Hello KJC, Forgive me for using SI database for personal diary storage. This post, unlike yours, is a hodgepodge of random thoughts mixed together a mishmash of casual remarks freed from gaps in the synaptic network, now masquerading as a coherent posting.
<<all bulls that risk posting on this thread be banished to Singapore ... lashes with a sharpened cane>>
We may have a problem.
Bullish CB has wandered off:
(last post here at BBR)
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to concerned herself on intractable but possibly more critical issues
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ACFlyer Mike turned out to be more of a bear than most, and is busy not posting here:
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Hawkmoon refuses our ribbing company, preferring to be confidently wrong, as opposed to hesitatingly right:
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siliconinvestor.com
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siliconinvestor.com
siliconinvestor.com
siliconinvestor.com
And otherwise keeping busy here …
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Maurice is no longer a BBQ rib-wannabe and may morph into an Aztec bug, platinum worm, or even a silver-backed chimpoid soon:
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The less august detractors from the red tribe such as these folks who are now so very clearly wrong, but for all the right reasons ...
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... no longer visit we of the Financial Collapse 2001 thread. Perhaps because they now are fearful, after losing what they must have had lost had they acted on their earlier mistaken beliefs. That is what happens when (this is going to feel good, but dangerously conceited) they refused to read this thread that is tomorrow’s WSJ yesterday;0)
That did feel good. Too good. Bad juju, in the words of Luc, and so I now must walk around my desk three times and chant, “Q, Q, Q”.
The red tribe may have started to suspect that the market's destiny has already been set, as in checkmate in two moves - Dollar Down and Gold Up:
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… and the electorates are voting thumbs down:
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If we did not know better, we would be consumed by imperial hubris or ecclesiastical arrogance, like some Latin-esque politician who counts on his brother’s help in counting the ballots, or religious men who prefer little boys. No, no, I am not picking open old wounds, but merely mindful that the truth are sometimes not apparent until long after the facts.
If we did not know at all, we would stop fearing the Singapore bamboo-ing that is lurking out there in the market place for us poor investors.
While we may not know better, we can imagine worse. We therefore must resist the temptation to be consumed by how right we have been about the big picture even as we ignore all that we got wrong in the little frame. The big picture was in fact there for all to see had they simply looked:
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… for examples.
We are left with our now precious Pezz to remind us that one must not give up hope for quick wealth.
Pezz, the precious one, is not exactly bullish, but simply tempting fate, flying close to the flame, and teasing to see if he is destined to trade his way to money heaven. I suspect he will succeed in meeting his destiny, unless he too repents, and soon:
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We need bulls to visit this thread so that we can stay alert, and be amused at the same nasty time. The bulls are dropping, like flies, playing monopoly during a game of Russian roulette, with their home equity and a deadly weapon.
So, what is the worst we can imagine?
The waging of perpetual war for the cause of endless peace? Winning Afghanistan and losing Pakistan? Occupying caves and losing count of fission machines?
Try again. This image is not genuine enough yet. The vision is so foreign to those outside of Israel-Palestine and India-Pakistan, and so the fear is not yet sincere.
12-year long recession?
Not good enough. This image is not creative enough, because Japan, much like a movie trailer, has been and is still there.
Polite conversation trending towards subjects such as guns in every glove compartment, illegal immigrants in every jail, and pervasively intrusive body searches at all McDonalds?
Try harder. This image, while fanciful, but not scary as it is already happening and folks are acclimatizing.
Unending series of familiar signposts of trouble: increasing structural unemployment, stagnating wages, more bankruptcies, rising raw material costs, less profits, real estate that refuses to stay up, and a Dow that keeps heading down?
Harder still. This image is no big deal, for we are living it everyday, and the image lacks vivid surround sound quality.
Nuclear war between close genetic cousins over the issue of 'who is god'?
Too remote, geographically speaking, not probabilistically meant. Just another CNN broadcast for populations hooked on video feed, requiring no imagination.
So, what is the worst we can imagine?
Losing our wealth to the tune of a dozen years of active savings. Try thinking about what it would be like to be dependent on the generosity of the system in our longer-living old age, or working because we have to, as opposed to wanting to? Try thinking about the resultant regret, self-doubt, pity, and loss of joy?
Ok, that was easy, I am scared. Now what?
Now we stop frivolous spending, increase active savings, be done with supporting the economy, finished with propping up the financial market, take maximum care of what we have already accumulated, and let discipline overcome chaos, action replace hope, prudence supplant … well you get the idea … basically continue to be different from the herding crowds, until they herd no more.
Concerning your observations, I feel (paraphrasing DJ) a resonance:
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Here are some of my practical gestures to prudence and applied respects to the times:
- Cut back on USD 12 taxi rides to the office, opting for the USD 1 public bus
- Canceled subscriptions to many annual reports by selling off residual shares in companies I have long ceased caring about
- Prepare expensive Japanese restaurant cuisine reasonably at home
- Stay at the companion 4-star hotel wings attached to the main 5-star hotels
- Walk and swim in the neighborhood instead of taking my friend’s boat out to sea
- Rent videos instead of going to the cinema
- Mothball not often used club memberships
- Hold business meal functions in regular instead of hotel restaurants
- Cut out completely the Hong Kong based reflexology sessions, and cut back the China based sessions
- Holding off on replacing my most boring automobile left to me by another friend
- Resist impulse temptations when walking past antique watch shops and do not check out auctions
- Resist expensive-looking women friends who tend to bring out my magnanimous and chivalrous self with alacrity (of course I actually mean dinner with my wife and her girl friends – for I tend to pay the tabs when there are no other guys around to share the burden with) … yeah yeah, Jay, no need to explain so earnestly
- Set a higher hurdle rate on private investment opportunity evaluations, and mostly refuse to invest
- Think a few dozen times more before deciding on a vacation, actually consider the budget, and then cut the budget
I cannot cut very much more because I have always lived frugally, adjusting for Hong Kong cost-of-living base:
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For our productivity index is also going up, just as in America, with less people doing more, so that more people have nothing to do at all. Carrying this trend to its absurd extreme, the conclusion will not be pleasant.
It is far better to behave as a member of the proletariat masses than actually be one. I am definitely not alone in this quest to retrench, and so Hong Kong’s economy will shrink.
I must however note, living this way is not as nearly fun as before. We may, after a while, even forget what ‘before’ was like, and then we can turn super maximum bullish.
What else are we waiting for?
We are waiting for equity prices to drop and dividend payout to rise, until dividend rate pervasively overwhelms bank-deposit interest rate.
<<Anyway, the extrapolation in my way of thinking is that not as many baby boomers are going to delay retirement as the "experts" think. Instead, they will retire anyway, maybe a year or two later than originally anticipated, but not the 10 and 20 years later that most "experts" are currently predicting>>
The concept of retirement is foreign to my family by blood and marriage. Everyone seems to simply work him or herself joyfully to heaven, and leave a bundle to the next generation. The philosophy seems to be, live for “money and fun” and die the same way.
For most of the herding crowds, I suspect many will not be able to retire, early or late, because there simply is not enough to support an idle life style of indeterminate duration.
Chugs, Jay
P.S. BTW, I think we could be here …
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… in this the script:
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and once more, anticipation is a survival trait;0) |
