By Mike West
It is part religion, part politics. It is a way to voice a lack of confidence in the central banks of the world and a yearning for the world as it used to be.
It is an investment that makes no sense what-so-ever and yet they are flying off the shelves while the Federal Reserve frets about the threat of deflation.
It is Squinkies.
Walmart.com has been sold out of them for more than a week, and stores nationwide are sold out or limiting how many Squinkies each person can buy. Like Beanie Babies or Zhu Zhu Pets, the toys are collectible — the hundreds of characters include a Lhasa apso dog and a tiny bride — but they are much cheaper, selling for $10 for a 16-pack.
It is tempting to view the incredibly cheap price of Squinkies, which went below about $10 for a pack of 16 earlier this month and remains close to that level, as a warning of an imminent depression. Such interpretations have fueled critiques of the Fed’s latest round of monetary stimulus as being futile if not a forerunner of a collapse of the dollar.
But I think it reflects first and foremost a dismay at the current state of the world economy, and a conclusion that the elites who are running it do not know what they are doing.
Or, as a friend of mine put it, “You are buying Squinkies because it is the alternative to this collection of stupid politicians around the world.”
It is not easy to have a calm discussion about Squinkies. There are people who all but worship them and there are people who view them as a really cheap trick to play on kids when money is tight.
The problems of 2010 lead everyone to the same conclusion: that the modern monetary system does not work. Squinkies is the alternative.
You could argue that paying $10 for a Squinkies is absurd, that Squinkies should be worth their value as a commodity rather than seen as a great and perpetual store of love from children. After all, Squinkies will probably be seen as a very bad investment roughly 3 days after Christmas; for some even sooner.
One advantage of Squinkies, of course, is that they do not deteriorate with age. Squinkies are made of pure foam plastic. It will take 3 million years for these babies to degrade”, the maker, Bill Nichols, proudly states.
A disadvantage of Squinkies as an investment is that they seem like the type of toy that will slip in between cushions, under coaches, or to fall out of little pockets, also they produce no income. But who cares these days?
Betting that $10 Squinkies will soon be $20 Squinkies or $25 Squinkies is basically a bet that the America really is in permanent decline this time, with millions of people facing the prospect of bankruptcy or sharp reductions in spending on everything from homes, to cars, to even Toys. Or perhaps all of the above.
Let’s hope the bet is wrong.
Sources:
Related Products
-----------------------------------------------
