Hi que, I am deep in the middle of completing my now enormous and seriously out-of-control website.
As you saw, my allocation Message 18361633 is heavy on non-US currencies, physical/paper golds, bonds (mostly USD denominated and bought back in the days of Asian Financial Crisis, yielding 10-18+% on original cost, and an increasing but smattering of stocks in sometimes very strange entities.
I figure non-USD currencies still has another 15-30% to mine; gold another 30-3000%; my bonds and real estate are balancing/ballast items, stablizing against events I can not imagine; and slowly, but steadily, and without hesitation, into stocks representing ownership in things and in things/activities in China, where the supposed future can be.
I believe stocks, especially the high-priced American variety, can easily have another 50+% to correct, possibly triggered by increasing debt problems, impending housing implosion, rising fiscal doubt, and more plausible mass exodus of panicked and newly unemployed retiree-wannabies.
There are too many events can go wrong and I cannot fashion a convincing story to make an offshore investor want to hang around. The offshores will return, but only after the market clears and traditional philosophical and monetary values reappear.
The elapsed time of correction is dependent on the FED and the Administration - how hard will they fight the quick sand with stimulus that further mortgages the future and postpone market clearing?
I remind myself of some theories that are turning out to be more true than the variety spewed by Maestro Greenskaput:
Message 16037941
July 6th, 2001
No use for emergency cuts. Regular cuts will do as well; because the market has already discounted a zero percent policy in the planet's largest creditor country, and thus implicitly the market has already discounted at least another 250 basis points of cuts in the largest debtor country. The market has not yet discounted the collapse of the principal embedded in the few mega shares (GE, FNM, C), the debt market and the dollar.
... and ...
Message 16244385
August 22, 2001
<<I think creditor Japan holds the key to whether or not we have global depression (yes, there, I am now using that D word, and we will no doubt be haggling over the precise definition of the word shortly); and debtor/consumer America holds the key to "how deep, for how long".>>
My investment is, at the core, at the beginning and end of most days, driven by this standard Message 18357855 .
My view for 2002 was
Message 16640110 ,
Message 18056227 , and my love of gold is just so
Message 18356763
My view for 2003 is
Message 18266240
Message 18278958
Message 18344188
... because, as always, I am afraid that I lack imagination, and I am horrified at the stakes we are playing for, so much more dangerous than an on-line game of Unreal Tournament gamesdomain.com
Chugs, Jay
P.S. I recall I said
Message 15421566
February 27th, 2001
Do not know about economics, but here are some upcoming news headlines. The order and specific company names are not important. Say 18-24 months. If we do not believe that at least 25% of the headlines will come to pass within the next 18-24 months (time determined by recklessness of Maestro), we should start to accumulate stocks now, looking pass the valley of gloom.
The sooner we see some of these headlines, the sooner we can get back to buying "for the long term".
…
“Dollar Implodes”
…
“Gold Is Back”
“Precious Metal Reappears On Business Week Where To Invest Your Money Issue”
... and now here we are, on the front cover :0) ...
businessweek.com
<<Gold Keeps Looking Shinier
There are plenty of reasons to think the rally will continue>> ... after having gone missing in bubble for a lot of years.
And, no, I do not expect the story of gold to end with a cover mention on Business Week, a normally fatal blow, because
(a) gold is only mentioned in context of other investment alternatives, and is not a feature story
(b) it is not yet patriotic to own gold in any space
(c) Message 18357639
(d) Message 18356846
<<Joel, attack, counter attack, retreat, counter attack again, fall back, surge forth once more ... ad infinitum, until one or the other side has had enough.
Not much longer than 48 hours ago, 1.3 billion souls, genetically coded to appreciate gold, joined the ranks of foot soldiers in this great battle.
Buy the dips, for the long term, for the children, and their children, ... and so they will charge at the citadel of finance and castle of money, searching, chamber by chamber, with Greensputin's image displayed on their Q-engined CDMA locator devices.>>
The lines are never so clearly drawn as they are now, in the shifting sand enveloped in a shimmering mirage, between the old/new, before/after, up/down, spending/saving, investing/speculating, war/peace, and hedging/hoping.
The investing electorates of all nations must place bets, shuffle wagers, rivet their attention on what is being said, and what is left unspoken.
Start here:
federalreserve.gov
Remarks by Chairman Alan Greenspan
Before the Economic Club of New York, New York City
December 19, 2002
Issues for Monetary Policy
Although the gold standard could hardly be portrayed as having produced a period of price tranquility, it was the case that the price level in 1929 was not much different, on net, from what it had been in 1800. But, in the two decades following the abandonment of the gold standard in 1933, the consumer price index in the United States nearly doubled. And, in the four decades after that, prices quintupled. Monetary policy, unleashed from the constraint of domestic gold convertibility, had allowed a persistent overissuance of money. As recently as a decade ago, central bankers, having witnessed more than a half-century of chronic inflation, appeared to confirm that a fiat currency was inherently subject to excess ...
... and recall this ...
Message 17845730
CAN THE U.S. RETURN TO A GOLD STANDARD?
By Alan Greenspan [EDIT: September 1, 1981]
The growing disillusionment with politically controlled monetary policies has produced an increasing number of advocates for a return to the GOLD STANDARD - including at times president Reagan.
In years past a desire to return to a monetary system based on gold was perceived as nostalgia for an era when times were simpler, problems less complex and the world not threatened with nuclear annihilation. But after a decade of destabilizing inflation and economic stagnation, the restoration of a GOLD STANDARD has become an issue that is clearly rising on the economic policy agenda. A commission to study the issue, with strong support from President Reagan, is in place ...
Maestro Greenspan may turn out to be a hero after all;0) |
