... continued in / out trays Message 26784583
player 5: hello player 3, today is a beautiful saturday morning here in freedom rock and money mountain hong kong.
one chocolate milk downed, accompanied daughter on her weekly swimming lessons, ipad in hand and iced coffee at poolside.
Had fabulous sweet polluted open air breakfast, handed off erita to value-packed filipino ex-teacher nanny for journey to ballet lesson. i now return to toil at the desktop and later, be fashionable, on the apple ipad at some spiffy coffee shop where the women dress and act like women and no one frivolously start any pointless and anti-nature court case for nothing-all reasons.
Speaking of anti-nature, given freedom hong kong’s rights, sleep at night was beautiful, for the nighttime Chinese nanny took over the chores of the daytime Filipino nanny. Try that in palo alto or for that matter palo anywhere else.
you shall be proven correct this day and day after day in regard to the food in hong kong, and I intend dim some sum for lunch that is just a easy and safe … public transport journey to meet the boyz and machinate over weighty issues free from sarbanes this concern and oxley that rule, so that, when successful, more gold can be engaged with.
i shall take your below points one at a time and illuminate your way, so that you too may be saved.
<<If you think we’re late in the game in buying bonds, why wouldn’t this hold true for gold?>>
(1) short answer, we can buy defaulted bonds of empires past from every age, from shops and outlet, all nicely mounted in pretty display frames, colorful, coupons unclipped, promising all manner of interest payments, swearing all sorts of principle repayments, and featuring even gold-backed sinking funds for all purposes, railroads never built and canals no longer anywhere. All, meaning every single blasted one, sunk, along with the sovereign issuers.
But, a strange truth, we cannot acquire any defaulted gold, not a one troy ounce or gram, from anywhere in the universe.
I can be accused of unthinking, but dense I am not. I can clue in on a glaring hint. Gold is forever. Bond is for suckers willing to take equity risk and suffering measly promise.
(i) long reply, look at the photo, reflect on the truth.
(ii) proper response, paper credit money denominated in us treasury note has had a good run, built up a pile of debt (obligation) cash which has the mathematical imperative to collapse and the hard geopolitical need to implode.
Officialdom has the obligation as well as short / intermediate means to forestall the cataclysmic once and for all "game over" call. Whatever they do, everything they do, from here on out, shall be bullish for gold, whether or not they be bullish for anything and everything else.
(iii) even in the case of interest rate rising, gold shall remain firm and trend high, because, at current obligations count, interest rate rise shall unleash that which we must take as the gift, chaos; and give rise to that which must partnered, crises.
And you must already know about volatility, the friend, and lonely path, the right way.
<<Who else is left in the world who isn’t long gold who wanted to be long gold? Everybody is already all in..in gold.>>
(2) besides some of the sorry multitude on this e-mail roundtable, who else do we know having any reasonable amount of gold near at hand? Have folks forgotten the taste of q4 2008 so quickly?
(i) the main crises, maybe in 3 years, or perhaps in 94 months, shall happen, and when it does, no single or any conglomeration of sovereign powers would be able to save the dusk. When so, how much gold is too much, and where would such gold be?
(ii) it is a mistake to think of gold as an investment, speculation, money, commodity, precious metal, noble mineral, faithful object of exchange, political instrument, central bank reserve, store of value and every such thing.
It therefore is wrong to array gold against stocks, bonds, cash, real estate and everything else.
Gold is a faith. When times went dire, each and every sorry time, gold reign supreme. Time shall go dire once again, and we are closer to the end-game than ever before, already well in the territory of “biblical reckoning”.
Gold is a keeper of score, of surplus capital put to sleep, and of excess savings deeply stored, preferably in airconditioned comfort, well away from the hubbub, and ideally, always at the ready to answer the scream of duty that we hope would never be, remaining faithful, horrible year after terrible 4-seasons, generation after generations.
<<That’s why despite some very good tailwinds, eg QE2, gold hasn’t made new highs.>>
(3) I refrain from responding to that taunt, because as I view the past, gold is up double digits ytd, and shares are down single digit in same 12 months. Bond rose? Great, welcome and embrace, a crowded trade in truth.
The rewards for faith, year after trying year:
1999 Dec 31st USD 288/oz
2000 Dec 29th USD 274/oz -6%
2001 Dec 31st USD 279/oz +3% (when you, player 2 and I gathered, with you unbelieving, player 2 hesitating, and I pleading with you both to engage with the faith, and in size; it was also a trying time when my wife forbade me to talk macro anything and gold everything at any of her gatherings – my wife still forbids me the very same way, player 2, relatively to the demands of the faith, is still hesitating, and you are still a heretic – that can only mean all is well for the gold bubble that at this juncture no pin can prick)
2002 Dec 31st USD 348/oz +25%
2003 Dec 31st USD 416/oz +20%
2004 Dec 31st USD 438/oz +5%
2005 Dec 30th USD 519/oz +18%
2006 Dec 29th USD 638/oz +24%
2007 Dec 31st USD 833/oz +31%
2008 Dec 31st USD 889/oz +7%
2009 Dec 31st USD 1,095/oz +23%
2010 Aug 27th USD 1,238/oz +13%
Is there anything of the above we should have doubts about?
Should one wish to earn a fat 20 percent 'yield' on gold to whip annaly, just short puts on gold, short again, short thrice more, in size, and once inventory full and value just right, short covered calls, and keep doing same, thus we can earn a faithful return.
Winning is easy when one pissing down wind, knowing one is sponsored by a bull market and backstopped by spendthrift electorates.
Stocks? Peeing into the wind, one lost decade down, and a whole lot of years still to go. The s&p500 is down 31% since January 2000, and down 6% ytd, and you want to play that, akin to playing tag with a locomotive or soviet roulette with a automatic pistol. For mere mortals, thanks but no thanks, given the thankless nature of the odds.
<<If jgbs hit .75%, why wouldn’t tnotes hit 1.75%?>>
(4) Yes, sure, T-notes can most assuredly go to 1.75% and I reckon 0.75% is almost a sure thing. Trouble is that photo attached above. A doubling and tripling of already near-nothing debt-ly credit money meant fuck all to the argentinians and zimbabwans, and the same logic applies to the usa domain.
Spoke to osk of Malaysia yesterday, and they say their bank in Cambodia offers 7 fat % yield. Anyone wish to be tee-ed up? Nice knowing anyone.
T-notes going the way of japan is, absolutely, not a bullish trend, for it can and does mean one and a single thing, that the rot is spreading, cancer wasting, and the end-game is nearer even if 7 – 15 years away.
The 7 - 15 years is the time we have remaining to provision the deep keep, stock up the citadel, and gather that which is only available in volume of 2 regulation sized swimming pools, noble gold, and aggregate that which is in store of 1 regulation pool proportion, strategic platinum. We must try our best and collect our fair allocation, relative to 7 billion spirits and 700 trillion of notional paper.
In other words, 9 years down and perhaps 9 more to go, until well within defining process horizon and biblical event singularity.
<<Equities: everyone has been bearish since 2009. we’re in the new normal but that doesn’t mean we’re looking for a 100 year flood every year. We just had one. Additionally, there are few who will need to sell equities if/when it crashes because ICI tells us retail continues to pull out of stock mutual funds for the past 2 years. Eg. I own zero traditional equity, except reits like analy mortgage.>>
(5) I fear we did not experience the 100 year flood. What we saw was a mere leak from a punctured dam. The perfect storm of sovereign default, planetary nuclear fallout, and vaporization of middle class this way comes, at a most inconvenient time.
<<Relative value:
1) Anyone visit Singapore lately and notice how expensive it is compared to a hk or tokyo? Tokyo is one of the most beautiful, cleanest, vibrant cities in the world and its great value now. Best dry powder skiing is in Hokkaido, imho.>>
(6) Tokyo is Japanese, Japanese are silently but surely dying off.
Want beautiful? Iceland is also beautiful.
Clean? Stockholm is cleaner.
Vibrant? Kabul rocks everyday.
Dry powder? For what and what for?
None of that has anything to do with life and living.
We ought to engage with uproarious life expectancy, within environ of massage at the drop of a coin, where women behave as women and men can be men, all natural, and the only ones off limit are friends mamas, daughters and wives.
Let me see, per the Beatles song, when we are 85, can no longer fend off drive-by shooters on the highway or agile enough to even park cars and scare off the boyz, do we really want to be in California? What are you thinking if you are? Think. Think again. Think thrice more.
And I am gentle enough not to invoke the very nice weekly reflexology sessions ;0) and the daily #@$# should one be so inclined.
<<2) schools as represented by hk intl school are so inferior as compared to most usa schools, in terms of sports and academics. Eg at hkis, there are 2 academic lanes.. normal and accelerated. In palo alto, there are 5 lanes. Our kids could not test beyond the lowest lane and had to catch up by taking summer school via private lessons. There are 2 soccer coaches at hkis. There are 5 at palo alto.>>
(7) I do not know why you choose to compare a drug-and-roll usa style hkis to a palo alto school. The best part of hkis is over. Its top students these days are all mainlanders. Its American flavored kids can no longer rest on the laurels of the fading empire and currently, unless getting off their tush, are at the bottom of the roll, by all reports.
I also venture to guess that 50% of the active members of the American club are Europeans and Asians. My guess is that any kids in these parts not engaging properly with mandarin will end up being sashimi in the new normal, and by that measure, sooner rather than later in engineering palo and science alto, it be just and only a gigantic wasabisabi serving Indian food.
My daughter is not yet six, reads a lot and writes plenty in both English and Chinese, practices Wushu, taps on piano, chants tang poems, knows gold is the best money, loves lego (engineering), adores magic school bus (science), and plays well enough in monopoly. The isf education, accounting for tax regime and tuition, adjusted for safe commute and tallying up no-guns anywhere, is value-laden.
Besides, HK math education is second to finland and third to none in the known universe.
There was a bit of fluff published recently about how English shall remain the dominant business and science language, about which I agree with and am thankful for. The same fluffy author went on to suggest that the top scientists and ip-generators shall remain English-only / English-primary speakers, to which I say rubbish.
Ip generation cannot remain independent from manufacturing and application, and day to day, a scientist able to engage with multiple languages will always kick the behind of scientists of single language platiform, just as a multi-discipline engineers or a renaissance scholar would always ball-crater the merely trained and just read.
<<3) have you tasted the water or smelt the air of hk or asia lately? Try coming to palo alto where the air is pristine blue and water from sierra mountains taste sweet>>
(8) Yes, it taste good, like enterprise, especially when shipped from france; and smells fine, like diligence, particularly if humid.
Want pristine air? Try New Zealand, they do not have gangs shooting at clans.
Want sweet water? Try Bocari Sweat.
<<4) have you bought wine from Costco usa? A bottle of almaviva, probably one of the better cabernets which costs us$120 at hk airport is $65 at Costco here. This bottle rivals any wine at any price. I can buy cases of it without any guilt and bbq my organic beef knowing its not tainted from china.>>
(9) Who in his right mind would buy wine at either Costco or HK airport?
You are supposed to acquire wine from the likes of IWM iwm.com.hk inexpensive, fine, selected, vetted, beautiful, and delivered.
<<If hkma can intervene and buy hk shares directly in 1997, why cant the fed buy $2Tln worth of made in usa stocks?>>
(10) Fed can, and I am counting on it. The trouble with shares is that they are shares of business and equity of enterprise, that which is being destroyed by the fiat money inflation which had been and is called upon to save them.
Player 3, S&P500 dropped 31% in 10 years and 6% in 8 months, and the money in which they are valued went into a black hole from which light does not escape. I would be even more bullish on gold if the FED promises and enables another 20 trillion. Wake up to the truth, that fiat money inflation has been and shall continue prove to be a nightmare, inception-like, layer after layer and year after year, per history since primordial times during which gold, at all dire junctures, ruled.
<<Why stop at $700B tarp money targeting banks? If the empire is at risk, I don’t doubt Bernanke has other arrows in his quiver.>>
(10) Good. Counting on it. Bring it on. No mercy, minus the regret, and allow absolutely no quarter. My faith is strong and I wish to be tested.
<<I do hope s&p gets to 750 because I love 50% off sales.
Double happiness: player 2 gets his bear call right and I get my bargain.>>
Between the S&P morbid and frog-boiling action and the searing burn of the USD, S&P500 is down from 4.23 troy ozs to 0.86 troy ozs, or down 80%. My guess is that it would go to 0.8 tro ozs, or 98% down from eop 2000 reckong.
Admonition, that the last halving is the most painful.
Besides, gold is young
player 3: I m glad that I was able to change ur mind on gold?
Btw, if u wish to enjoy your mountain of gold in ur ripe old age, drink lots of green tea, full if anti-oxidants to keep away the shenzen pollution which hit new records back in June when I saw u?
:-)
player 5: Hk life expectancy is second only to japan and third to none, just as math education is second only to finland and third to none.
We must not argue with the numbers even as we are tempted to challenge fate.
Green tea? I do that, alternating with coffee days.
Pollution? Live long and polluted, not a problem. Live short and clean, big problem.
... to be continued in next post Message 26784586 |
