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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (88922)	4/10/2012 1:58:46 PM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217631

root cause of the US economy turning it into what is today, must be sought in early 80s. Built into this article about the rise of the private-equity firm Bain Capital, it shows the new brand of capitalism. newyorker.com What was the measure of “doing better”? The price of the stock. This was a relatively novel concept in 1973, the year Bain & Company got started. As Walter Kiechel III explains in “The Lords of Strategy,” an entertaining history of the consulting business that has a lot to say about B.C.G. and Bain, stock price was not a useful benchmark of anything in the nineteen-seventies, because the market was stagnant. On November 14, 1972, the Dow stood at 1,000. By 1974, it had fallen to 577, and it didn’t get back to 1,000 until 1982. In the rising market after 1982, though, the idea that the fundamental purpose of a publicly owned business is to make money for its shareholders became a basic tenet of capitalist faith. This is when the idea of launching a private-equity firm became a gleam in Bill Bain’s eye. If you’re a consultant devoted to the fortunes of a single company, forsaking all others in its “competitive set” and responsible for management decisions that make the price of that company’s stock go up, thereby enriching its shareholders and its management, what might you begin to feel? You might begin to feel that you deserved a piece of the action. Bain and his partners started, as Kiechel puts it, “to ponder how they might more effectively capitalize on the stock-market success they were helping others achieve.” Bain Capital was their answer. According to “The Real Romney,” Bain called Romney into his office, in 1983, and outlined his plan for the new business. Bain Capital would invest in start-ups or would buy existing businesses that were distressed or underperforming; it would provide Bain-style advice to management (not manage the companies directly); and it would then either take the companies public or sell them, and pocket the profit. Bain and his partners would provide seed money for this new enterprise, and they would be among the investors as well. He invited Romney to head up Bain Capital. Romney said no. Read more http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/03/19/120319crat_atlarge_menand#ixzz1rf35euS0

To: TobagoJack who wrote (88922)	4/10/2012 2:09:10 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 217631

Ah, Jay, I hate to see you so lost at sea. Cheer up! You might not know it at the mo, but things are good. All happening per plan. Only way to win, IMO, is to figure out the macro, which is not that hard- been done honestly gazillions of times here and elsewhere thanks to globally shared info glut and generosity of folks like you and Pater, then sit on it because macro forces though strong are not quick. What is the macro.........print, print, print and delever via currency inflation and low rates. And, yes, inflation will follow but it cannot be fought because the CBs hands are tied by the need to keep ZIRPy rates in place so as to not bankrupt the fisc and let the devaluation deleverage cycle roll which is necessary, appropriate and healthy because, well, debt is killing us. So, printing plus low rates plus inflation which is disguised, lied about [but definitely there] yields intermittent stock market bubbles but these bubbles aka 'rallies' are becoming short lived as nothing can subsist on fumes. Earnings will suck, ending the intemittent rallies. And, uh, Europe....sheez, what a mess. Spain, Italy, etc., who are they kidding? Can't they figure out But you already know all this, perhaps lost sight temporarily. You'll notice I have only one stock, a miner which is exceedingly well positioned. Not playing the game with the machines and the algos and the this and the that for I refuse to be skinned by chumps. Let Apple have its day, let the others flame up and down, I like my capital safely protected. Only conclusion possible is one you have for a very long time cheered....gold, plus, for me, a great miner for the long run and cash in more or less equal proportions. You'll sleep well, as I do.