Hello KJC, <<... early warning ... no longer prudent to merely allocate ... heavily towards cash or cash equivalents ... should ... consider ... moderate ... cash ... in one's wallet>>
Yup, either Japan or Argentina experience may point the way forward.
I am in Hong Kong, as usual for me over most weekends. I have printed out a bunch of reading material from the Internet, readying for my trip to the beach at around 10:00am. I will give the BBR thread fellows and fellowettes a flavor of conditions out here. I have nothing urgent to do today, and even if I did, I would still not do them over the weekends, as am customary, unless doing work will result in instant gratification of sending out an invoice.
Come to think of the matter, sending out invoices these days are not as satisfying as before. Let me explain.
We have two large invoices outstanding; one lodged with one of top three US-based power generation companies, another submitted to one of top fifty US Fortune 500 companies (financial institution). Both invoices are in the 6-digit range, denominated in USD fiat paper. The work and the invoices for the work are not under dispute, and yet it has been 4 months of outstanding time.
These companies are working on disputes in China, but have not paid their accumulated legal and consulting bills for the past nine months. Their assets under dispute may be lost to their counter parties in a matter of days or weeks because no one is acting on their behalf.
We have submitted HK-issued legal letters to the companies in question, as well as any and all of their subsidiaries in HK. Under British common law, based on satisfactory paper as judged by, gee, a judge, we can have the court issue wind-up orders on some subsidiaries registered in the territory without going through a lot of hassle. These letter usually receive fairly prompt attention at the highest levels of the recipient organization:0)
Why is this happening? Because US companies are blowing up. Whole corporate departments have disappeared, people have gone missing, and the gear works of working and paying are jammed up.
Another story. We will have after-dinner farewell party for a couple tonight. The woman used to work with my wife in a global media company, and the man was an investment banker with a top-tier US investment bank. His job has been terminated, and her job is no longer active. They intend to travel the world for 6 months and then return to the US.
Third story. We had dinner with a Taiwan conglomerate gabillionaire’s son who generally does unrelated investment. His mother’s hairdresser, a service provider of 30+ years period, sobbed to his mom about brain tumor story, and was lent USD 40k on handshake. The salon disappeared on next visit.
Fourth story. His own friend of 10-years period and real estate partner of 1-year duration was just caught cheating on expense reports, scuttling a Shanghai land deal that nearly went to signing stage. A lucky and inexpensive break.
Fifth story. This e-mail is from an US-based aunt of mine. She has been investing directly in bond and equity markets since the early ‘70s:
QUOTE
-----Original Message-----
From: xxx [mailto:xxx@earthlink.net]
Sent: Sunday, July 07, 2002 5:15 AM
To: Jay Chen
Subject: Re: Hi
Dear Jay,
I finally decided to adjust my stock portfolio a bit.
After much calculation, I am going to take some chips off the table, and use the hopeless tech stocks to offset my gains. The stocks I am going to get rid of are:
T, CSCO, EMC, JDSU, LU, NT, ORCL, SUNW, plus all the odd lots that were spinoffs from losers.
With this cleanup effort, I'll have a more balanced portfolio and have about 15% of my asset remain in the stock market. And see what happens in the next couple of years.
UNQUOTE
I am happy with my current allocation, little changed from:
Message 17699200
except I subscribed to but have not yet taken delivery of some ING 7.x% preferred share offering, added some paper gold and Canadian dollars, in exchange for lightening up further on USD.
The signs are becoming clearer for a deep cleansing up the behind of the USD denominated space, and unavoidably, the stomach of the world body corporate. No escape, not even in wining Trinidad and liming Tobago isles:
Message 17728196
... all will lose, if not by equity method, then by housing value, and or by job process, creatively destroyed, or splintered by strife and pulverized by war.
There will not be a win-win for the vast majority, only a lose-lose for many, and win-lose for the rare few.
Based on my personal profile stated experience:
Survived: Crash 87, TianAnMen 89, Redchip 94, Asian Crisis 97-98, Softbank 99, Nasdaq Crisis 2000, WTC 2001, False Recovery 2002
Volatility = friend, Crisis = partner, Lonely path = right way, Survive = to fight another day
I feel high cash and some gold is the way to go, and if this do not work for achieving the low-goal of simple survival, whether the US goes the way of Japan or Argentina, then nothing else will work as well.
Countries can take an approach in variation:
Message 17730520
Message 17730510
Chugs, Jay
P.S. to Maurice, thank you for this note;0)
Message 17730728 |
