Dear John: I just watched a tutorial that basically repeated much of what you have reported in your column over the last years [about the] printing of money, fictitious unemployment figures — and the very possible collapse of the US government if the dollar is replaced as the world’s reserve currency.
Question: Do you think that investment in precious metals is a viable strategy if in fact the dollar is replaced as the world’s reserve currency or is devalued, and inflation skyrockets?
I am far from [being] an economist, but while the video is a sales pitch, it did say all of the serious things that you have been saying for a long time.
I would love to hear from you, as I have followed your column for years. P.C.
Dear P.C.: The US has set itself up for bad things.
We are indebted — for way too much — to all the wrong people. And we are showing no signs of reforming our wasteful ways. Too many people are unemployed and underemployed, and there isn’t much our government can do about it.
And the stock market is in another bubble.
Will the dollar end up losing its world-class luster? Will it have to be devalued? Will we be eating cat food in our old age?
Who knows? But someone needs to address these points in a rational way. And that’s what I try to do.
But you should also be wary of people selling you stuff — very wary, in fact.
The best advice has always been to do things in moderation. So owning some precious metals as part of a balanced portfolio probably isn’t a bad idea. But you should also shop around for the best deal — and not just for the company with the best tutorial video.
Good luck.
Dear John: I am happy your intervention with the diabetic’s insurance company had a satisfactory ending, but there is one aspect of his letter that troubles me.
L.H. says he is an employee of the Tax Department and is currently employed. When the drug he needed was no longer on formulary, he listed three choices from which to choose, all of which ended with his death and huge expenses for the health-care system.
I would like to put on the table a fourth choice, as shocking as it may sound: He could have paid for the drug he needed from his own pocket so he wouldn’t have to die. Or does he prefer death to paying for any of his own health-care costs?
I am not arguing about the stupidity involved with his plan’s decision to deny him a medicine he clearly needs. Rather, I am pointing out that one (of many) reasons that health-care costs are rising so rapidly is that many patients have completely lost touch with the cost of their health-care, to the point that paying for any of it out of pocket is not a choice, even when their lives are at stake. When you create a population completely dependent on government from cradle to grave, as this administration desires, that population loses the ability to think or fend for itself.
A.B.
Dear A.B.: That is a very good point. And I did ask L.H. about buying the drug himself.
L.H. figured that once he was rushed to the hospital he would have to be given the drug he needed. The cost of that drug was high (but not through the roof), but L.H. said he felt an obligation not to waste family money when he had insurance and only the bureaucracy was standing in the way of his getting better.
He hadn’t yet saved for his two kids’ education, and once he began buying a drug that he needed constantly, the kids would be screwed. (Yes, I know, the kids probably would have been even worse off if he died.)
L.H. also said there was one other option: to buy the insulin he needed over the Internet. The only problem is that this medicine was past its expiration date.
So L.H. decided to play chicken.
I understand your gripe about people expecting too much from government. The US can’t continue this way. We’re like a bankrupt family eating lobster and dishing it out to the neighbors.
But I think L.H. is a bad poster boy for waste. He works. He has insurance. His doctor verified that he needed a certain drug. And only some intractable government worker — “Well, that’s your problem, not mine,” L.H. was told when he was down to eating just 300 calories a day — stood in the way of nobody ever hearing about this.
And, by the way, I did try other alternatives. I called the American Diabetes Association but was told they didn’t handle individual problems. But the ADA at least gave me some leads, which I passed along to L.H.
And I called Eli Lilly, the maker of one of the drugs L.H. was being denied. I promised Lilly in an e-mail that I wouldn’t write anything if the company said it couldn’t help. But two spokesmen didn’t even get back to me, which I think was pretty damn heartless for a company that makes a lot of money off sick people and probably wouldn’t want someone writing nasty things about it — like I just did.