What if Ben is right and the doom-and-gloomers are wrong?

Half the time I am forced by point of a gun to listen to the D&G crowd lately, I keep waiting for the punch line, thinking this same story, now very long in the tooth, can't actually encompass the depth of their analysis?  There must be more.  There must be something new.  There must be something even the usual self-disrespecting scaremonger and self-promoting hack hasn't already blared at us on their website, promotions, CNBC perch, or ridiculous webinars.  There must be more! But alas there's no more!  Nothing new flows from the D&G crowd we didn't already know for a while.  But sadly much flows to our D&G heroes, which might help explain the tenacity of their views.  Many of us are nothing more than investment lemmings who want our worn out views validated.  What we may see as rationale analysis in retrospect seems nothing more than a quest for someone to validate our religion (faith in self-mutilation is strong among the investment lemming breed, I know from experience).  Interestingly, what flows from this religious validation to the D&G promoters are those much despised Federal Reserve notes distributed most efficiently and effectively through the US banking system with the much dreaded Fed at the core of this payments system; a system that, despite the "massive government intervention," works without flaw billions of times a day.  We never hear the D&G crowd complain about the Fed's complicity in these transfers of stores of value.  Hmmm... But Jack, haven't you ridden in a tight formation with the D&G crowd in the past? Currency Currents 16 February 2011