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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (45083)	1/22/2004 7:03:25 AM
From: Seeker of Truth	Respond to of 74559

Maurice, your thesis is interesting but I think basically wrong. First of all trade is multidirectional. If you pick up some manufactured product at the store, chances are it is made in China, right? Have we all become citizens of China? You can extend that right around the world. Women seem to be citizens of France. "Paris" does a lot for you if you are selling ladies' clothes or cosmetics. Etc. The bottom line is that politics is still important. No foreign government can arrest you while you are in NZ. For human rights the best deal is in some cold countries, Scandinavia, Canada, the Netherlands. The worst deal is in: (fill in your most hated dictatorship). I hope I don't have to tell you that there's an enormous difference between the best deal and the worst. It's more important and more defining than where your savings are invested. I'm currently invested in the Euro zone, Sweden, Russia, China and Canada. Where is my citizenship? If I bought your imaginative picture I'd be a jig saw puzzle, certainly not an American. I use Dell computers, insides made everywhere but that's about it. No coke or MacDonald's stuff for me; they are not healthy foods. By the way, the software I work on is used primarily in Japan and secondarily elsewhere globally.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (45083)	1/22/2004 11:14:54 AM
From: pezz	Respond to of 74559

<<On gold, forget it. It's an anachronism which some fringe whacko perverts are having fun with>> I resemble that remark.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (45083)	1/22/2004 12:09:23 PM
From: AC Flyer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

>>Gee ACF, you sound like a new, improved version of Jay, expecting a super-duper turbo-charged depression.<< It's all a question of perspective. I see the same structural problems that Jay sees, but do not expect a collapse soon. Jay and I differ significantly (I think) in that I believe that US boomer-driven demand will keep this bubble inflated for 6 more years before the collapse in US consumer spending post-2010 causes an economic disaster. The US stock indexes will rise to incredible new highs by 2010. I am becoming more pessimistic about our post-2010 prospects because the worst of times will immediately follow the best of times, with consumer balance sheets in their shakiest (i.e. most leveraged) state in modern history at the onset of the carnage, due to the low interest rates that will continue through this decade. The US Depression will ripple through the world economy. The US will see 30+ million unemployed, soup lines, residential housing selling at 10 cents on the dollar. You know, The Great Depression redux, though probably worse this time, as maybe 50% of the population have significant exposure to US equities vs. 5% in 1929. Sure, accuse me of being a raving lunatic, but this is all set in stone, courtesy of the unprecedented demographic wave that is the boomers. When boomer consumer spending begins to fall, post-2010, stick a fork in, we're all done. Fifteen years of declining domestic demand. No government intervention, no deus ex machina can do a thing to stop it. You have six years of sunshine to make hay. Use them well. An intelligently-planned US stocks portfolio should triple in value by 2010 without any pezz-style heroics. Post script for Jay. For a (very) small minority, positioned in cash, cash equivalents, gold and US Treasury bonds, the 2010-2025 period will present an unprecedented opportunity to become fabulously wealthy.