, since technically no sovereign will admit to it at this point. There is a patina of official sanction about a proper money. The central banks all hold it, and some are buying it quite vigorously especially since 2006. So it does have the character of a natural currency and enduring store of value, despite the blatherings and propaganda campaigns of its official detractors.
Perhaps propaganda is too strong a word for our polite society, all whitewash on the outside, with the bones of the brutally savaged carefully hidden within.. 'Manufacturing consent' and 'molding perceptions' is what we call the persuasion campaigns in our genteel era. Propaganda is an ugly word, so let's put some icing on it and call it something else.
In addition to being a 'store of value' a currency must be a 'money' and for now at least it is the ultimate foreign currency, being exchangeable around the world, but no where treated as a routine means of purchasing items directly with some sort of official nod to its role as a form of money.
That may change in the years ahead. I don't wish for it too eagerly, because I would like to see gold run a bit in value, mostly making up for lost time as it were, before nations get involved and start trying to fix its prices officially. For now they are doing it unofficially, or at least some of them are doing so, and they are probably doing a bad job of it, in the longer term scheme of things.
They'll never learn. Never. It is in their very nature not to learn. They are not learning people. They are headstrong power people, always wanting to run the show according to their own fancies, and therefore consistently reaching for some combination of force and fraud to impose their wills and their ideas. Because they know better. They are the epitome of progress, thoroughly modern and the recipients of special knowledge that sets them above and beyond all others.
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"Queens have died, young and fair. Dust hath closed Helen's eye..."
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But as we know, it's all rubbish. They speak well, and learn to impress, but they don't know anything new. They mostly practice the same old tricks with different names and fancier titles. An object lesson will therefore most likely be required, to be administered by the back of the invisible hand when their schemes go off in a bad way, as they seem to do about every five or six years now.
Thank you for your patronage at Le Café for another year. I am pleased to note that there have been 34,915,180 customers served since opening at this location in February, 2007.
This is not bad for what is most like just a small village café, off the main roads and patronized largely by locals, travelers and the disposed. The goal is to provide a warm and familiar refuge for those who have become weary of the often tasteless fare produced and served in volumes at the larger commercial establishments of the day.
And there is often entertainment, and pleasant diversions from the day! lol
If you have obtained any benefits from this establishment during this year past, as always, please pay it forward. There is a decided lack of love in the world, and unrewarded kindness often works wonders for both the recipient and the one who gives, not for advantage, but out of a recognition of our own obligations, and at its best, love.
Have a very Happy New Year.
