Wow, I even read the story.

but so much better than expected by some random buttplug

The Jenga economy. We keep finding new and increasingly convoluted pieces to shuffle around in order to build up the tower, but we're just weakening the whole thing.

Frank Blake wants the terrorists to win. /snark

You'd think with all the recently unemployed people with so much time on their hands they'd want to fix up the house, but no...

Wouldn't trashed out foreclosures be good for HD?

Once we're done saving the home despots of wall street the fleecing of main street will resume.

We just have to get credit flowing or else homes will become affordable again. The banks can't afford deflation.

here's the script:

" Home Depot Inc. followed rival Lowe's Cos. in reporting better than expected earnings Tuesday, as the country's two biggest home-improvement retailers hang on amid a drop in demand for their most expensive goods.

Reflecting that pressure, Home Depot's sales fell, and its gross margin contracted. The company did, however, affirm the financial outlook it announced in February - not as encouraging as Lowe's, which raised its guidance, but an indication conditions may not be worse than expected."

Home Depot Wary as Sales Fall - WSJ.com

.
.
.
repeat:
"The company did, however, affirm the financial outlook it announced in February."

.
.

until CEO blake woke up the other side of his face:

"Mr Blake said that a slowing foreclosure rate in California during the fourth quarter had led to an improvement in regional store sales but the trend had then reversed as foreclosure rates rose again in the first quarter."

At least the HD store is a much nicer place to visit post Nardelli - I suppose he will get another $300 million for wrecking Chyrsler... any bets where he will pop up next? Is there anything left to wreck?

Dr Munch,
Wouldn't trashed out foreclosures be good for HD?

it would be great on wide screen with terminator like action storyline...

@mp: I think you should write up your ancestor's gov't default story and publish it.

Video shot on the 5pm news from a CA station - polling places empty... if the taxes pass, nonvoters can take the blame... Amazing that there are not long lines to vote NO...

"Amazing that there are not long lines to vote NO..."

~~~~

It is the "yes" people that should be worried ...

Absetee ballots are notoriously from older and conservative voters ...

Home Depot sells the stuff for house demolition, right?

My polling place in California, in the downtown of a mid size town, at 10 am, had five poll workers and exactly one voter: me. I was there for about ten minutes chatting. No one else arrived or was walking towards the polls while I was there.

3 or 4 folks came through my LA 'hood polling place while I was there...

My polling place in California, in the downtown of a mid size town, at 10 am, had five poll workers and exactly one voter: me.

Some of the most democratic procedures for the populace that cares least.

If I were the Governator I would have had copies of the Grapes of Wrath in every polling place.

"If I wanted to destroy a nation," he wrote in 1966, "I would give it too much and I would have it on its knees, miserable, greedy and sick."
- John Steinbeck

Prescient....YES and a classic for today YES !

California needs to do what Oregon did ...

All elections by mail ...

works great there ...

and if you have no mailbox?

I was the only person to sign in on the voter rolls, and i saw about 6 pages. I actually voted yes on the one to limit pay raises for politicians, my first yes ever. Until castration (of the remaining politicians with balls) is voted on.

"and if you have no mailbox? "

Heh...like votes matter.

But seriously, with housing starts green shooting HD should have plenty of business.

and if you have no mailbox?

~~~~~

Don't know what Oregon does then ....

Can't be more than .1% of the people that would vote ...

City Hall maybe ? Wouldn't be crowded ...

don't understand the no mailbox bit; to be a resident don't you need a mailing address?

re: My post last thread
sm_landlord, JP; There is some interesting stuff, but none of it too strong. I wouldn't make too much from a lack of correlation though. You both read it right (well one clarification, the correlation between US equity ETF and US equity mutual funds is negative 0.0565)

I would say that's because the mutual fund crowd has a lag time between wanting to sell, and the sale happens. As such, they tend to pile on the most when the market is on a downswing, and most of their money is withdrawn when the market is at its lowest point. Also with the equity ETF, keep in mind there were big inflows last year and very tiny flows this year. That would break the correlation and covariance. It's hard to say what the data indicates when it's beneath the noise floor.

In general though, Equity ETFs have flow directions inverse to Mutual Funds and coincident with the market direction.The latter we should expect by their NAV model that reinforces the direction of the market, and what is going up/down would gain/lose funds.

Finally I would add that there are other large players that move the market. It does look as if an unnamed force is causing mutual funds to sell the most at the lows, and buy the most at the highs. (The 0.44710 correlation between SP500 wk over wk % change and 'All Equity Mutual Funds', with the SP500 leading)

disclaimer: TrimTabs All Equity Mutual Funds isn't the result of a direct summation from the other numbers, I'm not sure the explanation behind that discrepancy, but it is why I included it as its own series

i am proud to have voted though i'm 100% sure voting is the reason I have a jury summons.

I voted no on 1a-1e and yes on 1f. So did my coworkers.

My justification, i'm a software engineer. We have to stay on the cutting edge, work a lot just to maybe keep our jobs away from indians and get our 0 retirement plan.

I'm pretty ok with police, firefighter and teachers making way less money considering they dont have to run that rat race. Its not like they'd be able to get jobs doing anything else for close to their total compensation now. So their ridiculous "save the teachers police, firefighter" ads are terrible.

He clearly didn't get the message from the Obama Administration- only green shoots and shafts of light. Guess Lowes will get the White House contract.

My polling place, at around 10:30 am. 6 Poll Workers. And me.

Polls close at 8pm?

california is going to be another trend setter for many more broke states to come knocking at Obama's door and his bought and paid for economic team who shot their collective wads with trillions for the 19 too big to fail banks are going to regret it

nemo:

the theme is

short euro squeezedolla holla short

Then again, these were the people who whenever they opened a new store would send the competitors manager (Hechingers) a dozen black roses

I just looked that up and apparently it was the other way around. If so, that worked out well.

rb, really? That is even funnier because Hechingers really was a crappy store.

Coach Blake is telling the team to not go for the head fake. I have my doubts that the players are disciplined enough to sit on the head fake and watch the hips.

km4 has a good point. What happens when the next 10 in line come clamoring for the ol baileroo? Or engineer a fkup that stampedes a response?

C

Home sales are up for the low end

• A significant percentage of those sales are to investors One and Done on a Movedown before BK
• Those investors often need to make repairs/improvements before they rent the place you gotta live somewhere
• Hence, additional Home Depot demand from this source one and dones will hibernate

/snark Sorry. Page not found.

looks like the "better than expected" part of the script is tapering off:

Trend Search

That's PPIP for short

Seniors (fixed income) always vote and always vote NO to new taxes or hikes.

"One way or the other, on May 20th Californians will have to begin discussing how to fix their broken state."

Isn't the time for discussion about over? Time to do something?

"People who fall into the basement income brackets always vote YES to tax hikes.

They are exempt anyhow so why not."

~~~~

Ever read "What's the Matter with Kansas? " ?

[Bank of America Corp. has raised roughly $13 billion after selling 1.25 billion shares of common stock]

Good. Those dividends will come roaring right back!

Forget yields for bank shares. And many over the years bought for the income stream...

Japan gdp - is that an inflection point?

Japan gdp - is that an inflection point?"

No.

It's an infrection point.

Japan gdp -4.0

~~~~

month ... quarter ... ?

day?

The epic cliff diving in Japan continues. GDP was down 15% in the most recent quarter.

Yahoo! 404 - Page Not Found

The good news is that since Japan has no inflation to speak of, you don't need to use any deflators to get the real picture. Other than that, it's all bad news in the land of the setting sun.

15%! That's GD stuff. They are going to have some great stories with which to lecture their grand kids. Now listen young man, when they say green shoots....

Japan gdp -4.0 is that an inflection point
yes - see GDP history
- Wolfram|Alpha

USA gdp is much better cooked !

Japan posts record GDP drop, but above expectation - MarketWatch

my english is still in recovery room from imperial cerveza, langosta, arroz and frijoles....y ceviche..

ex·pec·to·rate (k-spkt-rt)
v. ex·pec·to·rat·ed, ex·pec·to·rat·ing, ex·pec·to·rates
v.tr.
1. To eject from the mouth; spit.
2. To cough up and eject by spitting.
v.intr.
1. To spit.
2. To clear out the chest and lungs by coughing up and spitting out matter.
[Latin expectorre, expectort-, to drive from the chest : ex-, ex- + pectus, pector-, chest.]
ex·pecto·ration n.

"I will cast my vote for Goldman Sachs."

So will everyone else...

"ex·pec·to·rate (k-spkt-rt)"

K-O-expectorate - medicine to stop financial hemorrhaging.

Uh oh, Mrs Watanabe on line one to Nikki...

Regional currency slide breaking out.

Could be a wacky wednesday.

C

"I will cast my vote for Goldman Sachs."

No need. They already cast it on your behalf.

broward does K-O-expectorate come bundled with K-Y Jelly ?

American taxpayers are going to need both.

ot-previous threads

Byzantine Ruins wrote:

1 currency now -yogi (profile) wrote on Tue, 5/19/2009 - 5:08 pm

I'll let the police and fire department know how you feel.[in response to a union basher]

"Oh there's a persuasive argument for unions -- the prison industry."

Sorry Byz but if that's sarcasm [doesn't have to be read that way] I will not let it slide. A smart writer like you ought to be able to come up with dozens of reasons why collective bargaining is particularly appropriate for municipal fire and police work. Shall we offer bonuses for the most arrests? The most convictions? Highest bidder gets fire protection? Private armed security forces usually work out well? No benefit at all to morale from union "brotherhood"? Efficient for the city to individually negotiate thousands of contracts? What if wages are set too low? It's not unions that corrupt police forces, it's power. You don't want to live in a city in which the police feel really underpaid. Either way they have power. Much easier for private units to "strike" than an entire union.

Once again, you're ignoring a thousand-year history of class conflict and division of labor which underlies every aspect of the system that has evolved, which is by no means perfect. As with Glass-Steagall, the notion that unions have somehow outlived their purpose invites disaster.

"Now that the foreclosure moratorium is over, the pace of foreclosures is picking up again. And, according to Mr. Blake, this will probably impact the home improvement companies."

Presumably for the better, as either the buyer or seller will fix up the place? Not to mention that this month must be prime listing season, for the over the summer movers, to get things ship shape.. And this should be a record setting listing season with a years worth of inventory and the shadow inventory.

Zillow says 3,487,226 homes for sale, does anyone have any historical information?

Wow, I expected voter turn-out to be low given the fact that it was a special election, but I didn't expect it this low from what I am reading here and at other sites. This is what is depressing me...I feel like we are at an important point, don't exactly know how to change this train so to speak, but how much of the country under 40 is actually paying attention? Are they even going to notice when the jobs keep disappearing....

EHP.

Mrs Watanabe is on line one. Whats she sayin?

Here's what's she's asking me....Are US funds flowing out? Is Money flowing to the emerging in fear of the dollar? should I hedge with long Euro? Are bonds really in bear market?

Kali Poll report from Santa Monica:

Mrs. Landlord and I walked to the Montana library and voted in person. There was one person coming out when we arrived, no one inside while we voted, one person came in while we were leaving. Four very bored looking poll workers were manning the desks.

Very unlike last fall's election.

BTW, you can vote by mail in Kalifornia, or you can go to the polls.
I read somewhere that a lot of people voted by mail this time, but we'll see when the number come out.
I don't think that the outcome is in question.

most under forty know the roof is on fire but feel they have no stake is the success of the system so...

burn motherfucker, burn.

Thanks for that Nikkei link - the yen is falling, the yen is falling!

according to shadow inventory, Mrs Watanabe is pleased.

"Regional currency slide breaking out."

Yeowch!

At my daughters high school the teachers love to bitch to the students about how much their pension fund has dropped. Wait until they can bitch about how life was when they had one.

"Most of the "Red" states out there are Federal Welfare states ... they get way more than they send to

Washington DC"

Those VA plantation founders knew what they were doing. 2 white male votes in the Senate plus their property gets some bonus Representation (without the vote). I guess they figured slaves didn't pay Taxation.

"LATimes reports 4PM voter turnout of 11.57%"

Does that include absentee?

He's probably a good sheriff but he certainly does not do it for the $$...

He probably does it for the health care benefits

"I would like to believe they know the roof is on fire, I can't honestly tell anymore though"

Well, if it's any consolation, i knew the roof was on fire ten years ago.

Yup.
That thing is burning all right.
I been watching it from 1500 miles away for quite awhile.

What's on teevee tonight?

"I guess they figured slaves didn't pay Taxation."

I wonder of the slave owners paid property tax on the slaves?

If you drive a car,
I'll tax the street.
If you try to sit,
I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold,
I'll tax the heat.
If you take a walk,
I'll tax your feet.

Cuz I'm the taxman.
Yeah, I'm the taxman.

Mrs Watanabe has shorted Yen in favor of another flavor.

This fabled trade is the culmination of a nation of mud huts....guess what folks....yer not bettin against the mud-huts anymore..the US is bulldozing the mudhuts...

better than expectorations?

"Does that include absentee?"

I didn't see specifics in the story I linked, but I'm guessing that's physical turnout.
Compared to something like 27% in the last state election at the same time.

Yogi do you care to post a short version of you one currency thesis?

Does the Sherrif get to foreclose people? Thats about all they do here outside of the courthouse and jail.

Instead of giving 19 too big to fail banks trillions in TARP to try and pump up great chunks of the Big Shitpile Obama should have heeded this...

Keeping zombie banks alive is going to sap the energies of the US economy.
- George Soros

I think average joe is sitting this one out.

Mrs W is looking terse. GDP serving was all baked in, nikki is getting all limp ramen on it, the neighbours are squabbling about who lost the checkbook, and she's lost the recipe for her signature uridashi souffle.

C

Love this headline today too:
"Fed Should Fuel Faster Inflation to Help U.S. Economy, Mankiw, Rogoff Say"

What fuel, how much, and if we are already on fire, let's hope they don't use jet fuel...

No, counterpointer. Mrs Watanabe is buying blueberries online and spanking grandchildren while trying to figure out how to buy GE through a Keiretsu, but its difficult with Mitsui.

bANK fAILURE - or maybe she's wondering why AIG would announce it was going to put AIA up for IPO next year.

Next year??? I'm not sure the actuarial tables go out that far...

C

O/T: the original reason why I brought up the TrimTabs data was to see how much consumer cash was sitting on the sidelines. Since July 2008 $331.135 bn has been withdrawn from US Equity Mutual Funds.

That's less than what was withdrawn from HELOCs, so I'm going to guess not so much of it is dry powder ready to jump back in. Still, there is the possibility and joe6pack investors haven't jumped back in yet. Most likely they won't bite though, what with the constant reminder of their own finances (furloughs, layoffs, declining net worth.... bigger stories like the government, banks, automakers, states all having financing troubles)

If the Fed has to cut its budget, watch out for rural/highway policing. They got big boosts when the DHS was created and run hugely expensive drills annually, for no good reason. Podunkville does not need a helicopter and 2 armored personnel carriers, nor do they need to run huge drills where everyone is on overtime and where the fuel/equipment bills are more than the annual tax revenue from their region. Why do cities of 15,000 need a SWAT divison? honestly

All those "investors" buying gutted and burst-pipe foreclosures (or those needing just new paint and carpet) are friends to Home Depot and Lowes. I wonder what percent of their current business comes from that sector. And how sales in the big foreclosure states compare to the rest.

The real question is.. can the system last for 5 years?

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- The United States may emerge from recession as early as this summer, though further job losses mean a "depressed economy" could last as long as five years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman said Tuesday.

"I think it's quite possible that industrial production in the United States and perhaps in the world as a whole will bottom out sometime in the next few months, that GDP growth in the United States will be positive in the second half of the year and maybe a little bit later than that in Europe," Krugman told a global financial conference in Seoul.

The solution is perfectly obvious. He respects the Amish and they respect him. They wouldn't outbid him (or his cousin) even if they could.

This is America! Is that even legal?

Fed to Add Older CMBS to TALF Lending Program in July (Update3) - Bloomberg.com

If at first your sham does not succeed, make the sham more encompassing.

We will get this ponzi credit flowing again, dammit!

RE low turnout:

Maybe too many CA people are afraid that, if they leave their houses, they won't be able to get back in.

Was trolling around the low-rent sections of the cable dial between periods of the hockey and saw ads for...

1. a surefire moneymaking scheme involving buying real estate with no down payment
2. some sort of "power trading seminar" some bucket shop's putting on here in a couple of weeks
3. lingerie football.

I'm glad to see that the banks are back to the business of rationally allocating capital among productive sectors of the economy.

Lucifer (profile) wrote on Tue, 5/19/2009 - 7:27 pm

Wow ... Krugman said that ... !

They must have given him his own secret decoder ring ...

The message said :

We'll blame you if it goes down, and everybody knows,

it's going down...

"he [volunteer] responds to dispatch when on duty just like everyone else..."

Of course, Joe Kennedy's firstborn got shot down volunteering for a dangerous mission. Could work fine in individual situations. Maybe Vikram Pandit IS worth that dollar salary. What if the sheriff decides the life of a deca-millionaire is more appealing after all, just when the blackout hits?

Shadow I lack the time at the moment, but search terms like haloscan, "1 currency soon-yogi", "digital superbasket of liquid intangibles". I know I put a few together in November, and there were some helpful discussions going back a year. That killjoy Broward usually chimed in that my formula lacked the requisite gunpowder. But when he's in love he's quite the Buddhist.

Here's what bugs me about Krugman and his ilk. They rail against the financial free loaders, while simultaneously demanding that the Government increase its spending and CONtrol over the eCONomy.

WTF! Can't Krugman see that the financial freeloaders make a good part of their living grifting off of all the government spending and regulation. Seriously, Congress accepts millions in CONtributions from banks and then lets the banks write the legislation and Krugman expects a different outcome!

Grow up Paul.

Gold is stern and impartial master.

"LATimes reports 4PM voter turnout of 11.57%"

Is that the percentage of public employees in the electorate?

so what happened to swine flu?

~~~~~

The swine flu is raging ...

It is just so mild most people don't even report it ...

Almost every death was due to complications from other conditions ...

Always said it was a scare tactic ... fear mongering ...

mmckinl,

hmm.. are you the same mmckinl?

I can honestly say Ive never been this bearish on US bonds, US equities, and the US dollar in my living being.

Gold is stern and impartial master.

Gold is a soldier of the elite ...

Hoarded and manipulated ...

Gold is a myth ...

that cannot heat your home ...

or fill your belly ...

if it's real ...

it's ammo and alcohol ...

hmm.. are you the same mmckinl?

yes ...

.........Also Krugman said yesterday at Hyatt Regency , Yongsan ....if the global recovery is too fast , there will be a worst great depression in 2018.......this fella is nothing but a joke.......everybody at the conference was laughing when he said this........

fill your belly with alcohol and heat your home with ammo ?

Could we stop lying.. for a minute. Hey, he is using models... based on fantasy.. make that man an investment banker

Losing Control
Losing Control - WSJ.com

By DANIEL AKST

With all the talk of swine flu, universal health insurance and computerizing medical records, you'd think epidemics and inadequate medical care were the major threats to public health in this country. But an important new study on preventable deaths will quickly disabuse you of that notion. Read the report and you'll likely conclude that the biggest premature killer of Americans is . . . Americans.

Too many of us appear to be bent on slow-motion suicide. Consider smoking; if we could get every American to stop, we'd save 467,000 lives annually. Solving high blood pressure (much of it arising from unhealthy lifestyles) would save 395,000. And if we could get everyone to slim down to an appropriate body weight, we'd save 216,000 lives.

You can't aggregate all the lives that would be saved from the 12 lifestyle factors covered by the study because of some serious overlap; obesity, for instance, causes a lot of hypertension. But Dr. Majid Ezzati, a Harvard School of Public Health professor who co-authored the report, estimates that if you net out the double-counting, somewhat more than a million people die annually from the 12 behavioral risk factors, which include the obvious (immoderate alcohol consumption) and the less so (eating too little fish, which provides omega-3 fatty acids).

3. lingerie football.

Okay, Yalt, you got my attention. Would like to know more about that game.

mmckinl,

I'm not a gold bug by any means. But imo, throughout history, gold has done a better job of promoting real growth and protecting against financial or government over-reach than any other system.

Deflation is only bad for those that live off of levererage, namely banks. Prudence and innovation thrive in deflation. Deflation is the natural economic state.

Bank of America just pushed 13.5 bl in common stock.
"Bank of America faces potential losses for 2009 and 2010 of $136.6 billion, or 10 percent of loans, under the Fed’s adverse scenario for the U.S. economy. The tests project an economic outlook much gloomier than most experts, Lewis said on a May 7 conference call. <>"

Goldman Sachs this week raised Bank of America to “buy” from “neutral,”

""LATimes reports 4PM voter turnout of 11.57%"

Don't laugh, but I was the first signature on my page.

I voted after lunch.

Mercantilism has that effect.. There is only true religion to get them out of this quandry.. the religion of consumption.

//Wait, they're waiting for US to lead them out? I do not think it is going to work that way anymore.//

That is a oxymoron.. like "toxic assets", "arbeit macht frei", "mother nature", "natural drugs" or "honest businessman"

"natural free markets"

Election results - nobody reporting yet - the CA sec. of state is tweeting on twitter!

Northern California local news and information from The Sacramento Bee - sacbee.com

Lucifer,

You miss the point entirely. Living standards improve over time as a result of real growth. By definition, real growth does not come from inflation. Inflation allows the non-productive to capture the real growth. See the problem? It's not just the growth, it's the distribution.

How could people afford to buy the fruits of "real growth".. Does a 50 foot yacht bought with ponzi money function any worser than the same yacht bought with "real money". How can you use "real" and money" together?

Living standards improve over time as a result of real growth.

"What's the Matter with Kansas?"

Why, not a damned thing if you were the owner and publisher of the Emporia Gazette, made your money selling newspapers, and were a diehard Republican.

Now, if you were a farmer, like most Kansans, you might have heard another story.

A better site for election results...

Election Results - California Secretary of State 

"Living standards improve over time as a result of real growth."

~~~

And now living standards will decline because of fake growth ...

Well, Amish communalism and mutual respect has replaced environmentalism as the number one terrorist threat to our nation. And like strict Muslims they refuse to borrow or lend at interest, and if THAT isn't a threat to our way of life I don't know what is.

"The Japanese yen has strengthened since the [GDP] release as the number came in better than expected which is leading to speculation that the worst of the economic downturn may be over. Since the Asian session began, the yen has traded in a 30 pip range and is currently flat."

Japanese Economy Contracts at record Pace -

mmckinl,

I always ask such people one simple question.

Does growth not require increased consumption.. and gold does not grow at the same rate as technology and even populations. So what allows people to buy more?

But bankers have also been corrupt throughout history.. and there were just as many ponzi schemes and depressions in those days..

//No way would I want that pack of self servinng dingbats managing credit and the mmoney supply. I would rather have private credit with strict leverage limits. Gold backing has merit imo. It's not perfect, but it's better than the alternatives.//

Lucifer,

Come on. There is no free lunch.

For every 50 ft yacht bought with ponzi money, there are 10,000 or more that were robbed of 3% of their purchasing power over that years production.

ShadowInventory (profile) wrote on Tue, 5/19/2009 - 8:17 pm
reply ignore user
11% in and 1a through e are PASSING and 1f is FAILING!!!

Idiot, you reversed the pass/fail.

With a few less "useful idiots" to participate in the scam.

It just keeps on turnin' at its own rate despite all the calls here for a dose of sanity.

apologies for the edit.

Rob Dawg,

It is California.. what were you expecting. Do they have a special test to weed out intelligent people from government jobs?

//Idiot, you reversed the pass/fail.//

Lucifer,

There are no guarantees in an open and free society. Freedom and liberty go hand in hand with risk and volitility. Caveat emptor.

Something else to CONsider. Socialism and communism promised stability and guarantees. The results were not as promised.

"It just keeps on turnin' at its own rate despite all the calls here for a dose of sanity."

It's a big world, and a hard to find blog. If some of those 297 guests hold off on buying the green shoots, I'll feel fine about it.

Bloggers clued me in enough, to switch to treasuries before the worst of the downturn, although it was much later before I found CR. Plush you had that whole Haloscan thing.

So how is predatory capitalism working out.. The problem is that any system based on a world that used to exist cannot work in another environment.

//Socialism and communism promised stability and guarantees. The results were not as promised.//

Ooops CA sec. of state web site got it backwards/

Yeah, that's the explanation. LOL.

peAk

LOL

You can thank Alan Greenspan for the credit expansion ...

Gates never put out a program that was ready ...

He just levered everything on his monopoly ...

Frankly, I'm really weary of all this gold business. It was tried. It failed. Miserably.

If you had been a farmer in nineteenth, early twentieth century America, you wouldn't be preaching it.

Good night and good luck.

Lucifer

mmckinl,
I always ask such people one simple question.
Does growth not require increased consumption.. and gold does not grow at the same rate as technology and even populations. So what allows people to buy more?

~~~~

More in what sense ? dollar volume or ounces ?