Fortunately, Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital perhaps answers the question by noting, "However, with its increased willingness to rescue the big financial firms from their own excesses, perhaps Paulson sees an expanded Fed as the best way to ensure the continued prosperity of his former pals on Wall Street." Hahaha! Exactly! The amount of corruption at the end of long booms is always off the charts!
And, to be fair, it is to rescue us all, as extrapolating to us all, America is such a dimwitted little nation that we have literally put all our investment/retirement monies, both public and private, into the stock and bond markets! Hahaha! We have put all our future in the one place where it is required by simple mathematical imperative that the majority must always end up with less buying power than when they started!
How in the world do these moronic cable networks maintain viewership? This country is just packed full of simpletons. I'm beginning to think it will take some sort catastrophic downturn to wake people from their catatonic mental slumber. Though even that would probably be a short-term effect.
The problem with gold is that it doesn't produce anything. I can't use it to make anything besides jewelery. It's great in times of uncertainty, but other than that, I would rather have control a commodity that can be used for something productive.
That my friends is a .87% return. If you add in dividends, you're up to a 2.7% average annual return.
This is before we even get into the bubble years of 99 and 2000. The ten year window of positive returns in closing fast.
(Note: this is lump sum, all-in investing returns...not the horrendous dollar-cost-averaging returns you get by buying through the dotcom era and last summer as the stocks stayed significantly above the trendline for much longer than it was below during this decade)
Note #2, This was during the time of max participation in the market. 401k's were ubiquitous. Roth's, 457's, 529's, etc were added and the amount you could contribute ramped up quickly. The amount of dollars flowing on a regular basis into the market from the early 90's through today is unprecedented.
Note #3, Today we have the beginnings of something else unprecedented, an entire generation of baby-boomer sellers who have been accumulating much of their lives and are now needing to live off the returns. Never before did anyone buying do so in the face of the previous generation of sellers.
The historical returns of the market are due to increased participation as much as the profits of the companies. It really ramped and peaked from late 80's to early 2000's which coincided with the final push to max participation and increased contribution limits with the ubiquitous retirment plans that limited all contributions to index funds (unshortable).
Now we have a paradigm shift. There are no more rapid increases in stock investors to come. We only have increased sellers as described above. The great returns are gone. Buffett even warned of low returns.
Bill Miller, who beat the S$P500 for 15 years, who manages the Legg Mason Value Trust Fund, currently has a 4.9% return over the last 10 years. Anyone in cash did as well or better with no risk.....if you dollar-cost-averaged into his fund you lost money. Yet he still took his sizeable cut and became rich...for doing nothing.
Reality is setting in and soon the boomers will pick up the selling to save what's left, and the buyers will slow their contributions to stocks as their funds offer more and more alternatives and they decide to invest elsewhere.
20 years from now we'll look back and our broad market chart will look like Japan's from 1990 to now.
"How in the world do these moronic cable networks maintain viewership? This country is just packed full of simpletons."
Bob, it's always been this way. It's just more acute now. The smart thing to do is take advantage of the idiocy of Americans and their TV sponsors, and make some money off it.
Money flows from the dumb to the smart, pretty much by definition.
The transfer of wealth you refer to is interesting, yet, these boomers will still need to stay in some positions and not be 100% liquid. The boomers will also face inflationary impacts and end up burning up some returns in efforts to stay safe, thus even though they will be selling, this transfer will just fuel the mutual benefit of exchange for younger generations who may buy mis-priced assets that are undervalued.
The FDIC may be calling in a very BIG pizza order next Friday.
Gretchen Morgenson
A Window in a Smoky Market
"EVERYBODY knows that the market for credit default swaps is one of the hottest investment arenas around. At the end of last year, according to the Bank for International Settlements, the fair value of credit default swaps outstanding totaled $2 trillion, up from just $133 billion three years earlier..." FAIR GAME; A Window In a Smoky Market - NY Times
Catfood Smoker said: "The transfer of wealth you refer to is interesting, yet, these boomers will still need to stay in some positions and not be 100% liquid."
Why? When stock returns were better than cash this may have been true...but I just explained to you that the axiom "stocks outperform over the long haul" isn't true. And likely wont be true. You have to get old truths out of your head. They may think they need to stay, and they no doubt will be told they need to stay in equities by everyone...but better returns or even postive returns in equities isn't always true. Look again at Japan.
Catfood continues: "The boomers will also face inflationary impacts and end up burning up some returns in efforts to stay safe, thus even though they will be selling, this transfer will just fuel the mutual benefit of exchange for younger generations who may buy mis-priced assets that are undervalued."
I don't get this...it makes no sense to me.
Anyway my point is that stocks are like anything else...they have some underlying value, but so what....what is that value...and might it stay below there for a very long time as there are more sellers than buyers. If you have 1000 Ferrari's to sell in the middle of Compton...guess what your not gonna sell them all and if you do it will be well below what many would say they are worth.....you need capable and willing buyers to outnumber sellers to have a rising market.
There is nothing inherent about stocks that make them a better investment. Look at Japan...their stocks depend upon earnings and are tied to growing companies...why haven't they always risen over the term? If you say it's because Japan is a different country...I say you're right...and now America is a different country with different demographics (stock buyer related) so you can't look at history and predict the future.....so far the Bill Millers are getting killed by cash.
Did a quick read on the linked article, but who's to say that they won't kick the can down the road for another year? Things are going to look a hell of a lot worse this November than last November.
And how to find out who's got the big numbers hanging out there?
Ok, why oh, why is everybody thinking the boomers are going to all
sell their houses next week/year?
My 84 1/2 year old mom still owns her
three level house, and has no plans to sell, or even change things a bit
so she can live on just one level. I wish she would in fact, but it's the onliest house she ever owned, and she likes it dammit. She's owned it for more than 25 years.
I don't think the boomers are going to sell and I don't think they are going to retire at 62 either. Frankly, we don't find shuffleboard interesting, and most of us can't afford to retire anyway. The hub & I could, if we wanted to downscale our way of living. But the hub likes his job and why not? he works for NASA. He intends to work to 70. Or, if he's still having fun, longer. I may retire sooner, if the real estate market continues to be totally busto, (which it probably will) and if I just can't tolerate litigation.
One thing that never ceases to amaze me as a European living in the US is why you Americans think you are working so hard. Sure, your army is as are many of your R&D folks. But the simpler tasks are all done by "illegal" Mexicans and the rest of the nation, save for the Army and the high-tech/pharma/content industry sector, sells each other houses, coffee, Chinese t-shirts...looking around, it is very clear that your prosperity is very temporary and, as Schiff says, built on borrowed mony. The pay back time will eventually be upon you.
Frankly, we don't find shuffleboard interesting, and most of us can't afford to retire anyway.
Yeah, those of us in your massive, garbage filled-wake are looking forward to having you around for quite a while more.
Just be sure to stay in large, empty-nest houses in good school districts and to plug along in the senior positions in firms as long as possible. It'd be awful if your kid's generation got near as good a shot at things as y'all.
Visitor...I tend to agree...although much of Europe may be calling the kettle black if they criticize us.
Lawyer Liz...if you're refereing to my comments on boomers selling...I was refering to the stocks they have been buying to retire on over the last 20-30 years. Not their houses. The main point was when they were buying, their parents weren't simultaneously selling. Thus there was an imbalance of buyers v.s. sellers. This is changing. Poor stock performance currently will only accelerate the selling and slow down the buying. We can't grow stock market participation much past what it is.
Like everything else..the early gains are the easiest..Microsoft could double in size in months when it was a young company...now 10% growth for such a large company is tough. Same goes for stock buyers. New plans, with increased contributions meant lots of money pouring into the market...with very little leaving. Now...not so much.
Nothing can change for the good on this continent until the boomers are all dead and buried. They were given the best of everything, on a silver platter. They destroyed it all with their sense of entitlement, greed, and selfishness. $%@#ing waste of space, all of them. Good riddance.
Lawyerliz, I don't understand the "Boomers are going to sell soon" idea either. Most people don't downsize until they are in their 70s or even 80s.
The oldest boomers are only 63 or so - and that is just the leading edge. The middle age of boomers is 54 or so - and those people are 15 to 20 years from downsizing.
Nothing can change for the good on this continent until the boomers are all dead and buried.
lol...really? your entire way of life and everything you know was brought to you by boomers. financial engineering was brought to you by the generation after that. and, in fact, i'd be willing to bet that most of the financial problems you see are not amongst the boomers, but the generation after. And I am not a boomer.
what, you think the spoiled generations that are suffering from real entitlement are better? obviously you are not involved in eduation, or you'd be singing a different tune about the generations.
There is nobody to fill my hub's job at the moment. It's a big worry. Maybe because later generations went to get MBAs instead of Ph Ds in the hard sciences
Can you do advanced math? Do you know about weather?
We should step aside just because you want our jobs? I don't think so.
Life is hard. Even when it's easy, it's hard. We boomers had to fight all the way agaist all the other members of our cohort.
And we didn't chose to be part of such a big cohort, our parents chose for us.
By the way, the hub is not a boomer; he was born in 43, and 46 is the cut off.
You will hear people saying that now is the worst time to get out of stocks.
Amatures sell at the bottom.
Ask any fiancial expert when in the last say 15 years would have been the WORST time to sell and move to cash/treasuries.....they will no doubt say the WORST would have been to sell at the very low of the 1998 LTCM debacle when the S&P500 dropped to 959 on Oct 8, 1998.
That was nearly 10 years ago.
Well, if you moved ALL IN at the very bottom and stayed long the S&P on that very day...you'd have a huge average annual return of 4.6% AFTER DIVIDENDS! You could got a 1% better return buying a 10 year Treasury.
I doubt any of the so called stock experts even know this....ask them.
So if you paniced and sold and stayed cash all this time....at the absolute WORST time....you did better than someone who stayed long stocks over the last decade....
(again...stock buyers did even worse if you figure in dollar-cost-averaging over the last decade.)
You will hear people saying that now is the worst time to get out of stocks.
Amatures sell at the bottom.
Ask any fiancial expert when in the last say 15 years would have been the WORST time to sell and move to cash/treasuries.....they will no doubt say the WORST would have been to sell at the very low of the 1998 LTCM debacle when the S&P500 dropped to 959 on Oct 8, 1998.
That was nearly 10 years ago.
Well, if you moved ALL IN at the very bottom and stayed long the S&P on that very day...you'd have a huge average annual return of 4.6% AFTER DIVIDENDS! You could got a 1% better return buying a 10 year Treasury.
I doubt any of the so called stock experts even know this....ask them.
So if you paniced and sold and stayed cash all this time....at the absolute WORST time....you did better than someone who stayed long stocks over the last decade....
(again...stock buyers did even worse if you figure in dollar-cost-averaging over the last decade.)
liz my parents are 70 and 71. i wish they would downsize...they live in a three story house that was built in 1770. they will die in that house, and who am I to argue?
Also i don't get the whole investment thing either. they will not touch the principal at all in their lives. and trust me they are not uber-wealthy at all. they just did it right and now can live comfortably. their friends are all the same.
liz my parents are 70 and 71. i wish they would downsize...they live in a three story house that was built in 1770. they will die in that house, and who am I to argue?
Also i don't get the whole investment thing either. they will not touch the principal at all in their lives. and trust me they are not uber-wealthy at all. they just did it right and now can live comfortably. their friends are all the same.
Ok, one more jab, in the early 90s I taught the beginning real estate course to prospective real estate salepersons and also wannabe paralegal (natural enemies, the realtors all just want to make a sale, the paralegals know some stuff and want to do a good job).
Anyhoo, you could see a clear break between the people who were then over 40 and under 40. Not in ability or native intelligence, but in the ability to read and write and reason. (The younger ones were the ones who couldn't.) There was one who was in her early 20s who could read and write and reason. I asked her, you weren't educated here, were you? She said no. She was a native Jamaican, and was educated in Jamaica. She was black. (Actually, she was a lovely shade of gold.)
You are so wrong. Run the numbers for someone that started with a consistent contribution (DRIP system) of $200 dollars a month from 82 to 92 and $400 a month from 93 to 08 in a multitude of funds (you must diversify) like most are counseled to do. Put the numbers right next to what happened in REALITY. Then adjust for monetary inflation, tax increase/decreases and price inflation/deflation. Lets see if this poor guy can retire on this promise.
The funds mentioned in almost every retirement plan just also happen to be pretty heavily weighted in favor of the financials. Of course they did well why they fraudulently misled millions of investors with mark to model over the last 20 or so years. Analyze the funds that were weighted in Tech and the promises of the dot com.
Then we can run the numbers against the rest of the indexes. Like say the S & P 500 for the last 10 years? GIANT LOSER! How about the NASDAQ or the big pot of other funds you can pick and get "unlucky" with. I don't give a crap about DCA, I think its a way to game j6p into thinking he is going to retire with a million bucks with virtually no work, research or care.
DCA works macro-ly speaking, in that its very hard to argue with averages. Problem is most people start very small and and blips to the downside hurt, and hurt bad in the beginning. I posit that unless you are consistently buying shares below the moving average; DCA is fundamentally flawed when things turn south for any length of time. Compounding interest really works when the numbers get big enough to actually make a difference, compounding interest in reverse does the same thing.
"your entire way of life and everything you know was brought to you by boomers"
nonsense
"financial engineering was brought to you by the generation after that"
bullshit and double bullshit
"i'd be willing to bet that most of the financial problems you see are not amongst the boomers, but the generation after"
that's rather a strange statement but don't worry, everyone will suffer from the effects of the boomers in one way or the other for many years to come.
"obviously you are not involved in eduation, or you'd be singing a different tune about the generations"
and they make such good parents and role models too.
From OldSkool favorite Peter Schiff clip, out of the mouths of idiotic TV hacks: Production is the low end of the totem pole
We're the engine of inovation.
That's inovative productive consumptive debt on a massive scale.
schiff is such a breath of fresh air. i wish he would get off of fox and get on cnbc and argue with liesman. that would be worth the price of admission.
1943 are war babies...big difference in upbringing. They can remember a time before TV was in every house. My Dad, born in '40, remembers his Mom using ration cards during WW 2.
These CNBC interviews where they pit 1 bear against 2 or 3 uber-bull imbeciles for the express pupose to try and make the bear look like a lunatic are hysterical.
I would like to see all the panelists - Westbury, Kneale, Luskin... the lot - and bring Shilling, Roubini & Schiff back to play re-runs from '07. THAT would be a show to watch. Then compare performance. I think the bulls have seen their accounts pounded by 30+% by now and might be good & ready to throw the real nut jobs under the bus.
Massive wealth destruction over the past year by listening to the bullturds.
stereotyping an entire generation (or 50 million +/- people) is so accurate and positive minded... a good strategy for winning whatever ethical argument one pretends to represent.
People are really drawn to, and swayed by, hatred and negativity.
speaking of baby boomers. now this age group is retiring to what they think is their well deserved piece of the american pie. the only problem is that their retirement savings is disappearing. i believe it was always meant to be that way. is it such a stretch to think that all of our tax laws came about so that the baby boomers would stick their retirement funds in some tax authorized accounts so that when the time came, the thieves would have access to it. if they had all put their funds in physical silver and gold, it would have been much different. that is why physical gold and silver are always put on ignore. the establishment does not want you to have it. once you do, you are in control of your finances and not them. if gold was so bad, why is it the people in control love it so much? in my honest opinion, the money in the baby boomer retirement accounts has already been stolen and they just haven't told them yet. what we are about to see, shall be one of the most difficult times in the history of this nation and this is just around the corner. it could start in ernest, in a few days or a few weeks. friends, the big game is over. now it is time to pay up. we have been lied to and this lie we call freedom is not what we were told it was. but go tell it to the beer swilling, flag waving , war loving sheeple.......they don't hear you. perhaps they never will...and bush was talking of jefferson this weekend. God help us....
Jefferson didn't enter his golden years very comfortably, either. Didn't he have to sell his library because of debt? Would've rather been in John Adams' shoes myself.
What I mean there @ 11:46, is that IMHO, Boomers will still need to hold on to some mutual fund, or stocks or bonds positions in an attempt to generate cash flow -- however, they will do so in a liquidity trap, where they will experience negative returns, as they seek safety. This is happening today essentially and I agree with part of what you say in your opening remarks regarding limited returns.
Where we may disagree or not be clear, is that the old adage that wall street is a crooked game -- but that it is the only game in town, is a conundrum which is difficult to escape, i.e, for all the un-regulated corruption and systemic failures and the impending 3000 crash which may be unfolding, in time, where else will people go to invest?
I have told my young daughter who is almost 20, that her generation will be trading much faster and probably not even buy stocks, because stocks are vehicles for dilution and people want faster rewards these days. Who is willing to bet on Wachovia and then have to wait 8 years for a reward, while inflation kills you?
Ok, why oh, why is everybody thinking the boomers are going to all sell their houses next week/year?
Maybe not all of them and not necessarily next week/year, but they'll be a lot of them selling nonetheless.
Everything is conspiring against retirees. Pensions cut, health benefits going bye-bye, skyrocketing healthcare costs, etc. Meanwhile, stocks will be tanking, bonds will be defaulting, and the last bastion of retirement financial security -- home equity -- will be quickly evaporating.
They'll (at least try to) get out with whatever retirement cash they can salvage.
You could cite as many failures as successes, but inv alternatives exist in one's own business (or businesses one understands) as well as in the education of your young.
BTW, as a mid-bulge boomer, I just accepted that my savings were going to be debased or diluted or looted in one way or another. Pissed me off, yes, but just caused me to save more, like the goyishekopf I am.
But being pissed off did prompt the presence of mind to move to alternatives like PM's, rural RE abroad, and foreign currencies, thanks largely to advice from people like Schiff.
Still the questions and insecurities remain. The fed reserve, financial industry, tax code tinkerers, vendor financiers (Gulf/China), media mogul Madison Ave pumpers, as well as that bonehead next door have, wittingly or not, conspired against the saver. Seems you've got to be ever more exotic and creative just to maintain a store of value. Getting thrashed is OK by me if that's the game we're in, but I've got my countermeasures. And I'll be damned if they involve borrowing money.
Come on guys. Just one example of anything that is on the positive side of the karmic scale, that as a generation, boomers can take credit for. That's all I'm looking for. Please.....
Taxes, where do you invest and not get burned up with taxes? You have so much risk on wall street, and of course a huge driver with the housing bubble was to become your own CEO and run the show yourself, versus letting someone screw yah....oh well, that didn't work for a lot of people, now what?
Hahaha. The gig is up. I was recently strolling through the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia. There on the shelves, staring me down, was the embodiment of boomer over-confidence and ignorance. A sincere book celebrating the achievements of the factory processed food industry. Anybody who is not too busy golfing to pick up Michael Pollan's latest book, In Defense of Food, would already understand that the process of nutritionism and processed food has been silently killing us. While it was no surprise to me personally, because I have seen old commercials featuring Raid Home and Garden spray, it was a gentle reminder out how our ageing society has not been able to keep pace with the advancement of our understanding. From a purely logical perspective, it makes sense considering the degradation in neuroplasticity with age, but it is still hard to accept because of our long training of correlating age with wisdom. Experience and mental youth are a fine line, but, in Philadelphia, I was definitely confronted with wisdom past it's expiration date. And that, Sir, is what I have to say about Stay-Puft Marshmallows.
Regarding the discussion about boomers extracting retirement funds from the market, thus bringing downward pressure on stock prices...
Without trying to come to a conclusion (at this hour that's probably wise) I offer the following as a starting point.
There are many "Target" funds for those planning to retire at a certain date. I'm familiar with Fidelity's Freedom funds that are available for retirement at 5-year intervals from 2000 to 2050. Every six months the portfolio balance changes to be a bit more conservative.
For example, currently the 2050 fund is 89% in equities, the 2025 is 70% and the 2000 is 25%. If the typical investor followed this formula then each year would see a small, but growing, equity divestiture. In a closed universe that is made up of only investors who were saving for their retirement this would be countered by younger investors bringing money into funds with later target dates, and therefore a higher percentage in equities.
The question is, what is the imbalance of these two forces and in which direction?
In fact, the United States holds just about 1% of the world's $7.6 trillion of foreign currency reserves, and our total position amounts to just 2.5% of the total daily volume of foreign exchange trading.
Talk about Bambi versus Godzilla! In other words, if the dollar is going to fall, the Treasury is completely powerless to do anything to stop it.
"is Wonder Bread the one that shellacs your colon with a diamond hard glaze?"
Wonder Bread is melt-in-your-mouth goodness, and contains a heaping helping of Polysorbate 80 to keep it fresh. In fact, Conjure says that Wonder Bread is the perfect foundation for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Conjure adds that he can leave a half-finished Wonder Sandwich in his desk drawer for weeks at a time, and return to find it as fresh as the day he made it.
it seems you have something against Roubini... it is not true that he only goes live when the market is down... He has been very active, even on the few days the market has been going up...btw...it would be difficult for him to time the market, as it seems the market has been going down every week...
I might add that your Wonder Bread and Miracle Whip sandwich can be enjoyed with a can of light beer in front of a bigscreen TV. You sniveling X, Y, and Z'ers never came up with a combination like that. Dammit.
So the stock market's going to hell because all the boomers are or will bail?
I've never been heavily in stocks but a couple of weeks ago I put a significant-but-not-crucial amount of cash in a bear fund, and it's up eight percent. Who thinks I should double down?
It'd be nice if we had more bears out there who also didn't have nutty gold-standard political views. One reason I am a fan of CR, Krugman, and Herb Greenberg.
Of course, the difference is the gold bugs are generally permabears with 1000lb pallets of freeze-dried food buried in their back yards, and are right these days more the style of a stopped clock.
The long term fundamentals of both the US and world economy are still strong. We just have a huge amount of speculative excess to work off before hitting bottom.
un autre canadien avec popcorn writes:
Come on guys. Just one example of anything that is on the positive side of the karmic scale, that as a generation, boomers can take credit for. That's all I'm looking for. Please.....
un autre canadien avec popcorn | 07.06.08 - 1:26 am | #
Exploration into outer space and increasing the knowledge of the physical universe. on earth and beyond.
The scientific knowledge base of theory and hypothesis has expanded greatly over the last few decades.
Stocks should continue going down. But, I've just been reading Setser and these huge global dollar caches have to go somewhere. Bonds evaporate in the sun - might as well buy stocks which are at least somewhat tangible. I think equities will stay unnaturally levitated for some time thanks to Asia and the Middle East.
I think equities will stay unnaturally levitated for some time thanks to Asia and the Middle East.
Are you talking about their growth(Asia and the Middle East.)?
The only way equities(and i take it you mean US equities) will remain levitated is if these economies crash(their equity markets have already done so). Money would then flow back to US equities, and not before.
un autre canadien avec popcorn writes:
Exploration into outer space and increasing the knowledge of the physical universe. on earth and beyond.
The scientific knowledge base of theory and hypothesis has expanded greatly over the last few decades.
Have you been drinking. There has never been less money for pure research than the last few decades.
un autre canadien avec popcorn | 07.06.08 - 2:36 am | #
Why yes I have! However, your rebuttal was quite juvenile. Money doesn't necessarily equal quality of research. You also don't reference your claim of reduced money.
Let's see, last 40 years have seen men on the moon, multiple rovers on Mars, the Hubble telescope, multitudes of satelites for better communications, comet and meteor tracking...etc, etc, etc.
"now what"? I'll tell what interests me. I live in a big old house with a huge attic and a bit of land... 3000sf of tall attic and basement space, 4sf per plant, 1.5oz per plant, four crops per year, $100/oz..... You do the math. Throw in a huge fudge factor, plus the diesel costs for the genset in the buried connex box in the backyard. You're still in for a pretty healthy ROI. If things go tits up you can always move to NZ (if you can do that).
No, I'm not really planning this scheme. Flight does not appeal to me. But it would be easy.
The economy there isn't much better and the talk of the town is that the sheep while previously content in living a sheared life are now planning to revolt.
Setser estimates that with oil at $140, the Middle East central banks and sovereign wealth funds will gain $400B just in 2008. This is a huge jump - in 2003 the region's total GDP was $400B. I think enough of this will go into equities to partially counterbalance the bears and the desperate ones cashing out their 401(k)s. Boomers won't sell that many stocks going into retirement - they'll try and live off the dividends on the assumption that they'll live to 100 and have to preserve (nominal)capital.
"Let's see, last 40 years have seen men on the moon, multiple rovers on Mars, the Hubble telescope, multitudes of satelites for better communications, comet and meteor tracking...etc, etc, etc."
It wasn't boomers that put a man on the moon. Even the oldest of them were just kids at the time.It was Werner Von Braun and the previous wartime generation that accomplished that.
The same generation put a human driven rover on the moon, first try. Autonomous Mars rovers, decades later, after at least one failed attempt, not so much. Just a little increment.
The Hubble telescope had a warped mirror installed when first sent up and didn't work properly for the longest time.
Multitudes of satellites etc.. How many of those satellites are there to guide the bombs down on the innocents' heads. How many of them deprive you of your freedoms by spying on you in high definition evey day? How many of them there just to make a buck? That's a real accomplishment. Good karma that.
You're forgetting the scrubbers for the smell, the hydroponics, the reno's to the house after a few rotations when the black mold has spread, the payoffs for protection to/from the local baddies, the medical bills for the ulcer etc..
mp writes: "That would last until the next infrared survey and the authorities asked you to explain your lack of an electricity bill."
Possibly, I do live in an industrially zoned area. So even if I used power from the utility (3 phase) it probably wouldn't raise a red flag. Not planning any gardens though... Felony flight, statute of limitations... these are not issues I want to think about again. Let us see how bad things get again.
My parents are prewar age. My Grandmother is 97 and tells stories of the zeppelins over London during WW1. When she's sentient that is. I'm perhaps older than you think.
Been taking some of my maturing eurobonds and rolling them over into Swissie paper.
If it's as bad as I think it's gonna be swissie could have a huuge run up, much higher than the euro can go from here(then again I've been long euro since I could buy a glass of kolsch for a dollar.)
I've slowly been liquidating my Citi short and buying munis on the price spikes.
For a laugh:The losses are having a severe effect on a handful of players, but in the overall scheme I don't see how it matters much.
There's considerable speculation (here and elsewhere) that this is going to somehow "snowball" into a much larger problem, but the conditions simply aren't there for that to happen.
Lots of people like to get their news from videos but I don't. I can read and I prefer to READ my information. I suspect people who like videos can't read very well and can only LISTEN. If I want to listen to something I go to my TV set. I prefer to read at my computer.
A better question might be what could the boomers have accomplished if they had not been screwed from 1968 on by the reactionaries of the previous generation: J Edgar Hoover, Nixon and Agnew, Reagan and his minions, Bush I, Greenspan, etc.
There was a lot of promise in the 1960's and '70's. It was crushed and co-opted. Look at what happened to the Diggers, the Black Panthers, Lennon/Yoko and anyone else who tried to take on "the system."
Many, many, of us boomers kept our integrity and have continued to work for the betterment of humankind. I have no respect for those who went over to the dark side because it was safer and paid better. But I also recognize that the reactionary counter-revolution backlash that took place was a powerful one.
Another problem with these videos is that most of the people are idiots and you have to listen to them ranting and raving while the one guy with some sense is drowned out. That is why I don't watch any of these shows, ever. I guess some people think four people talking over each other is amusing, but this is simply evidence of the abysmal decline in US intelligence. People no longer care about the content of what is said, they merely want to listen to people shouting each other down. That for most Americans is a "good discussion."
un autre canadien avec popcorn writes:
Come on guys. Just one example of anything that is on the positive side of the karmic scale, that as a generation, boomers can take credit for. That's all I'm looking for. Please.....
Tough do to. Everything I've come up with is an individual's accomplishment, not the generation's. Personal computers, Hard Rock music, 'The Simpsons', Then again, what the hell has any other generation done? Don't give me any of that Greatest Generation crap either, read the complaints of the 60's; fear of the A-bomb, environmental damage, the continuation of racism. Yep, we were on the Eve of Destruction. YouTube -
The phrase carpe diem doesn't mean complain all day. a C avec p sounds like he could have been lifted right out of Portnoy's Complaint. It will definitely be a worker's paradise when all the boomers are gone.
So other than airing perceived grievances, how does this make life better for anyone? What the hell are the complainers doing to alleviate their oppression? Oooops, I mean the complainer's generation, of course.
They have ,in quite a spectacular fashion, shown us the error of their ways. So that we can try to do better. Compare that to what they most certainly have been compared to all their life - The greatest generation. No wonder they invented the lifelong teen.
oh God, this is so funny. The second video is priceless. I love how the only response to Schiff by the housing bulls, at the end, is righteous indignation and snide laughter. I guess that tactic must work on the political shows, but for investing or trading??? This is real money we're talking about! Having a closed mind to opposing points of view, hell, being unable even to listen to a rational, well-reasoned argument without being childish--well, it's no wonder they're on the Fox "Business" Channel.
What's obnoxious to me is they are basically manipulating people who don't know any better. I mean, who actually watches the Fox "Business" Channel, anyway? Or even CNBC, besides Squawk Box? Isn't everyone busy working?
On 2nd video, at 3min,55sec they were laughing at Peter.
Well, perhaps, but Id say they were really laughing at the idiots who consume this media garbage. The purpose of these shows is pretty obvious -- and its certainly not to inform. Nor is it to make money. The obvious raison detre of the corporate media (both business and political) is to manipulate public opinion to the advantage of the medias owners /sponsors.
This fact is so obvious that it drives me crazy when people think that if they just point out the errors, the media will take note and correct itself. No. The pay scale of the producers of these shows is not determined by accuracy or how much they enrich the body politic. No, they get paid for how well they push public opinion towards a neo-liberal pro-business point of view. Now, to be clear its not as if the media owners /sponsors actually believe all this rhetoric about the power free markets -- far from it. No, the important thing is that the producers of these shows want to place themselves in a position to determine towards whom market discipline will be dispensed while at the same time coddling and shielding themselves from the angry wrath of the free market.
Now if they have to bring a bear on from time to time to keep ratings numbers up then so be it. The important thing is to maintain their aura of authority and keep the losers watching so their opinions can be crystallized into the proper shape.
Market discipline for the masses who imbibe this rubbish; socialism and a safe haven from the mercurial tempers of the invisible hand for those who spawn these shows.
Baby boomers greatest achievement is that their childern will be the first generation in history to be poorer than their parents (boomers)!
Nah. Already happened. Read Elizabeth Warren, or watch the video of her Berkeley lecture. The idea of boomers or anyone else spending on bling is a media creation. The average family in 2005, compared to 1970 had used up all the extra income of a second adult worker (wives), all the 10% of income they used to save, and an additional 10% or so of debt and was still falling behind. What were they spending on? 'Frills' like health care, house payments, child care, and college educations for their children. All the discretionary categories-- clothes, appliances, vacations, fancy cars were down, in real terms, from 1970.
The complaints about the boomers always amuse me. Reminds me of certain a-holes of 35 years ago who couldn't open their mouths without disparaging their parents' generation. I imagine them as the object of similar ire from their own grown children now. And of course in another 10 or 15 years the echo-boomers are going to start dishing it out to the current generation of complainers.
What will baby boomers be remembered for? Just as the current generation has forgotten about the A-bomb, the Vietnam War, the corporate yes-man, hogging all the good jobs and other things which the idiots among my generation complained of being stuck with, I suspect when we reach true old age (* varies, but begins somewhere around 75-80 for most people with decent health) we will have been transformed into the bringers of Civil Rights, Women's Rights, the Computer Age, nano technology -- in short, everything good and decent in the society as it will be then will be laid at our feet.
Both views are, of course, nonsense. Each person in each generation is stuck with the world they're given. Part of growing up is realizing both the possibilities and the limitations of life... And that you only reduce your own possibilities by imagining that your parents' power to reshape their world was ever greater than your own.
Sell Italian bonds. Italian public debt has reached a record high at 1646,7 billion euros.It is worse than 1992 when the country went very near to declare default(insolvency)
Well, if you moved ALL IN at the very bottom and stayed long the S&P on that very day...you'd have a huge average annual return of 4.6% AFTER DIVIDENDS! You could got a 1% better return buying a 10 year Treasury.
I find this stuff interesting, but where can one find total dividends paid in a given year by SP500? Just to make trouble: you should take into account tax advantage on long-term gains.
It may be worth thinking about 401 the other way: decades of captive audience for stocks has artificially inflated their prices. What's going on from her out is the endgame.
Great Post. I tried to find Mike Norman's email (he is laughing at Peter Schiff) so that I could send him this along with some of my comments, but couldn't. Looks like a lot of other people had the same idea and it got taken off.
un autre canadien avec popcorn writes:
"Come on guys. Just one example of anything that is on the positive side of the karmic scale, that as a generation, boomers can take credit for. That's all I'm looking for. Please....."
Er, here's three:
They didn't turn into Canadians.
They continued to pay their taxes and fund a military so Canada didn't end up as Russian or Chinese province.
They continue to let all the rich Canadians come to the US to use our medical facilities when their waiting lists get too long.
"It may be worth thinking about 401 the other way: decades of captive audience for stocks has artificially inflated their prices. What's going on from her out is the endgame".
VERY interesting: Please explain more fully your thoughts on this.
GENEVA (AFP) - Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse need to set aside 70 billion Swiss francs (43.5 billion euros, 68.3 billion dollars) more in capital as Switzerland's banking watchdog moves to prevent a repeat of the subprime crisis, a Swiss newspaper reported Sunday.
Well, avec, CR and Tanta are almost certainly boomers, so how about that?
You would have this blog to kvetch on
if they were not around.
And, you're older than we think? Are you a boomer yourself????
We didn't get a tv until I was 2; my hub was older. We didn't have much of a tv when my daughter was born in 69, went to the aunt's to watch star trek on her color tv. We totally got rid of the tv until my son was 3.
We really think tv is iminical to very young children.
I doubt that many in the following generation took the step of actually getting rid of the tv until the kids were out of diapers.
You never answered my questions. You don't produce garbage? you recycle everything?
Probably because the answers are that you do and you don't.
I can't answer your questions, because I don't keep exact track of how old someone was when they did the good thing that they did. It doesn't matter too much to me.
Maybe Canadian people of the requistite age were uniquely obnoxious? I doubt it, but unlike you I admit I don't know enough Canadians to say. I was told, some years ago, while on a train, by a French Canadien, that they were punished in school for speaking French, and were otherwise demonized.
Did this happen to you and are you bitter as a result?
I also hold up to you the brave young people who followed Martin Luther King in his mightly efforts. . . and the latest bunch of young people critized by Cosby among others (Obama too) for not taking full advantage of the openings resulting from these efforts.
Billy Hill writes "I find this stuff interesting, but where can one find total dividends paid in a given year by SP500? Just to make trouble... The easiest thing to do would be to wander over to vanguard.com and look at the total return on their S&P500 Index Fund for the period you are intereseted in.
I don't think a day goes by when some
"Expert" guest on CNBC doesn't suggest
buying stocks. They never say sell. And
I just love it when Pisani or some other
commentator there jumps up and down like
an idiot at a small up day on the Dow,
even though it was manipulated.No real
value to the show.
DEFLATIONARY WAVES AND COUNTERWAVES (January 1, 2007): The mainstream financial media keep talking about "rising inflation", while Fed officials continue to make comments about "persistently high inflation". However, if one looks at a chart of gold mining shares, or a chart of U.S. Treasury yields, one quickly discovers the truth: on May 11, 2006, the worldwide financial markets began an important deflationary wave which will likely continue for the next several months or longer.
The first assets to be pressured lower by this deflationary wave were the prices of precious metals and their shares. Treasury yields then followed in the second week of July; copper, in the middle of October; U.S. equity indices, in late November and in December; other base metals such as nickel and zinc and tin, probably later this month. Over the next several months, equity indices worldwide will move noticeably lower, as will the prices of artwork, racehorses, and a vast array of overvalued assets. Real estate, the most uniformly overvalued asset of all, began the deflationary cycle in late 2005.
All waves have their corresponding counterwaves. Once the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks worldwide realize that this deflationary wave is having serious consequences such as rising unemployment and more rapidly declining real-estate prices than had been anticipated, these folks will begin to aggressively cut interest rates. This will engender a temporary pause to the deflationary impulse, and will create an environment of rebounding assets, especially for precious metals and their shares, as well as for other assets that had generally gone out of favor in the past several years, such as largecap growth shares. This rebound will likely begin around the summer of 2007, and will last perhaps for 1-1/2 years.
However, central bankers can only do so much. They cannot prevent an even more powerful deflationary wave from regaining control in 2009. This deflationary wave will be far more devastating than the current one. It will likely cause a huge worldwide pullback in equities, similar to what was experienced in 2000-2002. Real estate, both precious and base metals, artwork, and virtually all major asset classes will see a significant decline in their respective valuations. Unemployment will surge into double digits in many countries, even possibly in the U.S. The U.S. might experience year-over-year deflation for the first time since 1931.
Once this worldwide asset collapse ends, perhaps in 2011, it will be followed by one of the greatest reflationary periods in world history, as governments worldwide do whatever they can to stimulate the economy, without regard to inflation or rising interest rates. Interest rates will likely double in most countries within a few years, including the U.S. Precious metals and their shares will surge, with gold soaring well above the $1,000 per ounce level.
Baby boomers and other retirement investors are likely to get wiped out twice. As the deflationary waves cause equity indices to collapse, 401K participants will--far too late--move whatever money is left from their collapsed equities into the "safety" of bonds. Just as the maximum number of participants are in bonds, interest rates will then more than double, thus wiping out much of these bond holdings with a few years. After achieving a very deep nadir, equity indices will see their greatest percentage gains in many years, but few people will remain in these investments to benefit from them.
While all of this up-and-down excitement is going on, real-estate prices worldwide are likely to move in only one direction--lower--eventually surrendering all of their gains in nominal terms since 1999. Thus, these deflationary waves and counterwaves will cause a great decrease in global prosperity.
These are my cheerful thoughts for the New Year. Be sure to get out of the stock market in time, so that you will enjoy a prosperous 2007.
I don't think a day goes by when some
"Expert" guest on CNBC doesn't suggest
buying stocks.
I normally don't watch TV, but I got a chance to watch CNBC on Tuesday and I was aghast. They were running a "reasons to rally!" bulletpoint list. WTF? "Because institutional investors need retail suckers to buy them out of their positions"?
I mean, I can understand the way they deal with the fact that they have megabulls only, you just fire them periodically and hire a new megabull for his / her x month rotation. But what happens when you have bankrupted the entire viewerbase?
OPEC president Chakib Khelil warned on Sunday that oil prices will continue to rise because of the falling dollar, in an interview in the Algeria-News.
OPEC president Chakib Khelil warned on Sunday that oil prices will continue to rise because of the falling dollar, in an interview in the Algeria-News.
"I believe that 60 percent of the rise is due to the fall in the exchange rate of the dollar and to geopolitical problems, and 40 percent to the intrusion of bioethanol on the market," he said.
Wonder what he means by the intrusion of bioethanol...?
Q: Should the Fed have done more to stop the housing bubble?
A: No, I don't think so. We all understood that the house price increases could not continue. We did not think through the possibility of a significant price decline and large-scale defaults and foreclosures.
The person who was closest to this was (the late Fed governor) Ned Gramlich. Ned was concerned about abusive lending and the risk to lower-income households. We understood there was abusive lending and practices that were stripping equity out of households. I don't remember the issue ever being raised that it could lead to defaults.
Wonder what he means by the intrusion of bioethanol...?
I doubt that, OPEC learned a very good lesson from the 70's US currency debasement and I doubt the are going to make the little mistake again. One is the US goverment can not be trusted. If there is going to be stagnation and lower living standards this time it will be here not there. 200+ oil and Bio is going to be to little to late.
There are no such things. The Russian men of power said so in response to Gen. A. Lebed (remember him?) so many eons ago. They would not lie, would they?
I was born at the beginning of 1939. One begins to see the same human traits and fortunes come round for the third or fourth time.
This human species of ours does best as a generalist species - coyotes versus sabre toothed cats. But because we are so clever we always forget. Now we live by petroleum - boxed in. Eh?
"The financial community, the Fed, academics, didn't see the problem brewing."
Did we not see on this board a few months ago some very persuasive analysis that was produced in-house at some IB, showing high likelihood of not only sub-prime, but also IO's blowing up? Produced circa '05?
The report had data sliced and diced down to various regions and demographics, and projected a high level of NPL's.
I'd only like to think lax lending was merely bungling.
"The financial community, the Fed, academics, didn't see the problem brewing."
Did we not see on this board a few months ago some very persuasive analysis that was produced in-house at some IB, showing high likelihood of not only sub-prime, but also IO's blowing up? Produced circa '04 '05?
The report had data sliced and diced down to various regions and demographics, and projected a high level of NPL's.
I'd only like to think lax RE lending was merely a gigantic, systemic bungle.
and they make such good parents and role models too.
Exactly. Judge a generation by it's children.
The boomers threw traditional education standards out the window, and now we have an impossibly ignorant generation of consumer/debtors. They threw traditional morality out the window and we got unspeakably high rates of divorce, teen pregnancy and AIDS. They said never trust anyone over 30, and then voted themselves viagra out of their children's mouths.
They received the benefits of a stable, traditional society when they were young and then, when the bill came due to support it, they decided to reject it in the name of a lazy, selfish freedom.
"In terms of the dollar, the United States believes in a strong dollar policy and believes the strength of our economy will be reflected in the dollar," Bush said when asked what world leaders could do to improve the economy and intervene to boost the dollar.
When pressed on potential intervention, Bush replied, "I just said, the relative strength of our economy will be reflected in currencies."
Bush also pointed to the $152 billion economic stimulus package approved earlier this year as helping the economy and urged the U.S. Congress to approve housing regulation reform and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Outer Continental Shelf to drilling to try to further boost the economy.
What the numb nut didn't say is that the 152 billion was borrowed money which added to the budget deficit and helped drive the dollar down more. Short Bucky!
"In terms of the dollar, the United States believes in a strong dollar policy and believes the strength of our economy will be reflected in the dollar," Bush said when asked what world leaders could do to improve the economy and intervene to boost the dollar.
When pressed on potential intervention, Bush replied, "I just said, the relative strength of our economy will be reflected in currencies."
Bush also pointed to the $152 billion economic stimulus package approved earlier this year as helping the economy and urged the U.S. Congress to approve housing regulation reform and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Outer Continental Shelf to drilling to try to further boost the economy.
What the numb nut didn't say is that the 152 billion was borrowed money which added to the budget deficit and helped drive the dollar down more. Short Bucky!
CR-
'The middle age of boomers is 54 or so - and those people are 15 to 20 years from downsizing.'
Or are just 15 to 20 weeks away from being downsized. Or if you prefer, 15 months to 20 months.
Then they get to see how well their various saving strategies worked. Which, considering the American savings rate of the Bush era and the invention of the IRA debit card, should provide a lot of schadenfreude to those so inclined.
The boomers having been living in a consumer's paradise their entire lives. Somehow, I don't think it will play out that way in the U.S. for the next couple of decades.
If any American generation seems less prepared for hard times than the boomers, let us know. After all, we have had two boomer presidents in a row, and between the draft dodger interested in political viability and the apparent no-show boozer/snorter on the flight line, they have left a fine mess for other people to deal with. A real boomer trademark, letting other people handle the problem, that is.
"Banking systems are designed to rob everyone. Sometimes the banksters get greedy."
Thanks for the reality check. Now what happened to that super colander headgear you occasionally used to sport? Are you now of the Fed and regulators are merely stupid, bankers merely greedy persuasion?
"In terms of the dollar, the United States believes in a strong dollar policy and believes the strength of our economy will be reflected in the dollar," Bush said when asked what world leaders could do to improve the economy and intervene to boost the dollar.
When pressed on potential intervention, Bush replied, "I just said, the relative strength of our economy will be reflected in currencies."
Bush also pointed to the $152 billion economic stimulus package approved earlier this year as helping the economy and urged the U.S. Congress to approve housing regulation reform and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Outer Continental Shelf to drilling to try to further boost the economy.
Haloscan seems to be acting up - hope this doesn't double post after another 'internal server error'
'Your entire way of life and everything you know was brought to you by boomers.'
Clinton and Bush are boomer presidents - and boy, I bet that pair makes boomers feel proud, right? Though a lot of other Americans, not boomers, seem deeply, deeply disturbed at what has happened under their watch.
One a president too stupid to bother to tell the truth about a trivial personal failing, the other a man too stupid to realize that saying 'I'm the Decider' is not proof of presidential ability.
As for saying the boomers brought me the world I live in? No they didn't - they inherited it, tended to keep its worst parts going while patting themselves on the back for their self-proclaimed virtues, and now expect others to keep things running for their personal benefit.
Strangely, the boomers are such a failure, that even the prospect of a third boomer president seems enough to ensure that two candidates are running aren't boomers. Consider it a harbinger for the future, as the boomers leave center stage. Or get pushed off, as they continue to insist how important they are to the rest of us.
"Just one example of anything that is on the positive side of the karmic scale, that as a generation, boomers can take credit for."
I am not certain that we as a generation can take credit for it, per se, but if nothing else boomers have managed to elevate it to the fore. I mean, haven't you ever heard of the theory of "intelligent design" ?
"Just one example of anything that is on the positive side of the karmic scale, that as a generation, boomers can take credit for."
I am not certain that we as a generation can take credit for it, per se, but if nothing else boomers have managed to elevate it to the fore. I mean, haven't you ever heard of the theory of "intelligent design" ?
Lane wrote:
Sell Italian bonds. Italian public debt has reached a record high at 1646,7 billion euros.It is worse than 1992 when the country went very near to declare default(insolvency)
Lane, I wouldn't be surprised if Italy and Greece pull out of the Euro...it's killing them. Deutchland is the only country benefiting.
@Well I am but I don't think the whole lot of you are.
Heh. I'm in the camp of Mark Twain, who said something like, "I hate humankind, but I love John, Jane, & Jim." General v. specific. Anyone remember it exactly?
The problem for the boomer's is the same group of fools that got their heads handed to them in the dot.bomb bust and housing bust are now being herded into commodities which will also bust. Some people never learn.
When confused about anything, resist anti-collectivism in all it's pernicious forms as the best policy. Congratulations to you for that, and I guess I agree w/ Misean's comment in the same vein.
As for forex accts, I cannot say since I haven't resided in the US for some time. But I have heard OK things about:
Enjoyed the video a lot, plus all the post's in this blog. Peter Schiff is right on, in the past and today. Really LMAO about the "Bill Stein is stoned" comment, was dying here.
Our American economic system is sure interesting in many ways, but it comes always down to "spending every penny" and that doesn't happen for example in the Euro zone. A big difference in terms of how much someone saves depends also on the pay cycle. Here in the US everybody get's paid twice a month, not so in the Euro zone, there only once a month. Big difference IMHO. I don't know about the rest on this panel but I don't know how many friends I have that make between 90k-180k a year and they generally have only about $200-300 in cash left over after every pay cycle, the rest all goes to payment plans whether house, car, breast augmentations, credit cards, etc. No joke, here you can finance breast augmentations with no credit check! Priceless! Back to topic, the Euro zone has a different spending pattern because credit is not extented to such extent as here in US. The American household is so leveraged it is scary. Consumer debt will be the next big bust coming up, it has to. The Feds tried to avoid any rate hikes the past 6 month but now with hyper inflation around the corner the Feds will have to raise rates significantly by +2 points in the short-term, which will wreak havoc on consumer debt and financial institutions. IMHO the Feds really screwed up by not raising rates in early 2007 and now with devaluation of the dollar, soaring energy cost (wait until the winter hits), inflationary pressures they must follow suit to the EZB. If not Good night to this economy.
Anybody have any links to that Bill Griffeth series in 2005 on CNBC - the Real Estate Roadshow? I noted that as a really big sign of a top, but I can't find any clips - I wonder if CNBC still has any up? Anybody have any links to clips?
Integrated Circuit
Personal Computer
Best Rock n' Roll ever
Globalization
Supply Chain Management/JIT
Weapons (jdam,cluster,combat aircraft,aegis systems,smart bombs,fleer)
Surveillance, satellite technology
Mobile telephone
They are NOT Ok - Their 1% commission in AND out of the dollar that ends up being charged during the foreign currency transaction ( - they say their rates are within 1% of the wholesale rate but it ends up AT 1% AGAINST you).
Compare this to the bid/ask spread of a currency ETF like FXE, FXA, FXF, FXY; the annual fee for these ETFs is around .45% - not too shabby.
As regards their CD interest rates, be very careful ! I'm stuck in a (small) Icelandic Krona position with them - the Icelandic CEntral bank has overnight interest rates at 16.5%; 7 day CD rates at 15.25%
The rate offered by Everbank 2.5% ? Bleeding robbery I call it. Yet they say they guarantee competitive rates..
I'd be very wary of them.
For currency diversification I'd look at all the ETFs I mentioned earlier - there are many others - For Chinese there is CYB.
An interesting, very recent ( two weeks old ) ETN( yes etN - do your own diligence on the differences ) is PGD ( i.e pegged).
This is equally weighted on the Saudi Arabian, UAE, HK, Singapore and Chinese currencies - all currencies that are tightly pegged or held in a narrow band to the US dollar.
The thesis is that it their pegs will break or the float band widened as the try to battle the inflation caused by the peg to the US dollar.
"Erik writes:
The problem with gold is that it doesn't produce anything. I can't use it to make anything besides jewelery. It's great in times of uncertainty, but other than that, I would rather have control a commodity that can be used for something productive"
Erik, you are one of the great successes of the DUMBING DOWN OF America. You should be proud of yourself...
Thanks, Kou Jie & SK. I'd thought about everbank; now I'll probably pass. I do want exposure to the Singapore dollar, though. Just watched some more youtube with Schiff. It's hard to tolerate all that yelling over each other on Fox; it makes my blood pressure rise.
Peter Westbury is a major league JOKE! He lobbied CNBC as a permabull for years...long enough for CNBC to hire him as a "special contributor" (i.e. pitch the BULL CASE at all costs!!)..what a farce.
Westbury...You've been wrong for so long....that I'd recommend you'd get your b#@tt of of national TV and YouTube to not only save what little reputation you still have...but before you lose your $$, your declining client base, and your job as just another Wall Street bull & hype, overpaid "money manager"....helping folks build small fortunes.....FROM LARGE ONES!
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the fault line in educational quality lies somewhere in the late 1950s and was instituted by progressives who were adults when the first boomers were still in grammar school.
It wasn't instantly universal - it didn't arrive in every school district at the same moment. But it was well-established before postwar kids grew up and took over the job.
The younger members of the boomer cohort in the US are the product of those educational experiments, but so are all who follow.
I saw Schiff on CNBC earlier this year and Mike Norman was still giggling and grinning to the camera at everything Schiff said. I think the AM people on CNBC are decent, especially Joe Kernan. After that, you'd learn more from QVC.
Those jockos on Fast Money look like after the show they go to a locker room and snap each other with towels...I watched that one twice and am trying to get those 2 hours back somehow.
I was being a bit hard on the boomers (hey, some of my best friends are boomers) but comments about staying on in an oversized house from a boomer lawyer, boy howdy...
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the fault line in educational quality lies somewhere in the late 1950s
We are talking past one another, to some extent: I was referring to college education. On that score, we could go back further and say it lies in prewar german philosophy or simply the enlightenment, at least if "The Closing of The American Mind" is a decent guide. It still appears, at least from my readings, that it was in the late 60's that the gates fell and the adults left the field.
What happened to Mike Norman?? Obviously, it's good to see him laughing here as today he's in hiding licking his wounds as he has now been seen for the market pumping shill that he is. I hope to never see his traitor face on TV ever again.
One thing that never ceases to amaze me as a European living in the US is why you Americans think you are working so hard.....the simpler tasks are all done by "illegal" Mexicans
Say, that's right! You better-off Euros import perfectly legal Poles, Romanians, Turks and Bulgarians for that sort of thing, right?
forgive me CR!
I love the 2nd video. I have seen it numerous times and it NEVER gets old.
I tried to watch the Saturday morning Faux News business block and gave up after each every show was just like this one.
Tom and Mike looked liked fools then (to housing bears), and now they look like fools to everyone.
Peter stood his ground and made his calls and was dead on. Why he continued to go on these shows was odd to me, but it worked out great for him.
Some of the best videos are of that clown Neil Cavuto tried to act "fair and balanced" with Peter and another guest.
Unlike other busts, with youtube, there will be no place to hide for these REIC shills (Tom Adkins is a realtor)
If Fox had any balls, they'd play this video infront of the panel and ask for their thoughts.
I would love to see that.
Fortunately, Peter Schiff of Euro Pacific Capital perhaps answers the question by noting, "However, with its increased willingness to rescue the big financial firms from their own excesses, perhaps Paulson sees an expanded Fed as the best way to ensure the continued prosperity of his former pals on Wall Street." Hahaha! Exactly! The amount of corruption at the end of long booms is always off the charts!
And, to be fair, it is to rescue us all, as extrapolating to us all, America is such a dimwitted little nation that we have literally put all our investment/retirement monies, both public and private, into the stock and bond markets! Hahaha! We have put all our future in the one place where it is required by simple mathematical imperative that the majority must always end up with less buying power than when they started!
Too bad youtube was not around when Jesse Helms was speaking...maybe we could play some of his greatest hits.
How in the world do these moronic cable networks maintain viewership? This country is just packed full of simpletons. I'm beginning to think it will take some sort catastrophic downturn to wake people from their catatonic mental slumber. Though even that would probably be a short-term effect.
The problem with gold is that it doesn't produce anything. I can't use it to make anything besides jewelery. It's great in times of uncertainty, but other than that, I would rather have control a commodity that can be used for something productive.
Time for my 10 year S&P500 Update:
10 years ago today the S%P500 was at 1157
Today it's at 1263.
That my friends is a .87% return. If you add in dividends, you're up to a 2.7% average annual return.
This is before we even get into the bubble years of 99 and 2000. The ten year window of positive returns in closing fast.
(Note: this is lump sum, all-in investing returns...not the horrendous dollar-cost-averaging returns you get by buying through the dotcom era and last summer as the stocks stayed significantly above the trendline for much longer than it was below during this decade)
Note #2, This was during the time of max participation in the market. 401k's were ubiquitous. Roth's, 457's, 529's, etc were added and the amount you could contribute ramped up quickly. The amount of dollars flowing on a regular basis into the market from the early 90's through today is unprecedented.
Note #3, Today we have the beginnings of something else unprecedented, an entire generation of baby-boomer sellers who have been accumulating much of their lives and are now needing to live off the returns. Never before did anyone buying do so in the face of the previous generation of sellers.
The historical returns of the market are due to increased participation as much as the profits of the companies. It really ramped and peaked from late 80's to early 2000's which coincided with the final push to max participation and increased contribution limits with the ubiquitous retirment plans that limited all contributions to index funds (unshortable).
Now we have a paradigm shift. There are no more rapid increases in stock investors to come. We only have increased sellers as described above. The great returns are gone. Buffett even warned of low returns.
Bill Miller, who beat the S$P500 for 15 years, who manages the Legg Mason Value Trust Fund, currently has a 4.9% return over the last 10 years. Anyone in cash did as well or better with no risk.....if you dollar-cost-averaged into his fund you lost money. Yet he still took his sizeable cut and became rich...for doing nothing.
Reality is setting in and soon the boomers will pick up the selling to save what's left, and the buyers will slow their contributions to stocks as their funds offer more and more alternatives and they decide to invest elsewhere.
20 years from now we'll look back and our broad market chart will look like Japan's from 1990 to now.
Maybe we should coin a word for posts like this.
Blogenfreude perhaps?
(I was referring to the thread itself; not the last comment.)
"How in the world do these moronic cable networks maintain viewership? This country is just packed full of simpletons."
Bob, it's always been this way. It's just more acute now. The smart thing to do is take advantage of the idiocy of Americans and their TV sponsors, and make some money off it.
Money flows from the dumb to the smart, pretty much by definition.
This is my favorite Peter Schiff clip. At about the 5 minute mark, it get's good--especially when Don Luskin opens his idiotic mouth.
YouTube
- Peter Schiff & Don Luskin - CNBC - Kudlow & Company - 7/2/2007
On 2nd video, at 3min,55sec they were laughing at Peter.
Guess who is laughing now?
OT, but good food for panic if you're into that sort of thing.
"(UK) Gov't. asks stores to stockpile food "....."in case the infrastructure of the country breaks down"... (referring to trucker woes/strikes)
Government asks stores to stockpile food to overcome hauliers strike - Times Online
CR.
I glad you learned how to add videos to your blog. It is more colorfull now
Re: Average Joe
The transfer of wealth you refer to is interesting, yet, these boomers will still need to stay in some positions and not be 100% liquid. The boomers will also face inflationary impacts and end up burning up some returns in efforts to stay safe, thus even though they will be selling, this transfer will just fuel the mutual benefit of exchange for younger generations who may buy mis-priced assets that are undervalued.
The FDIC may be calling in a very BIG pizza order next Friday.
Gretchen Morgenson
A Window in a Smoky Market
"EVERYBODY knows that the market for credit default swaps is one of the hottest investment arenas around. At the end of last year, according to the Bank for International Settlements, the fair value of credit default swaps outstanding totaled $2 trillion, up from just $133 billion three years earlier..."
FAIR GAME; A Window In a Smoky Market - NY Times
"Gretchen Morgenson
A Window in a Smoky Market"
Awwww, now you gone and done it. You gonna rile the tantalicious one.
Catfood Smoker said: "The transfer of wealth you refer to is interesting, yet, these boomers will still need to stay in some positions and not be 100% liquid."
Why? When stock returns were better than cash this may have been true...but I just explained to you that the axiom "stocks outperform over the long haul" isn't true. And likely wont be true. You have to get old truths out of your head. They may think they need to stay, and they no doubt will be told they need to stay in equities by everyone...but better returns or even postive returns in equities isn't always true. Look again at Japan.
Catfood continues: "The boomers will also face inflationary impacts and end up burning up some returns in efforts to stay safe, thus even though they will be selling, this transfer will just fuel the mutual benefit of exchange for younger generations who may buy mis-priced assets that are undervalued."
I don't get this...it makes no sense to me.
Anyway my point is that stocks are like anything else...they have some underlying value, but so what....what is that value...and might it stay below there for a very long time as there are more sellers than buyers. If you have 1000 Ferrari's to sell in the middle of Compton...guess what your not gonna sell them all and if you do it will be well below what many would say they are worth.....you need capable and willing buyers to outnumber sellers to have a rising market.
There is nothing inherent about stocks that make them a better investment. Look at Japan...their stocks depend upon earnings and are tied to growing companies...why haven't they always risen over the term? If you say it's because Japan is a different country...I say you're right...and now America is a different country with different demographics (stock buyer related) so you can't look at history and predict the future.....so far the Bill Millers are getting killed by cash.
FFDIC:
Did a quick read on the linked article, but who's to say that they won't kick the can down the road for another year? Things are going to look a hell of a lot worse this November than last November.
And how to find out who's got the big numbers hanging out there?
Blogenfreude, I love it.
Ok, why oh, why is everybody thinking the boomers are going to all
sell their houses next week/year?
My 84 1/2 year old mom still owns her
three level house, and has no plans to sell, or even change things a bit
so she can live on just one level. I wish she would in fact, but it's the onliest house she ever owned, and she likes it dammit. She's owned it for more than 25 years.
I don't think the boomers are going to sell and I don't think they are going to retire at 62 either. Frankly, we don't find shuffleboard interesting, and most of us can't afford to retire anyway. The hub & I could, if we wanted to downscale our way of living. But the hub likes his job and why not? he works for NASA. He intends to work to 70. Or, if he's still having fun, longer. I may retire sooner, if the real estate market continues to be totally busto, (which it probably will) and if I just can't tolerate litigation.
One thing that never ceases to amaze me as a European living in the US is why you Americans think you are working so hard. Sure, your army is as are many of your R&D folks. But the simpler tasks are all done by "illegal" Mexicans and the rest of the nation, save for the Army and the high-tech/pharma/content industry sector, sells each other houses, coffee, Chinese t-shirts...looking around, it is very clear that your prosperity is very temporary and, as Schiff says, built on borrowed mony. The pay back time will eventually be upon you.
"I don't think the boomers are going to sell and I don't think they are going to retire at 62 either."
My boss hit the rule of 85 and retired in his mid 50s. Now I'm the boss. Its not a bad thing.
Frankly, we don't find shuffleboard interesting, and most of us can't afford to retire anyway.
Yeah, those of us in your massive, garbage filled-wake are looking forward to having you around for quite a while more.
Just be sure to stay in large, empty-nest houses in good school districts and to plug along in the senior positions in firms as long as possible. It'd be awful if your kid's generation got near as good a shot at things as y'all.
kthxbai,
prat
Visitor...I tend to agree...although much of Europe may be calling the kettle black if they criticize us.
Lawyer Liz...if you're refereing to my comments on boomers selling...I was refering to the stocks they have been buying to retire on over the last 20-30 years. Not their houses. The main point was when they were buying, their parents weren't simultaneously selling. Thus there was an imbalance of buyers v.s. sellers. This is changing. Poor stock performance currently will only accelerate the selling and slow down the buying. We can't grow stock market participation much past what it is.
Like everything else..the early gains are the easiest..Microsoft could double in size in months when it was a young company...now 10% growth for such a large company is tough. Same goes for stock buyers. New plans, with increased contributions meant lots of money pouring into the market...with very little leaving. Now...not so much.
Oh, stocks, not houses. Ok
praetorian | 07.06.08 - 12:13 am |
Nothing can change for the good on this continent until the boomers are all dead and buried. They were given the best of everything, on a silver platter. They destroyed it all with their sense of entitlement, greed, and selfishness. $%@#ing waste of space, all of them. Good riddance.
Lawyerliz, I don't understand the "Boomers are going to sell soon" idea either. Most people don't downsize until they are in their 70s or even 80s.
The oldest boomers are only 63 or so - and that is just the leading edge. The middle age of boomers is 54 or so - and those people are 15 to 20 years from downsizing.
Best Wishes.
Nothing can change for the good on this continent until the boomers are all dead and buried.
lol...really? your entire way of life and everything you know was brought to you by boomers. financial engineering was brought to you by the generation after that. and, in fact, i'd be willing to bet that most of the financial problems you see are not amongst the boomers, but the generation after. And I am not a boomer.
what, you think the spoiled generations that are suffering from real entitlement are better? obviously you are not involved in eduation, or you'd be singing a different tune about the generations.
My massive garbage filled wake?
You don't produce garbage maybe?
You recycle everything?
There is nobody to fill my hub's job at the moment. It's a big worry. Maybe because later generations went to get MBAs instead of Ph Ds in the hard sciences
Can you do advanced math? Do you know about weather?
We should step aside just because you want our jobs? I don't think so.
Life is hard. Even when it's easy, it's hard. We boomers had to fight all the way agaist all the other members of our cohort.
And we didn't chose to be part of such a big cohort, our parents chose for us.
By the way, the hub is not a boomer; he was born in 43, and 46 is the cut off.
One more thing and I'm through.
You will hear people saying that now is the worst time to get out of stocks.
Amatures sell at the bottom.
Ask any fiancial expert when in the last say 15 years would have been the WORST time to sell and move to cash/treasuries.....they will no doubt say the WORST would have been to sell at the very low of the 1998 LTCM debacle when the S&P500 dropped to 959 on Oct 8, 1998.
That was nearly 10 years ago.
Well, if you moved ALL IN at the very bottom and stayed long the S&P on that very day...you'd have a huge average annual return of 4.6% AFTER DIVIDENDS! You could got a 1% better return buying a 10 year Treasury.
I doubt any of the so called stock experts even know this....ask them.
So if you paniced and sold and stayed cash all this time....at the absolute WORST time....you did better than someone who stayed long stocks over the last decade....
(again...stock buyers did even worse if you figure in dollar-cost-averaging over the last decade.)
Question everything you hear from the experts.
CR's videos should be teaching you that.
One more thing and I'm through.
You will hear people saying that now is the worst time to get out of stocks.
Amatures sell at the bottom.
Ask any fiancial expert when in the last say 15 years would have been the WORST time to sell and move to cash/treasuries.....they will no doubt say the WORST would have been to sell at the very low of the 1998 LTCM debacle when the S&P500 dropped to 959 on Oct 8, 1998.
That was nearly 10 years ago.
Well, if you moved ALL IN at the very bottom and stayed long the S&P on that very day...you'd have a huge average annual return of 4.6% AFTER DIVIDENDS! You could got a 1% better return buying a 10 year Treasury.
I doubt any of the so called stock experts even know this....ask them.
So if you paniced and sold and stayed cash all this time....at the absolute WORST time....you did better than someone who stayed long stocks over the last decade....
(again...stock buyers did even worse if you figure in dollar-cost-averaging over the last decade.)
Question everything you hear from the experts.
CR's videos should be teaching you that.
Anybody know the whereabouts of the cokeheads in the second video?
liz my parents are 70 and 71. i wish they would downsize...they live in a three story house that was built in 1770. they will die in that house, and who am I to argue?
Also i don't get the whole investment thing either. they will not touch the principal at all in their lives. and trust me they are not uber-wealthy at all. they just did it right and now can live comfortably. their friends are all the same.
all these predictions are reading tea-leaves.
liz my parents are 70 and 71. i wish they would downsize...they live in a three story house that was built in 1770. they will die in that house, and who am I to argue?
Also i don't get the whole investment thing either. they will not touch the principal at all in their lives. and trust me they are not uber-wealthy at all. they just did it right and now can live comfortably. their friends are all the same.
all these predictions are reading tea-leaves.
good lord, what's up with haloscan? posted twice. this thing is the bane of blogdom!
Ok, one more jab, in the early 90s I taught the beginning real estate course to prospective real estate salepersons and also wannabe paralegal (natural enemies, the realtors all just want to make a sale, the paralegals know some stuff and want to do a good job).
Anyhoo, you could see a clear break between the people who were then over 40 and under 40. Not in ability or native intelligence, but in the ability to read and write and reason. (The younger ones were the ones who couldn't.) There was one who was in her early 20s who could read and write and reason. I asked her, you weren't educated here, were you? She said no. She was a native Jamaican, and was educated in Jamaica. She was black. (Actually, she was a lovely shade of gold.)
CR, good read on energy and GDP.
Avg joe -
You are so wrong. Run the numbers for someone that started with a consistent contribution (DRIP system) of $200 dollars a month from 82 to 92 and $400 a month from 93 to 08 in a multitude of funds (you must diversify) like most are counseled to do. Put the numbers right next to what happened in REALITY. Then adjust for monetary inflation, tax increase/decreases and price inflation/deflation. Lets see if this poor guy can retire on this promise.
The funds mentioned in almost every retirement plan just also happen to be pretty heavily weighted in favor of the financials. Of course they did well why they fraudulently misled millions of investors with mark to model over the last 20 or so years. Analyze the funds that were weighted in Tech and the promises of the dot com.
Then we can run the numbers against the rest of the indexes. Like say the S & P 500 for the last 10 years? GIANT LOSER! How about the NASDAQ or the big pot of other funds you can pick and get "unlucky" with. I don't give a crap about DCA, I think its a way to game j6p into thinking he is going to retire with a million bucks with virtually no work, research or care.
DCA works macro-ly speaking, in that its very hard to argue with averages. Problem is most people start very small and and blips to the downside hurt, and hurt bad in the beginning. I posit that unless you are consistently buying shares below the moving average; DCA is fundamentally flawed when things turn south for any length of time. Compounding interest really works when the numbers get big enough to actually make a difference, compounding interest in reverse does the same thing.
Must go to bed now.
C with popcorn, why the boomer hatred?
"your entire way of life and everything you know was brought to you by boomers"
nonsense
"financial engineering was brought to you by the generation after that"
bullshit and double bullshit
"i'd be willing to bet that most of the financial problems you see are not amongst the boomers, but the generation after"
that's rather a strange statement but don't worry, everyone will suffer from the effects of the boomers in one way or the other for many years to come.
"obviously you are not involved in eduation, or you'd be singing a different tune about the generations"
and they make such good parents and role models too.
From OldSkool favorite Peter Schiff clip, out of the mouths of idiotic TV hacks:
Production is the low end of the totem pole
We're the engine of inovation.
That's inovative productive consumptive debt on a massive scale.
perhaps that just true of you french canadians avec popcor
schiff is such a breath of fresh air. i wish he would get off of fox and get on cnbc and argue with liesman. that would be worth the price of admission.
1943 are war babies...big difference in upbringing. They can remember a time before TV was in every house. My Dad, born in '40, remembers his Mom using ration cards during WW 2.
These CNBC interviews where they pit 1 bear against 2 or 3 uber-bull imbeciles for the express pupose to try and make the bear look like a lunatic are hysterical.
I would like to see all the panelists - Westbury, Kneale, Luskin... the lot - and bring Shilling, Roubini & Schiff back to play re-runs from '07. THAT would be a show to watch. Then compare performance. I think the bulls have seen their accounts pounded by 30+% by now and might be good & ready to throw the real nut jobs under the bus.
Massive wealth destruction over the past year by listening to the bullturds.
It's great in times of uncertainty...
Which basically covers the foreseeable future. Got glod?
Ok, Average Joe, I appreciate your pov. What do you recommend instead?
Schiff is great, but as long as the masses follow these other idiots, the longer I can make money in put options.
stereotyping an entire generation (or 50 million +/- people) is so accurate and positive minded... a good strategy for winning whatever ethical argument one pretends to represent.
People are really drawn to, and swayed by, hatred and negativity.
speaking of baby boomers. now this age group is retiring to what they think is their well deserved piece of the american pie. the only problem is that their retirement savings is disappearing. i believe it was always meant to be that way. is it such a stretch to think that all of our tax laws came about so that the baby boomers would stick their retirement funds in some tax authorized accounts so that when the time came, the thieves would have access to it. if they had all put their funds in physical silver and gold, it would have been much different. that is why physical gold and silver are always put on ignore. the establishment does not want you to have it. once you do, you are in control of your finances and not them. if gold was so bad, why is it the people in control love it so much? in my honest opinion, the money in the baby boomer retirement accounts has already been stolen and they just haven't told them yet. what we are about to see, shall be one of the most difficult times in the history of this nation and this is just around the corner. it could start in ernest, in a few days or a few weeks. friends, the big game is over. now it is time to pay up. we have been lied to and this lie we call freedom is not what we were told it was. but go tell it to the beer swilling, flag waving , war loving sheeple.......they don't hear you. perhaps they never will...and bush was talking of jefferson this weekend. God help us....
Um, Michael, you say to Avg Joe that he is so wrong? You're both arguing the exact same thing. Read him again.
Jefferson didn't enter his golden years very comfortably, either. Didn't he have to sell his library because of debt? Would've rather been in John Adams' shoes myself.
A Joe,
Re: "I don't get this...it makes no sense to me."
What I mean there @ 11:46, is that IMHO, Boomers will still need to hold on to some mutual fund, or stocks or bonds positions in an attempt to generate cash flow -- however, they will do so in a liquidity trap, where they will experience negative returns, as they seek safety. This is happening today essentially and I agree with part of what you say in your opening remarks regarding limited returns.
Where we may disagree or not be clear, is that the old adage that wall street is a crooked game -- but that it is the only game in town, is a conundrum which is difficult to escape, i.e, for all the un-regulated corruption and systemic failures and the impending 3000 crash which may be unfolding, in time, where else will people go to invest?
I have told my young daughter who is almost 20, that her generation will be trading much faster and probably not even buy stocks, because stocks are vehicles for dilution and people want faster rewards these days. Who is willing to bet on Wachovia and then have to wait 8 years for a reward, while inflation kills you?
Ok, why oh, why is everybody thinking the boomers are going to all sell their houses next week/year?
Maybe not all of them and not necessarily next week/year, but they'll be a lot of them selling nonetheless.
Everything is conspiring against retirees. Pensions cut, health benefits going bye-bye, skyrocketing healthcare costs, etc. Meanwhile, stocks will be tanking, bonds will be defaulting, and the last bastion of retirement financial security -- home equity -- will be quickly evaporating.
They'll (at least try to) get out with whatever retirement cash they can salvage.
et al:
Name one positive contribution to society that boomers have made.
un autre canadien avec popcorn - Bill Nye the Science Guy is a boomer, isn't he?
I'm not sure if it has actually been determined what Bill Nye is.
"Name one positive contribution to society that boomers have made."
I'll name two. Cocoa Puffs and suitcase nukes.
And Microsoft Vista.
I found this:
The Baby Boomers Creed Visual Poetry - Spinning Top On Table
...We are baby boomers, we are
We are the generation most creative and diverse, by far
Brand new paths, we have set, all ablaze
And, we have transformed each and every, life phase
In elementary school we learned from Dick, Jane, Sally, Spot and Puff
We entertained ourselves, we played rough and sometimes fell on our duff
Hide-n-seek, ring around the roses, red light, green light, sling shots and blind man's bluff
And, toy makers provided us with a whole lotta, stuff
The slinky, yo-yos, hula-hoops, spinnin'- spinning tops, marbles and jacks were way off, the cuff...
An excerpt from The Baby Boomers Creed
Copyright 2004, 2005, 2006 by Deborah Young
A poem honoring Baby Boomers contributions to society
... end quote
I'm beginning to think you might have a point, un autre. I think I feel sick.
hi mp, how is conjure's bag
I read something about boomers being less of a factor.. be right back
Thank you, Conjure is doing well.
"...where else will people go to invest?"
You could cite as many failures as successes, but inv alternatives exist in one's own business (or businesses one understands) as well as in the education of your young.
BTW, as a mid-bulge boomer, I just accepted that my savings were going to be debased or diluted or looted in one way or another. Pissed me off, yes, but just caused me to save more, like the goyishekopf I am.
But being pissed off did prompt the presence of mind to move to alternatives like PM's, rural RE abroad, and foreign currencies, thanks largely to advice from people like Schiff.
Still the questions and insecurities remain. The fed reserve, financial industry, tax code tinkerers, vendor financiers (Gulf/China), media mogul Madison Ave pumpers, as well as that bonehead next door have, wittingly or not, conspired against the saver. Seems you've got to be ever more exotic and creative just to maintain a store of value. Getting thrashed is OK by me if that's the game we're in, but I've got my countermeasures. And I'll be damned if they involve borrowing money.
See thrashing as a sailing term!
Come on guys. Just one example of anything that is on the positive side of the karmic scale, that as a generation, boomers can take credit for. That's all I'm looking for. Please.....
WHAT AHRTIFICIAL LENDING STANDAHDS ARE YOU TALKING AHHBOUT? YOUR CLAIMS, SIR, ARE FRANKLY BODACIOUS!
FFDIC writes: The FDIC may be calling in a very BIG pizza order next Friday.
IndyMac? Bank(rupt) United? WaMu? So many choices...how do you pick just one?
"Just one example of anything that is on the positive side of the karmic scale..."
Sta-Pufft Marshmallows.
OldSkool writes:
This is my favorite Peter Schiff clip. At about the 5 minute mark, it get's good--especially when Don Luskin opens his idiotic mouth.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=jZFmtvXPER8
Jobs went negative July 07, Schiff's pretty much nailed it a year ago.
As for boomers pulling out of the market, the smart ones would cash in 2% of equity assets every day until they're out.
Slow Saturday nite, going back to reading about the Depression.
Taxes, where do you invest and not get burned up with taxes? You have so much risk on wall street, and of course a huge driver with the housing bubble was to become your own CEO and run the show yourself, versus letting someone screw yah....oh well, that didn't work for a lot of people, now what?
mp: Sta-Pufft Marshmallows.
Hahaha. The gig is up. I was recently strolling through the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia. There on the shelves, staring me down, was the embodiment of boomer over-confidence and ignorance. A sincere book celebrating the achievements of the factory processed food industry. Anybody who is not too busy golfing to pick up Michael Pollan's latest book, In Defense of Food, would already understand that the process of nutritionism and processed food has been silently killing us. While it was no surprise to me personally, because I have seen old commercials featuring Raid Home and Garden spray, it was a gentle reminder out how our ageing society has not been able to keep pace with the advancement of our understanding. From a purely logical perspective, it makes sense considering the degradation in neuroplasticity with age, but it is still hard to accept because of our long training of correlating age with wisdom. Experience and mental youth are a fine line, but, in Philadelphia, I was definitely confronted with wisdom past it's expiration date. And that, Sir, is what I have to say about Stay-Puft Marshmallows.
Here's an answer to the proverbial What have baby boomers accomplished?
Boomers have made mighty contributions
Regarding the discussion about boomers extracting retirement funds from the market, thus bringing downward pressure on stock prices...
Without trying to come to a conclusion (at this hour that's probably wise) I offer the following as a starting point.
There are many "Target" funds for those planning to retire at a certain date. I'm familiar with Fidelity's Freedom funds that are available for retirement at 5-year intervals from 2000 to 2050. Every six months the portfolio balance changes to be a bit more conservative.
For example, currently the 2050 fund is 89% in equities, the 2025 is 70% and the 2000 is 25%. If the typical investor followed this formula then each year would see a small, but growing, equity divestiture. In a closed universe that is made up of only investors who were saving for their retirement this would be countered by younger investors bringing money into funds with later target dates, and therefore a higher percentage in equities.
The question is, what is the imbalance of these two forces and in which direction?
Intervention will not stop dollar's slide
By Peter Schiff
Asia Times Online :: Asian news and current affairs
In fact, the United States holds just about 1% of the world's $7.6 trillion of foreign currency reserves, and our total position amounts to just 2.5% of the total daily volume of foreign exchange trading.
Talk about Bambi versus Godzilla! In other words, if the dollar is going to fall, the Treasury is completely powerless to do anything to stop it.
Dear Dr. Strangemoney:
To you, sir, I have only one thing to say:
Wonder Bread
So, there.
Wonder Bread
...with Miracle Whip.
is Wonder Bread the one that shellacs your colon with a diamond hard glaze?
shellacs your colon
that's where the Miracle Whip comes in to its own.
sweeeeet....
"is Wonder Bread the one that shellacs your colon with a diamond hard glaze?"
Wonder Bread is melt-in-your-mouth goodness, and contains a heaping helping of Polysorbate 80 to keep it fresh. In fact, Conjure says that Wonder Bread is the perfect foundation for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Conjure adds that he can leave a half-finished Wonder Sandwich in his desk drawer for weeks at a time, and return to find it as fresh as the day he made it.
That Conjure fella sounds like he's got his head screwed on just right.
CR,
it seems you have something against Roubini... it is not true that he only goes live when the market is down... He has been very active, even on the few days the market has been going up...btw...it would be difficult for him to time the market, as it seems the market has been going down every week...
I might add that your Wonder Bread and Miracle Whip sandwich can be enjoyed with a can of light beer in front of a bigscreen TV. You sniveling X, Y, and Z'ers never came up with a combination like that. Dammit.
So the stock market's going to hell because all the boomers are or will bail?
I've never been heavily in stocks but a couple of weeks ago I put a significant-but-not-crucial amount of cash in a bear fund, and it's up eight percent. Who thinks I should double down?
what the hell is light beer?
Bear fund, OK. "Double down?" No.
OldSkool writes:
This is my favorite Peter Schiff clip.
Great clip thanks. I like it not so much as what shiff was saying but his boneheaded opponents..LOL.
One thing for certain, this generation is not going to be hurt that much but the kids will be growing up in a whole new world.
Conjure and I, for what it's worth, are now 100% cash, awaiting developments.
100% cash
Plain vanilla FRN's or rocky road?
"Conjure and I, for what it's worth, are now 100% cash, awaiting developments."
What is the development is a really expensive Euro?
mp writes:
Conjure and I, for what it's worth, are now 100% cash, awaiting developments.
If it's in USD, you're throwing it away, albeit not as fast as you would if you're in equities
Conjure, as you may or may not be aware, is partial to the euro.
It'd be nice if we had more bears out there who also didn't have nutty gold-standard political views. One reason I am a fan of CR, Krugman, and Herb Greenberg.
Of course, the difference is the gold bugs are generally permabears with 1000lb pallets of freeze-dried food buried in their back yards, and are right these days more the style of a stopped clock.
The long term fundamentals of both the US and world economy are still strong. We just have a huge amount of speculative excess to work off before hitting bottom.
what the hell is light beer?
You're not old enough to know.
un autre canadien avec popcorn writes:
Come on guys. Just one example of anything that is on the positive side of the karmic scale, that as a generation, boomers can take credit for. That's all I'm looking for. Please.....
un autre canadien avec popcorn | 07.06.08 - 1:26 am | #
Exploration into outer space and increasing the knowledge of the physical universe. on earth and beyond.
The scientific knowledge base of theory and hypothesis has expanded greatly over the last few decades.
Get over yourself and your popcorn.
Greg Weston writes:
The long term fundamentals of both the US and world economy are still strong
Define long term?
MLM | Homepage | 07.06.08 - 2:23 am
is this something you've been told to do?
It may come as a surprise to many, but Conjure and I have never tried so-called "light" beer because it sounds so awful.
We prefer German beer, which we do buy by the pallet because we will not tolerate supply disruptions.
Stocks should continue going down. But, I've just been reading Setser and these huge global dollar caches have to go somewhere. Bonds evaporate in the sun - might as well buy stocks which are at least somewhat tangible. I think equities will stay unnaturally levitated for some time thanks to Asia and the Middle East.
"I think equities will stay unnaturally levitated for some time thanks to Asia and the Middle East."
That could change in a millisecond. There is no law saying you must have a position 100% of the time.
Exploration into outer space and increasing the knowledge of the physical universe. on earth and beyond.
The scientific knowledge base of theory and hypothesis has expanded greatly over the last few decades.
Have you been drinking. There has never been less money for pure research than the last few decades.
checker writes:
I think equities will stay unnaturally levitated for some time thanks to Asia and the Middle East.
Are you talking about their growth(Asia and the Middle East.)?
The only way equities(and i take it you mean US equities) will remain levitated is if these economies crash(their equity markets have already done so). Money would then flow back to US equities, and not before.
"It may come as a surprise to many, but Conjure and I have never tried so-called "light" beer because it sounds so awful."
well I have and you're right, it is awful.
Sometimes though when I drink beer I feel light.
un autre canadien avec popcorn writes:
Exploration into outer space and increasing the knowledge of the physical universe. on earth and beyond.
The scientific knowledge base of theory and hypothesis has expanded greatly over the last few decades.
Have you been drinking. There has never been less money for pure research than the last few decades.
un autre canadien avec popcorn | 07.06.08 - 2:36 am | #
Why yes I have! However, your rebuttal was quite juvenile. Money doesn't necessarily equal quality of research. You also don't reference your claim of reduced money.
Let's see, last 40 years have seen men on the moon, multiple rovers on Mars, the Hubble telescope, multitudes of satelites for better communications, comet and meteor tracking...etc, etc, etc.
You asked for ONE item and I gave it to you.
Yet you are too large of a troll to accept it.
The current bubble now is not in commodities but in bonds.
"now what"? I'll tell what interests me. I live in a big old house with a huge attic and a bit of land... 3000sf of tall attic and basement space, 4sf per plant, 1.5oz per plant, four crops per year, $100/oz..... You do the math. Throw in a huge fudge factor, plus the diesel costs for the genset in the buried connex box in the backyard. You're still in for a pretty healthy ROI. If things go tits up you can always move to NZ (if you can do that).
No, I'm not really planning this scheme. Flight does not appeal to me. But it would be easy.
Bob Mologna writes:
If things go tits up you can always move to NZ.
The economy there isn't much better and the talk of the town is that the sheep while previously content in living a sheared life are now planning to revolt.
Setser estimates that with oil at $140, the Middle East central banks and sovereign wealth funds will gain $400B just in 2008. This is a huge jump - in 2003 the region's total GDP was $400B. I think enough of this will go into equities to partially counterbalance the bears and the desperate ones cashing out their 401(k)s. Boomers won't sell that many stocks going into retirement - they'll try and live off the dividends on the assumption that they'll live to 100 and have to preserve (nominal)capital.
"I live in a big old house with a huge attic ..."
BWAHAHAHA!
That would last until the next infrared survey and the authorities asked you to explain your lack of an electricity bill.
"Let's see, last 40 years have seen men on the moon, multiple rovers on Mars, the Hubble telescope, multitudes of satelites for better communications, comet and meteor tracking...etc, etc, etc."
It wasn't boomers that put a man on the moon. Even the oldest of them were just kids at the time.It was Werner Von Braun and the previous wartime generation that accomplished that.
The same generation put a human driven rover on the moon, first try. Autonomous Mars rovers, decades later, after at least one failed attempt, not so much. Just a little increment.
The Hubble telescope had a warped mirror installed when first sent up and didn't work properly for the longest time.
Multitudes of satellites etc.. How many of those satellites are there to guide the bombs down on the innocents' heads. How many of them deprive you of your freedoms by spying on you in high definition evey day? How many of them there just to make a buck? That's a real accomplishment. Good karma that.
"I think enough of this will go into equities to partially counterbalance the bears..."
How would one go about defining the waypoints of such a complicated strategy?
Bob Mologna | 07.06.08 - 2:48 am |
You're forgetting the scrubbers for the smell, the hydroponics, the reno's to the house after a few rotations when the black mold has spread, the payoffs for protection to/from the local baddies, the medical bills for the ulcer etc..
93% cash (because of this blog), since mid 2007. Thanks, CR! Super hat tip to you.
mp writes: "That would last until the next infrared survey and the authorities asked you to explain your lack of an electricity bill."
Possibly, I do live in an industrially zoned area. So even if I used power from the utility (3 phase) it probably wouldn't raise a red flag. Not planning any gardens though... Felony flight, statute of limitations... these are not issues I want to think about again. Let us see how bad things get again.
un autre canadien avec popcorn
Well ... um ... your parents had you.
Without them you'd ... hmmm, let's see ... you'd ... ah, not be posting here.
My parents are prewar age. My Grandmother is 97 and tells stories of the zeppelins over London during WW1. When she's sentient that is. I'm perhaps older than you think.
Been taking some of my maturing eurobonds and rolling them over into Swissie paper.
If it's as bad as I think it's gonna be swissie could have a huuge run up, much higher than the euro can go from here(then again I've been long euro since I could buy a glass of kolsch for a dollar.)
I've slowly been liquidating my Citi short and buying munis on the price spikes.
For a laugh:The losses are having a severe effect on a handful of players, but in the overall scheme I don't see how it matters much.
There's considerable speculation (here and elsewhere) that this is going to somehow "snowball" into a much larger problem, but the conditions simply aren't there for that to happen.
Sebastian
Sebastian | 06.23.07 - 11:59 am
I think Sebastian is the most heavily-quoted commenter on this blog.
He's made a little niche for himself here. He must smile a bit to himself once in a while when he thinks about it.
Another trip in the wayback machine
Here's a partial watchlist of small-caps from which I will choose a portfolio.
ANAD
ANET
APOG
B
CY
ECLP
ELP
GGB
GSOL
HLIT
ICOC
ICON
IFOX
MALL
Apologies to the thread-topic police.
S.
Sebastian | 08.09.07 - 12:55 pm
ANAD -42%
ANET CAN'T FIND QUOTE
APOG -42%
B -30%
CY -13%
ECLP -22%
ELP +27%
GGB +75%
GSOL -17%
HLIT +9%
ICOC -27%
ICON -47%
IFOX CAN'T FIND QUOTE
MALL +4%
The two big gainers are foreign companies listed in the US, so the 11% drop in the dollar index is a big help there.
Hoocoodanode?
What, no NEW? Oh, that's right, it had already BK'd.
I'm surprised SBUX isn't also on the list.
Autre,
You should look into that persecution complex. It's going to make problems for you if you can't put it to rest.
Lots of people like to get their news from videos but I don't. I can read and I prefer to READ my information. I suspect people who like videos can't read very well and can only LISTEN. If I want to listen to something I go to my TV set. I prefer to read at my computer.
BB
Stay away from my sheep!NZ men have many lady friends. SHhhh it business time.
Baaaaaaaaa.
un autre canadien avec popcorn,
Baby boomers greatest achievement is that their childern will be the first generation in history to be poorer than their parents (boomers)!
Canadian,
A better question might be what could the boomers have accomplished if they had not been screwed from 1968 on by the reactionaries of the previous generation: J Edgar Hoover, Nixon and Agnew, Reagan and his minions, Bush I, Greenspan, etc.
There was a lot of promise in the 1960's and '70's. It was crushed and co-opted. Look at what happened to the Diggers, the Black Panthers, Lennon/Yoko and anyone else who tried to take on "the system."
Many, many, of us boomers kept our integrity and have continued to work for the betterment of humankind. I have no respect for those who went over to the dark side because it was safer and paid better. But I also recognize that the reactionary counter-revolution backlash that took place was a powerful one.
Another problem with these videos is that most of the people are idiots and you have to listen to them ranting and raving while the one guy with some sense is drowned out. That is why I don't watch any of these shows, ever. I guess some people think four people talking over each other is amusing, but this is simply evidence of the abysmal decline in US intelligence. People no longer care about the content of what is said, they merely want to listen to people shouting each other down. That for most Americans is a "good discussion."
jim
I have learnt more from the Simpsons.
And I learned from Balzac.
jimi hendrix, an early boomer.
un autre canadien avec popcorn writes:
Come on guys. Just one example of anything that is on the positive side of the karmic scale, that as a generation, boomers can take credit for. That's all I'm looking for. Please.....
Tough do to. Everything I've come up with is an individual's accomplishment, not the generation's. Personal computers, Hard Rock music, 'The Simpsons', Then again, what the hell has any other generation done? Don't give me any of that Greatest Generation crap either, read the complaints of the 60's; fear of the A-bomb, environmental damage, the continuation of racism. Yep, we were on the Eve of Destruction.
YouTube -
The phrase carpe diem doesn't mean complain all day. a C avec p sounds like he could have been lifted right out of Portnoy's Complaint. It will definitely be a worker's paradise when all the boomers are gone.
So other than airing perceived grievances, how does this make life better for anyone? What the hell are the complainers doing to alleviate their oppression? Oooops, I mean the complainer's generation, of course.
I have a boomer contribution.
They have ,in quite a spectacular fashion, shown us the error of their ways. So that we can try to do better. Compare that to what they most certainly have been compared to all their life - The greatest generation. No wonder they invented the lifelong teen.
oh God, this is so funny. The second video is priceless. I love how the only response to Schiff by the housing bulls, at the end, is righteous indignation and snide laughter. I guess that tactic must work on the political shows, but for investing or trading??? This is real money we're talking about! Having a closed mind to opposing points of view, hell, being unable even to listen to a rational, well-reasoned argument without being childish--well, it's no wonder they're on the Fox "Business" Channel.
What's obnoxious to me is they are basically manipulating people who don't know any better. I mean, who actually watches the Fox "Business" Channel, anyway? Or even CNBC, besides Squawk Box? Isn't everyone busy working?
leFou, yes.
Each generation takes a look at what did and didn't work. Each of us joins a 'work in progress' in our youth.
And only a part of my generation - and of yours - sets out to make something of what is, after all, a fairly brief tour in life.
Its not just CNBC that drags out the bears only when the market is going down, its all of the financial new channels.
Those still long on equities and the USD, here's what you need to seek:-
YouTube -
On 2nd video, at 3min,55sec they were laughing at Peter.
Well, perhaps, but Id say they were really laughing at the idiots who consume this media garbage. The purpose of these shows is pretty obvious -- and its certainly not to inform. Nor is it to make money. The obvious raison detre of the corporate media (both business and political) is to manipulate public opinion to the advantage of the medias owners /sponsors.
This fact is so obvious that it drives me crazy when people think that if they just point out the errors, the media will take note and correct itself. No. The pay scale of the producers of these shows is not determined by accuracy or how much they enrich the body politic. No, they get paid for how well they push public opinion towards a neo-liberal pro-business point of view. Now, to be clear its not as if the media owners /sponsors actually believe all this rhetoric about the power free markets -- far from it. No, the important thing is that the producers of these shows want to place themselves in a position to determine towards whom market discipline will be dispensed while at the same time coddling and shielding themselves from the angry wrath of the free market.
Now if they have to bring a bear on from time to time to keep ratings numbers up then so be it. The important thing is to maintain their aura of authority and keep the losers watching so their opinions can be crystallized into the proper shape.
Market discipline for the masses who imbibe this rubbish; socialism and a safe haven from the mercurial tempers of the invisible hand for those who spawn these shows.
I have better things to do with my time.
140th!!
Baby boomers greatest achievement is that their childern will be the first generation in history to be poorer than their parents (boomers)!
Nah. Already happened. Read Elizabeth Warren, or watch the video of her Berkeley lecture. The idea of boomers or anyone else spending on bling is a media creation. The average family in 2005, compared to 1970 had used up all the extra income of a second adult worker (wives), all the 10% of income they used to save, and an additional 10% or so of debt and was still falling behind. What were they spending on? 'Frills' like health care, house payments, child care, and college educations for their children. All the discretionary categories-- clothes, appliances, vacations, fancy cars were down, in real terms, from 1970.
The complaints about the boomers always amuse me. Reminds me of certain a-holes of 35 years ago who couldn't open their mouths without disparaging their parents' generation. I imagine them as the object of similar ire from their own grown children now. And of course in another 10 or 15 years the echo-boomers are going to start dishing it out to the current generation of complainers.
What will baby boomers be remembered for? Just as the current generation has forgotten about the A-bomb, the Vietnam War, the corporate yes-man, hogging all the good jobs and other things which the idiots among my generation complained of being stuck with, I suspect when we reach true old age (* varies, but begins somewhere around 75-80 for most people with decent health) we will have been transformed into the bringers of Civil Rights, Women's Rights, the Computer Age, nano technology -- in short, everything good and decent in the society as it will be then will be laid at our feet.
Both views are, of course, nonsense. Each person in each generation is stuck with the world they're given. Part of growing up is realizing both the possibilities and the limitations of life... And that you only reduce your own possibilities by imagining that your parents' power to reshape their world was ever greater than your own.
Sell Italian bonds. Italian public debt has reached a record high at 1646,7 billion euros.It is worse than 1992 when the country went very near to declare default(insolvency)
Well, if you moved ALL IN at the very bottom and stayed long the S&P on that very day...you'd have a huge average annual return of 4.6% AFTER DIVIDENDS! You could got a 1% better return buying a 10 year Treasury.
I find this stuff interesting, but where can one find total dividends paid in a given year by SP500? Just to make trouble: you should take into account tax advantage on long-term gains.
It may be worth thinking about 401 the other way: decades of captive audience for stocks has artificially inflated their prices. What's going on from her out is the endgame.
Great Post. I tried to find Mike Norman's email (he is laughing at Peter Schiff) so that I could send him this along with some of my comments, but couldn't. Looks like a lot of other people had the same idea and it got taken off.
Peter:Most of the profits that people have in Real Estate are going to vanish just like the profits in the dot com...
All other guests:(lots of laughter occurs at this point)
This video is unreal.
I still think the 2000/2001 recession never ended. Everyone was getting high off real estate instead of looking at reality.
un autre canadien avec popcorn writes:
"Come on guys. Just one example of anything that is on the positive side of the karmic scale, that as a generation, boomers can take credit for. That's all I'm looking for. Please....."
Er, here's three:
Billy Hill
"It may be worth thinking about 401 the other way: decades of captive audience for stocks has artificially inflated their prices. What's going on from her out is the endgame".
VERY interesting: Please explain more fully your thoughts on this.
Thanks.
Swiss watchdog wants UBS, Credit Suisse to set aside more capital
Error page - Yahoo! News
GENEVA (AFP) - Swiss banks UBS and Credit Suisse need to set aside 70 billion Swiss francs (43.5 billion euros, 68.3 billion dollars) more in capital as Switzerland's banking watchdog moves to prevent a repeat of the subprime crisis, a Swiss newspaper reported Sunday.
Well, things seem to be accelerating.
Well, avec, CR and Tanta are almost certainly boomers, so how about that?
You would have this blog to kvetch on
if they were not around.
And, you're older than we think? Are you a boomer yourself????
We didn't get a tv until I was 2; my hub was older. We didn't have much of a tv when my daughter was born in 69, went to the aunt's to watch star trek on her color tv. We totally got rid of the tv until my son was 3.
We really think tv is iminical to very young children.
I doubt that many in the following generation took the step of actually getting rid of the tv until the kids were out of diapers.
You never answered my questions. You don't produce garbage? you recycle everything?
Probably because the answers are that you do and you don't.
I can't answer your questions, because I don't keep exact track of how old someone was when they did the good thing that they did. It doesn't matter too much to me.
Maybe Canadian people of the requistite age were uniquely obnoxious? I doubt it, but unlike you I admit I don't know enough Canadians to say. I was told, some years ago, while on a train, by a French Canadien, that they were punished in school for speaking French, and were otherwise demonized.
Did this happen to you and are you bitter as a result?
I also hold up to you the brave young people who followed Martin Luther King in his mightly efforts. . . and the latest bunch of young people critized by Cosby among others (Obama too) for not taking full advantage of the openings resulting from these efforts.
I watch CNBC fairly often (background noise), and in the end I was surprised that they paired Brian Westbury with Peter Schiff. (I watched this live)
Westbury is a pretty smart guy IMO. He has made some mistakes. HOWEVER, he has been against the Fed Rate drops from nearly the beginning.
we need a lot more of Brian Westbury's.
I'll bet the problem was that the uber bulls would not come on the show against Schiff, because of what's happened in the psat.
last I listened: Westbury also thinks we're going to have some pain for a while, although he does see an earlier return to prosperity than I see...
just some thoughts...
Billy Hill and Average Joe - do you mean we've reached peak equities?
Billy Hill writes "I find this stuff interesting, but where can one find total dividends paid in a given year by SP500? Just to make trouble... The easiest thing to do would be to wander over to vanguard.com and look at the total return on their S&P500 Index Fund for the period you are intereseted in.
S&P 500 returns pre and after tax
I don't think a day goes by when some
"Expert" guest on CNBC doesn't suggest
buying stocks. They never say sell. And
I just love it when Pisani or some other
commentator there jumps up and down like
an idiot at a small up day on the Dow,
even though it was manipulated.No real
value to the show.
The long term fundamentals of both the US and world economy are still stronggweston
would you care to elaborate on what 'fundies' your talking about, seriously...ie low labor rate, young demographic,cheap transportation?
On The Graham Norton Show last night on the BBC, they were joking about the dollar. Like in:
"It costs THAT much...oh that's DOLLARS."
etc.
Amusing...I think.
Cheers,
This was written January 1, 2007:
DEFLATIONARY WAVES AND COUNTERWAVES (January 1, 2007): The mainstream financial media keep talking about "rising inflation", while Fed officials continue to make comments about "persistently high inflation". However, if one looks at a chart of gold mining shares, or a chart of U.S. Treasury yields, one quickly discovers the truth: on May 11, 2006, the worldwide financial markets began an important deflationary wave which will likely continue for the next several months or longer.
The first assets to be pressured lower by this deflationary wave were the prices of precious metals and their shares. Treasury yields then followed in the second week of July; copper, in the middle of October; U.S. equity indices, in late November and in December; other base metals such as nickel and zinc and tin, probably later this month. Over the next several months, equity indices worldwide will move noticeably lower, as will the prices of artwork, racehorses, and a vast array of overvalued assets. Real estate, the most uniformly overvalued asset of all, began the deflationary cycle in late 2005.
All waves have their corresponding counterwaves. Once the U.S. Federal Reserve and other central banks worldwide realize that this deflationary wave is having serious consequences such as rising unemployment and more rapidly declining real-estate prices than had been anticipated, these folks will begin to aggressively cut interest rates. This will engender a temporary pause to the deflationary impulse, and will create an environment of rebounding assets, especially for precious metals and their shares, as well as for other assets that had generally gone out of favor in the past several years, such as largecap growth shares. This rebound will likely begin around the summer of 2007, and will last perhaps for 1-1/2 years.
However, central bankers can only do so much. They cannot prevent an even more powerful deflationary wave from regaining control in 2009. This deflationary wave will be far more devastating than the current one. It will likely cause a huge worldwide pullback in equities, similar to what was experienced in 2000-2002. Real estate, both precious and base metals, artwork, and virtually all major asset classes will see a significant decline in their respective valuations. Unemployment will surge into double digits in many countries, even possibly in the U.S. The U.S. might experience year-over-year deflation for the first time since 1931.
Once this worldwide asset collapse ends, perhaps in 2011, it will be followed by one of the greatest reflationary periods in world history, as governments worldwide do whatever they can to stimulate the economy, without regard to inflation or rising interest rates. Interest rates will likely double in most countries within a few years, including the U.S. Precious metals and their shares will surge, with gold soaring well above the $1,000 per ounce level.
Baby boomers and other retirement investors are likely to get wiped out twice. As the deflationary waves cause equity indices to collapse, 401K participants will--far too late--move whatever money is left from their collapsed equities into the "safety" of bonds. Just as the maximum number of participants are in bonds, interest rates will then more than double, thus wiping out much of these bond holdings with a few years. After achieving a very deep nadir, equity indices will see their greatest percentage gains in many years, but few people will remain in these investments to benefit from them.
While all of this up-and-down excitement is going on, real-estate prices worldwide are likely to move in only one direction--lower--eventually surrendering all of their gains in nominal terms since 1999. Thus, these deflationary waves and counterwaves will cause a great decrease in global prosperity.
These are my cheerful thoughts for the New Year. Be sure to get out of the stock market in time, so that you will enjoy a prosperous 2007.
I don't think a day goes by when some
"Expert" guest on CNBC doesn't suggest
buying stocks.
I normally don't watch TV, but I got a chance to watch CNBC on Tuesday and I was aghast. They were running a "reasons to rally!" bulletpoint list. WTF? "Because institutional investors need retail suckers to buy them out of their positions"?
I mean, I can understand the way they deal with the fact that they have megabulls only, you just fire them periodically and hire a new megabull for his / her x month rotation. But what happens when you have bankrupted the entire viewerbase?
OPEC president Chakib Khelil warned on Sunday that oil prices will continue to rise because of the falling dollar, in an interview in the Algeria-News.
Business finance news - currency market news - online UK currency markets - financial news - Interactive Investor
Take it from someone the knows.
Anonymous writes:
OPEC president Chakib Khelil warned on Sunday that oil prices will continue to rise because of the falling dollar, in an interview in the Algeria-News.
"I believe that 60 percent of the rise is due to the fall in the exchange rate of the dollar and to geopolitical problems, and 40 percent to the intrusion of bioethanol on the market," he said.
Wonder what he means by the intrusion of bioethanol...?
Q: Should the Fed have done more to stop the housing bubble?
A: No, I don't think so. We all understood that the house price increases could not continue. We did not think through the possibility of a significant price decline and large-scale defaults and foreclosures.
The person who was closest to this was (the late Fed governor) Ned Gramlich. Ned was concerned about abusive lending and the risk to lower-income households. We understood there was abusive lending and practices that were stripping equity out of households. I don't remember the issue ever being raised that it could lead to defaults.
Ex-Fed president: U.S. must fight inflation
Q: Isn't the Fed supposed to be independent?
A: The Fed is independent up to a point. The financial community, the Fed, academics, didn't see the problem brewing
Ex-Fed president: U.S. must fight inflation
LMFAO!!
Didnt see the problems bewing??? Why do we have these fools?
Wonder what he means by the intrusion of bioethanol...?
I doubt that, OPEC learned a very good lesson from the 70's US currency debasement and I doubt the are going to make the little mistake again. One is the US goverment can not be trusted. If there is going to be stagnation and lower living standards this time it will be here not there. 200+ oil and Bio is going to be to little to late.
"...suitcase nukes."
There are no such things. The Russian men of power said so in response to Gen. A. Lebed (remember him?) so many eons ago. They would not lie, would they?
I was born at the beginning of 1939. One begins to see the same human traits and fortunes come round for the third or fourth time.
This human species of ours does best as a generalist species - coyotes versus sabre toothed cats. But because we are so clever we always forget. Now we live by petroleum - boxed in. Eh?
I've never seen Fleck on TV.
crispy,
"Didnt see the problems bewing??? Why do we have these fools?"
Let me take a look...rumage, rumage, rumage...oh yeah, there's the problem. A gov't sanctioned banking cartel.
Cheers,
Why even do interviews? They simply look foolish.
Or maybe he is just being honest - he should have said "I was unable to leave my ivory tower and was unaware of what was going on in the world..."
Can you do advanced math?
I'm an engineer. You're a lawyer. You do the...
Oh, never mind.
Cheers,
prat
"The financial community, the Fed, academics, didn't see the problem brewing."
Did we not see on this board a few months ago some very persuasive analysis that was produced in-house at some IB, showing high likelihood of not only sub-prime, but also IO's blowing up? Produced circa '05?
The report had data sliced and diced down to various regions and demographics, and projected a high level of NPL's.
I'd only like to think lax lending was merely bungling.
"The financial community, the Fed, academics, didn't see the problem brewing."
Did we not see on this board a few months ago some very persuasive analysis that was produced in-house at some IB, showing high likelihood of not only sub-prime, but also IO's blowing up? Produced circa '04 '05?
The report had data sliced and diced down to various regions and demographics, and projected a high level of NPL's.
I'd only like to think lax RE lending was merely a gigantic, systemic bungle.
and they make such good parents and role models too.
Exactly. Judge a generation by it's children.
The boomers threw traditional education standards out the window, and now we have an impossibly ignorant generation of consumer/debtors. They threw traditional morality out the window and we got unspeakably high rates of divorce, teen pregnancy and AIDS. They said never trust anyone over 30, and then voted themselves viagra out of their children's mouths.
They received the benefits of a stable, traditional society when they were young and then, when the bill came due to support it, they decided to reject it in the name of a lazy, selfish freedom.
That trick works for one generation.
Cheers,
prat
Kou Jie,
"I'd only like to think lax RE lending was merely a gigantic, systemic bungle."
Banking systems are designed to rob everyone. Sometimes the banksters get greedy.
Hoocoodanode!
Cheers,
�� The energy optimists led everyone astray.
�� One to three million people now understand Peak Oil.
ms
"In terms of the dollar, the United States believes in a strong dollar policy and believes the strength of our economy will be reflected in the dollar," Bush said when asked what world leaders could do to improve the economy and intervene to boost the dollar.
When pressed on potential intervention, Bush replied, "I just said, the relative strength of our economy will be reflected in currencies."
Bush also pointed to the $152 billion economic stimulus package approved earlier this year as helping the economy and urged the U.S. Congress to approve housing regulation reform and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Outer Continental Shelf to drilling to try to further boost the economy.
Business finance news - currency market news - online UK currency markets - financial news - Interactive Investor
What the numb nut didn't say is that the 152 billion was borrowed money which added to the budget deficit and helped drive the dollar down more. Short Bucky!
"In terms of the dollar, the United States believes in a strong dollar policy and believes the strength of our economy will be reflected in the dollar," Bush said when asked what world leaders could do to improve the economy and intervene to boost the dollar.
When pressed on potential intervention, Bush replied, "I just said, the relative strength of our economy will be reflected in currencies."
Bush also pointed to the $152 billion economic stimulus package approved earlier this year as helping the economy and urged the U.S. Congress to approve housing regulation reform and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Outer Continental Shelf to drilling to try to further boost the economy.
Business finance news - currency market news - online UK currency markets - financial news - Interactive Investor
What the numb nut didn't say is that the 152 billion was borrowed money which added to the budget deficit and helped drive the dollar down more. Short Bucky!
CR-
'The middle age of boomers is 54 or so - and those people are 15 to 20 years from downsizing.'
Or are just 15 to 20 weeks away from being downsized. Or if you prefer, 15 months to 20 months.
Then they get to see how well their various saving strategies worked. Which, considering the American savings rate of the Bush era and the invention of the IRA debit card, should provide a lot of schadenfreude to those so inclined.
The boomers having been living in a consumer's paradise their entire lives. Somehow, I don't think it will play out that way in the U.S. for the next couple of decades.
If any American generation seems less prepared for hard times than the boomers, let us know. After all, we have had two boomer presidents in a row, and between the draft dodger interested in political viability and the apparent no-show boozer/snorter on the flight line, they have left a fine mess for other people to deal with. A real boomer trademark, letting other people handle the problem, that is.
Misean,
"Banking systems are designed to rob everyone. Sometimes the banksters get greedy."
Thanks for the reality check. Now what happened to that super colander headgear you occasionally used to sport? Are you now of the Fed and regulators are merely stupid, bankers merely greedy persuasion?
"In terms of the dollar, the United States believes in a strong dollar policy and believes the strength of our economy will be reflected in the dollar," Bush said when asked what world leaders could do to improve the economy and intervene to boost the dollar.
When pressed on potential intervention, Bush replied, "I just said, the relative strength of our economy will be reflected in currencies."
Bush also pointed to the $152 billion economic stimulus package approved earlier this year as helping the economy and urged the U.S. Congress to approve housing regulation reform and open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Outer Continental Shelf to drilling to try to further boost the economy.
Business finance news - currency market news - online UK currency markets - financial news - Interactive Investor
What the numb nut didn't say was the 152 billion was borrowed money which added to the budget deficit and drove the dollar down more. Short Bucky!
Haloscan seems to be acting up - hope this doesn't double post after another 'internal server error'
'Your entire way of life and everything you know was brought to you by boomers.'
Clinton and Bush are boomer presidents - and boy, I bet that pair makes boomers feel proud, right? Though a lot of other Americans, not boomers, seem deeply, deeply disturbed at what has happened under their watch.
One a president too stupid to bother to tell the truth about a trivial personal failing, the other a man too stupid to realize that saying 'I'm the Decider' is not proof of presidential ability.
As for saying the boomers brought me the world I live in? No they didn't - they inherited it, tended to keep its worst parts going while patting themselves on the back for their self-proclaimed virtues, and now expect others to keep things running for their personal benefit.
Strangely, the boomers are such a failure, that even the prospect of a third boomer president seems enough to ensure that two candidates are running aren't boomers. Consider it a harbinger for the future, as the boomers leave center stage. Or get pushed off, as they continue to insist how important they are to the rest of us.
"Just one example of anything that is on the positive side of the karmic scale, that as a generation, boomers can take credit for."
I am not certain that we as a generation can take credit for it, per se, but if nothing else boomers have managed to elevate it to the fore. I mean, haven't you ever heard of the theory of "intelligent design" ?
"Just one example of anything that is on the positive side of the karmic scale, that as a generation, boomers can take credit for."
I am not certain that we as a generation can take credit for it, per se, but if nothing else boomers have managed to elevate it to the fore. I mean, haven't you ever heard of the theory of "intelligent design" ?
"intelligent design" ?
Exactly! That Darwin is so musty, so, Victorian.
If CR and Tanta are boomers, then boomers have done something useful. I'm gen X and I look around and think what a bunch of a-holes we are!
BTW, any suggestions for an asian currency fund like meafx, but with lower expenses. This Gen X loser would appreciate it.
Kou Jie,
"Thanks for the reality check. Now what happened to that super colander headgear"
Firmly intact, and well charged.
Lane wrote:
Sell Italian bonds. Italian public debt has reached a record high at 1646,7 billion euros.It is worse than 1992 when the country went very near to declare default(insolvency)
Lane, I wouldn't be surprised if Italy and Greece pull out of the Euro...it's killing them. Deutchland is the only country benefiting.
Firmly intact, and well charged.
Well let us know when it twitches, 'K?
As to this generational clap trap I'll chime in with generations don't do things people do.
So man-moth:
"what a bunch of a-holes we are!"
Well I am but I don't think the whole lot of you are.
Cheers,
Kou Jie,
"Well let us know when it twitches, 'K?"
Problem is, with all the current and magnetic fields and such, they twitch inordinately often. Not that that's a bad thing.
Watch the monolines. Their wraps are what is keeping the balance sheets up.
Cheers,
@Well I am but I don't think the whole lot of you are.
Heh. I'm in the camp of Mark Twain, who said something like, "I hate humankind, but I love John, Jane, & Jim." General v. specific. Anyone remember it exactly?
The problem for the boomer's is the same group of fools that got their heads handed to them in the dot.bomb bust and housing bust are now being herded into commodities which will also bust. Some people never learn.
Man-moth,
When confused about anything, resist anti-collectivism in all it's pernicious forms as the best policy. Congratulations to you for that, and I guess I agree w/ Misean's comment in the same vein.
As for forex accts, I cannot say since I haven't resided in the US for some time. But I have heard OK things about:
http://www.everbank.com/
YMMV, not meant as anything worthy, etc.
Let's have a little Sundayy fun.
Brian Wesbury - is he more like:
What say you all??
"resist anti-collectivism"
pls correct the double negative!
Enjoyed the video a lot, plus all the post's in this blog. Peter Schiff is right on, in the past and today. Really LMAO about the "Bill Stein is stoned" comment, was dying here.
Our American economic system is sure interesting in many ways, but it comes always down to "spending every penny" and that doesn't happen for example in the Euro zone. A big difference in terms of how much someone saves depends also on the pay cycle. Here in the US everybody get's paid twice a month, not so in the Euro zone, there only once a month. Big difference IMHO. I don't know about the rest on this panel but I don't know how many friends I have that make between 90k-180k a year and they generally have only about $200-300 in cash left over after every pay cycle, the rest all goes to payment plans whether house, car, breast augmentations, credit cards, etc. No joke, here you can finance breast augmentations with no credit check! Priceless! Back to topic, the Euro zone has a different spending pattern because credit is not extented to such extent as here in US. The American household is so leveraged it is scary. Consumer debt will be the next big bust coming up, it has to. The Feds tried to avoid any rate hikes the past 6 month but now with hyper inflation around the corner the Feds will have to raise rates significantly by +2 points in the short-term, which will wreak havoc on consumer debt and financial institutions. IMHO the Feds really screwed up by not raising rates in early 2007 and now with devaluation of the dollar, soaring energy cost (wait until the winter hits), inflationary pressures they must follow suit to the EZB. If not Good night to this economy.
What have the Boomers done in a positive manner.
Reproduced, you dummy.
Otherwise no one would be around to complain about them.
No joke, here you can finance breast augmentations with no credit check!
Good investment policy. Better mating and employment opportunities. For example
STARE Magazine - Beautiful Bikini Models in every issue! Sexy girls from Florida and USA
Anybody have any links to that Bill Griffeth series in 2005 on CNBC - the Real Estate Roadshow? I noted that as a really big sign of a top, but I can't find any clips - I wonder if CNBC still has any up? Anybody have any links to clips?
CR-
Thanks for the Schiff video. He's always worth listening to.
Integrated Circuit
Personal Computer
Best Rock n' Roll ever
Globalization
Supply Chain Management/JIT
Weapons (jdam,cluster,combat aircraft,aegis systems,smart bombs,fleer)
Surveillance, satellite technology
Mobile telephone
And Jerry Mathers, as the Beaver
re: everbank
They are NOT Ok - Their 1% commission in AND out of the dollar that ends up being charged during the foreign currency transaction ( - they say their rates are within 1% of the wholesale rate but it ends up AT 1% AGAINST you).
Compare this to the bid/ask spread of a currency ETF like FXE, FXA, FXF, FXY; the annual fee for these ETFs is around .45% - not too shabby.
As regards their CD interest rates, be very careful ! I'm stuck in a (small) Icelandic Krona position with them - the Icelandic CEntral bank has overnight interest rates at 16.5%; 7 day CD rates at 15.25%
Central Bank of Iceland » Front page
The rate offered by Everbank 2.5% ? Bleeding robbery I call it. Yet they say they guarantee competitive rates..
I'd be very wary of them.
For currency diversification I'd look at all the ETFs I mentioned earlier - there are many others - For Chinese there is CYB.
An interesting, very recent ( two weeks old ) ETN( yes etN - do your own diligence on the differences ) is PGD ( i.e pegged).
This is equally weighted on the Saudi Arabian, UAE, HK, Singapore and Chinese currencies - all currencies that are tightly pegged or held in a narrow band to the US dollar.
The thesis is that it their pegs will break or the float band widened as the try to battle the inflation caused by the peg to the US dollar.
-K
-K
"If Fox had any balls, they'd play this video infront of the panel and ask for their thoughts.
I would love to see that.
"
Me too, but that will NEVER happen, unfortunantly...
"Erik writes:
The problem with gold is that it doesn't produce anything. I can't use it to make anything besides jewelery. It's great in times of uncertainty, but other than that, I would rather have control a commodity that can be used for something productive"
Erik, you are one of the great successes of the DUMBING DOWN OF America. You should be proud of yourself...
Thanks, Kou Jie & SK. I'd thought about everbank; now I'll probably pass. I do want exposure to the Singapore dollar, though. Just watched some more youtube with Schiff. It's hard to tolerate all that yelling over each other on Fox; it makes my blood pressure rise.
These stupid F%$#s should be forced to where a tatooed Z for Zombies across there forehead.
Peter Westbury is a major league JOKE! He lobbied CNBC as a permabull for years...long enough for CNBC to hire him as a "special contributor" (i.e. pitch the BULL CASE at all costs!!)..what a farce.
Westbury...You've been wrong for so long....that I'd recommend you'd get your b#@tt of of national TV and YouTube to not only save what little reputation you still have...but before you lose your $$, your declining client base, and your job as just another Wall Street bull & hype, overpaid "money manager"....helping folks build small fortunes.....FROM LARGE ONES!
imo
"I'm an engineer. You're a lawyer. You do the...
Oh, never mind."
Exactly, Prat. Liz is also apparently a real estate shill (teacher?)
A boomer crook from day 1.
Lawyer Liz, you are one of the boomers who will be hanged.
Guaranteed.
Sweet dreams, asshole.
Praetorian,
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the fault line in educational quality lies somewhere in the late 1950s and was instituted by progressives who were adults when the first boomers were still in grammar school.
It wasn't instantly universal - it didn't arrive in every school district at the same moment. But it was well-established before postwar kids grew up and took over the job.
The younger members of the boomer cohort in the US are the product of those educational experiments, but so are all who follow.
You're taking aim at some interesting targets.
Anyone bother to notice that Peter Schiff is a boomer?
I saw Schiff on CNBC earlier this year and Mike Norman was still giggling and grinning to the camera at everything Schiff said. I think the AM people on CNBC are decent, especially Joe Kernan. After that, you'd learn more from QVC.
Those jockos on Fast Money look like after the show they go to a locker room and snap each other with towels...I watched that one twice and am trying to get those 2 hours back somehow.
Peter Schiff is 42, that is GenX, dumbass.
I was being a bit hard on the boomers (hey, some of my best friends are boomers) but comments about staying on in an oversized house from a boomer lawyer, boy howdy...
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the fault line in educational quality lies somewhere in the late 1950s
We are talking past one another, to some extent: I was referring to college education. On that score, we could go back further and say it lies in prewar german philosophy or simply the enlightenment, at least if "The Closing of The American Mind" is a decent guide. It still appears, at least from my readings, that it was in the late 60's that the gates fell and the adults left the field.
Cheers,
prat
What happened to Mike Norman?? Obviously, it's good to see him laughing here as today he's in hiding licking his wounds as he has now been seen for the market pumping shill that he is. I hope to never see his traitor face on TV ever again.
Visitor Only,
One thing that never ceases to amaze me as a European living in the US is why you Americans think you are working so hard.....the simpler tasks are all done by "illegal" Mexicans
Say, that's right! You better-off Euros import perfectly legal Poles, Romanians, Turks and Bulgarians for that sort of thing, right?