Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (13773)	1/22/2002 7:34:20 AM
From: TobagoJack	Respond to of 74559

Hi Maurice, To close out today and record keeping, I changed this <<Cash 46.6% (32% Euro, 10% CHF, 2% AUSD, 3% HKD, 53% USD)>> to this ... Cash 46.6% (37% Euro, 10% CHF, 8% AUSD, 3% HKD, 42% USD) Joining you down under:0) And today I got notified of a bunch of SWC shares putted to me at 20/shr last Thursday. The overall SWC trade is so far neutral, considering the original premium collected on shorted puts. The game continues. Chugs, Jay

To: TobagoJack who wrote (13773)	1/24/2002 3:25:22 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

<I have no intention of converting in the direction of USD for 2002, given that it takes USD 500k at the local bank to buy 1.5 Big Mac meals per week from the interest. The printing of USD and the non-borrowing and non-spending of USD seems to be a bit excessive, to the point of frightening.> Jay, that sort of calculation is the way I like to look at things. Add in how long people expect to live and the risk that they will die in an untimely way before they spend their USD 500k and the hourly rate which people earn in the USA and around the world and we have a situation which doesn't make sense to me. An Indian [as in those living in India and in the middle of the Bell Curve of incomes] would have to work a very long time to earn USD500 k even without taxation. To save that much they would have to work a LOT longer. At less than $500 per year total earnings, they'd have to work 1000 years, even without taxation or living expenses, other than eating that one Big Mac meal a week, which they can earn from their interest, but not allowing for inflation, which will erode their Big Mac meal before the 1000 years are up, even at 1% inflation per year. To save USD500 k, they'd have to work something a million years [or some silly number]. What this tell me is that human life as measured by USD is out of kilter. Like electrons flowing from high voltage to low and heat from hot to cold and pressures from high to low, there will be a money transfer, depending on the insulation slowing the transfers. I'm not sure about the frightening part you mentioned, but it makes sense for there to be a lot of printing. There is no way that an American is worth so much more than an Indian [though Americans have trouble with that concept and aren't too worried about the legal position of those who they decide aren't prisoners of war but are some kind of stateless human artifact to be disposed of without habeas corpus with a 2:1 majority in a military tribunal]. I think the answer is that Americans [and those enmeshed in the American system such as USD holders] are living on borrowed time, or, more accurately, borrowed money, or, another way of looking at it, borrowed effort. Foreigners supply the USA with goods and services in vast quantities and Americans supply USD in exchange, but don't actually work to produce something the foreigners want. At present, the foreigners are happy to accept the promise that one day, when the foreigner chooses, the Americans will get to work and produce something in exchange for those USD. Well, maybe they will and maybe the won't. If people trust the USD, Uncle Green$pan [who prints on the money not to trust him, but "In God We Trust"], the USA politicians and the electorate, then maybe the game can go on for a lot longer yet. But what happens if everyone decides that the USD isn't worth 1 million Indian years of labour [or software programming etc] and they start trying to get rid of the hot potatoes so they aren't left getting their fingers burned? But, the game has been going on for decades, so maybe it'll carry on for quite a long time yet. I'm not betting on it. I think that's what I think, with a bit of questionable help from fermented Cabernet Sauvignon juice. Mqurice PS: As you wrote here, for example <(a) Because of manufacturing outsourcing, mostly offshore to the developed countries, manufacturing deflation proceeds, picking up speed as more of China/India/Russia (yes, Russia will be back) gets more and more into the act; (b) Service inflation in developed countries, due to money printing, will also pickup speed. As in USD 500k will earn enough interest for 1.5 Big Mac meals per week; © More folks around the world making a ‘living wage’ will put pressure on commodities, witness China’s effect on any given commodity trading when buying; (d) Inflation is bad for creditors and ‘good’ for debtors; (e) Manufacturing deflation is bad for developed economies, and ‘good’ for developing economies.>