Hello Maurice, My mind is troubled that you and I are finding more and more to agree on …
Message 16903704
<<I was persuaded enough by your blandishments during 2001 … to clear the decks in case there is a crash-landing … Not long now to Feb 2002 and I do NOT think we will see the Dow at 16,000 by then … bargain times right now ... weird how it doesn't feel as though we are ... We just need to get past the current market Death Valley>>
Message 16903821
<<Diana Rigg/Emma Peel - ah, those were the days ... whistling>>
Message 16904510
<<Uncle Al … Neither do I think he could do much to stop the rise or ameliorate the fall. Sure, he can have some influence by huge printing of money and hacking interest rates on the way down … Just in case debt overload DOES matter, which it commonly does, I have now not only unloaded all debt [at the peak of the last rise post 911] but got a little cash [in the mighty Kiwi$ - it's been sitting here for 18 months now]. So you have persuaded me to significantly change my position from a year ago. And a very good move that has been>>
… and as I crouch in a craw space, trembling fingers on the trigger of a rifle pointed in the down hill direction, I look behind me, shivering some more.
You highlighted certain ideas, and chose, perhaps too promptly, maybe by instinct, perhaps by hope, to view them in the positive:
<<Major Paradigm Shift Happens … political improvements easing the way … ability to generate revenue is being moved ... the question for investors is to figure out what the heck this productivity change means and how to make a profit during low revenue prosperity. It's deflation and Uncle Al prints money to avoid deflation, so I expect we will see continuing rapid increases in US$ supply ... Investors will need caution to not pay USA prices for China profit ... Overpaid people in Hong Kong, USA and elsewhere [Japan, Korea as you mentioned] will have to get another job ... not so great for them ... The Japanese will just continue to live off their savings and investments [and newly built joint venture production facilities in China] ... why shouldn't the Japanese, who also worked hard and saved for decades?>>
I, OTH, choose to view these same issues with a question mark, as in ?
To try to upset AC Flyer, I will espouse a bit of commonplace philosophy or extraordinary banality concerning an ancient perquisite to survival, namely, ‘expect the unexpected’ and, to not further irritate AC Flyer, keep additional thoughts in (admittedly big) bullet form:
(a) Paradigm shift will generate both internal (to China) and external political spastic reflexes and organized responses, ultimately answerable to the crowds on the street, democracy or no;
(b) Many investors around the globe, given the magnitude of the P-shift, will be no more at the end of the journey through the Valley of Doom. Ditto for J6P and W3Cs;
(c) They will perish mostly because they pay too high a price for something, anything, while concentrated their bet in a few names, and a few less geographies;
(d) Printing money to avoid manufacturing deflation in the context of service and asset inflation amidst an overall atmosphere of high debt is a once in so many centuries experience, ala time portal based travel to a New New World, of which I need not say more, for I have no map;
(e) At least one overpaid person in Hong Kong will have to consider changing his revenue model, relocating to or away from China, or gradually fade away on Money Rock/Freedom Mountain, unless Hong Kong Deflation Valley fades first. More about this later;
(f) The Japanese are living off of their savings, even as it quite rapidly disappears via deflation of real estate, depression of equities, devaluation of currency, debasement of faith, default of bonds, de-commissioning of plants, and … oh you know, all the bad stuff that may matter less to another one person living in New Zealand, better but not all together sheltered from the storm. Do not forget, they (Japan) are also astonishingly quickly depopulating, thus disappearing for real.
(g) This is what is happening in Japan …
aei.org
(I do not agree with the entirety of the article, for I think it is too optimistic)
Or, as I put it in my own peculiar way back in August …
Message 16244385
“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"”
I am in complete agreement with our thread resident Doctor Jim Black, ‘I have my suspicions’, but I have no definitive answers, and definitely have no cures …
Message 16133735
“Hong Kong is a strange place. We are very developed in many ways (income, education, physical, financial and legal infrastructure ...) and less developed in others (culture, sense of history, ...), and we are smack in the middle of the developing world. Our wealth is dependent on small government, proximity to markets and cheap labour, and free trade. Keeping our wealth is only dependent on personal skill (as opposed to FDIC) and luck”
… except, perhaps, just maybe, reading between the lines of the following three posts, I see a speck of gold and a glimmer of hope, in its ancient, traditional and timeless mix, that would be pure 999 and 9 (oops, call me superstitious) …
Message 16898478
“Jay’s plug for you know what”
from DJ …
Message 16902344
“The theory of reflexivity - see Soros papers”
and from CB …
Message 16898810
“E-gold and Islam
Inside the new global web that aims to overthrow the world financial system.
By Julian Dibbell”
Do you think your <<long-deceased mother>> would approve of what she knows to work for her time?
My Internet-enabled, Schwab-facilitated, and equity-entranced mom (70 in age, survived much) agrees with me that a hedge is in order. Of my forebears, had one cub lost it all fighting for more, another not lost while fighting for any, or one more had any to begin with, I would not be here trying to convince you to hedge a bit, because I, the French Creole Hakka Chinese Trinidadian, would not be here at all.
Come on Maurice, take the final step in our long-running discussion that started thus …
Message 15410107
… just one ounce will do, as long as it is not the last physical ounce available for sale and, traditionally, for delivery, prudently, for possession, and Aztec-ishly, for hoarding:0)
Here is one recipe on how to start, using all that we know to be just possibly true …
Message 16830817
Chugs, Jay |
