Webster Tarpley is the real deal. A gifted historian who has written outstanding books about the Great Depression, George Bush Sr., and 9/11, has just written a killer economic analysis of the current situation in the US.

The bottom line is simple: the central banks are injecting liquidity in a desperate and perhaps foolish attempt to save the credit markets -- just printing money and putting it in the system. The increase in supply devalues the dollar. Coupled with economic stagnation, the result will be stagflation: a stagnant economy with rising prices.

The good news is that the Internet will be less affected by this economic crisis than other niches -- although this is an economic issue, and so all companies exposed to US macroeconomic risk will feel the hit (which is all American companies).

What Should You Do?

1. Sell US stocks. Should've done that a long time ago, but better late than never. Foreign currencies and precious metals remain investment opportunities, as does foreign direct investment in private firms outside the US.

2. Cut costs. In a hyperinflation scenario, the costs of goods and services could rise significantly. How would a 40% increase in operating expenses affect your business?

3. Push to the edge. In the spirit of cost cutting, what business operations can you push outside the firm? Content development? Search marketing? Software production? I think the good thing is that this economic decline will force companies to finally start looking outside their company to get stuff done. Instead of the first question being, "how do we build this?" it will be "who's got an API we can grab to do this?"

Investments in open source communities will be where it's at. Feel free to contact me when you need to leverage the vBulletin community to reach all of your content management needs -- I'll be able to help you leverage it to reach all your objectives at really low prices (always moving towards free).

Lastly, when all this stuff comes true -- which it definitely will if people continue to live in la la land and ignore the crisis we are facing -- remember that the solution is being informed. So don't be afraid to link to this information, link to Prison Planet, link to 911 Blogger. If you link to liars, then all you get is a world that rewards lying, which is the world we currently have.

The business of journalism should be about rewarding the truth.