— Monday, we relayed the story of a tanker driver accused of siphoning grease from behind a Burger King in California. That was funny. Today’s thievery story is a little more sacrilegious.

The hard way to pilfer from the collection plate.

Having seen a sevenfold increase in price, thugs are now stripping lead from the roofs of churches in England and selling it on the black market. Wags are calling the trend “the most concerted assault on churches since the Reformation.” Yeah, that’s what we were thinking, too.

— “‘Democracy cannot survive overpopulation,’” writes a reader, quoting the late Isaac Asimov. “‘Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn’t matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.’”

“This statement,” he then comments, “apart from being a bleak prediction of our possible future, implies three threatening outcomes from overpopulation: (1) population increase negates democracy’s effectiveness; (2) population increase decreases supply of resources, and in doing so decreases living standards; and (3) population increase decreases psychological well-being…

“The Earth has finite resources, including those which it can replenish.”

The 5 responds: Amen. You should join us in Vancouver.

— “What part of Greenspan’s statement, ‘Omniscience is not given to us’ don’t you understand?” another reader asks, following our coverage of the Great Greenspan Reputation Rehab tour. “All of your picks do not bear fruit. It is so easy to be critical after the fact. I don’t remember you being so critical during the times when he was trying his best to protect an economy just as they all do. It is easy to sit on the sidelines and criticize the ones trying to make this world a better place. You’re just a bunch of armchair quarterbacks.

“Maybe you guys should try to get appointed to his position. Obviously, you are all qualified, because you know what he knows and you know what you know, so you are bound to be smarter. I know you will have some witty and all-knowing statement to condemn my opinion. Hindsight is terrific. Tell me what tomorrow brings. You can’t. You can only guess (educated as it may be), just as Greenspan did. Sometimes you bite the bear…sometimes he bites you.”

The 5 responds: We’re all out of witty and all-knowing comments this morning. And frankly, we agree with you.

Greenspan’s description of a vibrant economy in which busts are simply part of the landscape is far more agreeable to us than one that is centrally planned or overly medicated. Paulson’s plan to expand the Fed’s jurisdiction is an affront to free markets.

But yesterday, we were making an entirely different point. If history proves itself this time — as it usually does — no matter what Greenspan says now, the level of blame attributed to him in this bust will be as out of proportion with reality as was the praise and credit given him while the bubble grew. That is something we forecast nearly a decade ago.

Unfortunately, his effort to stem the tide of regulation following this housing mess will meet with about as much success as a porn star trying to break into family movies.

Regards,

Addison Wiggin
The 5 Min. Forecast

P.S.: It can turn tires into liquid fuel. It could revive dormant oil wells in the West. And it has the capacity to tap U.S. oil shale in a way no other technology can touch. Byron calls it an “Oil Vacuum”…read all about this new technology and the effort to develop “energy independence” here.

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