happy new year and a year-opening note comprised of random thoughts :0)
(1) as philv pointed out, the 'dow' is a construct w/ built-in survivor bias, iow, an artefact of civilization used to indicate state of health, and is systemically structured to 'always' rise, over the the long term, until such time when 'this time it is different' end-of-days reckoning
'it is different this time' is now playing out globally, and it is 'seriously phucked up this time'
to use the dow or any other share index anywhere as indicator of health is valid w/i enough reasons, but progressively more caution required when the largest players are nation-state entities such as central banks that literally create moolah out of thin air by ways of the bank conduits and treasury departments, sovereign wealth funds, outfits holding tbtf-dispensation card, and the get-out-of-jail-free-card-holding minion piglets feeding at the trough and their cousin vultures circling above.
the same indicator-of-health role may have been true for carthage real estate until the tail-end of its enlightening clash-of-civilization history revealed itself which, for the folks who held on for the (long-term) next chapter and favoured fixed-locale real estate over portable-enough gold, would probably have been disappointed when the flip of the page gave illumination to an absolute blank sheet charred at the edges and sprinkled w/ salt
(2) am guessing that
... as the long progression of collapse plays out, we shall see several more massive series of socialization of losses and privatization of bail-outs via qe, a/k/a systematic rule-by-making-up-rules theft, confiscation, redistribution to the top, ...
rising and more frequent retributions from the bottom would be adequately contained in the earlier days by any society sporting a militarised police paid for by the top by way of tithing of the bottom, and generally devolve overtime for the nights that get longer and longer still
(3) anyone capable of elementary trend-line scripting can imagine the current successful-until-fail progression, in which folks w/ special dispensations requiring easy-enough satisfaction of a very-few preconditions and agreeing to simple-enough and short-list of requirements can secure loans at libor + 60 pts, and make magic happen where qe is a blessing, almost guaranteeing the dispensation-card holders would become more wealthy even as the real economic pie shrinks; and when the bank can trade for its own book riding first ahead then along its favoured clients, how much better can the gaming get? would either the lender or the client complain about qe? would both contribute to the political establishment (in truth to all pretenders to the rule-making chambers) that ensure the continuation of a policy that is soooo bountiful for some / few but terrible for others / most.
(4) however, i digress. greenspan is wrong about gold and economic freedom. gold as money absolutely does not guarantee economic freedom.
gold already is money. in hk we have standard-issue banking wrap account on the monthly statement where hkd checking, hkd savings, foreign currency savings, and gold are separately identified and tallied. but of course such statement banking gold are part of the arena that is comprised of unallocated, re-hypothecated, fractional (if at all) reserved, and essentially fictional gold only for trading transactions and nothing more (the account agreement essentially states so).
(5) there are some scenarios so dire if actualised that we should do something to guard against if the idea of such scenarios made home on our minds, for we do not want to answer the truly tough question that could be asked by our spouse, children, or grand children, but most especially by ourselves, and that is "why did not just buy gold?".
other scenarios are harder or impossible to guard against, and amongst such be catastrophic meteor strike, encounter w/ blackhole, etc etc.
(6) in the mean time 2015, in the big picture and by the trend-lines of all of your usefully illuminating charts should be a seemingly neo-new-normal everything-as-usual year, same for 2016, '17, '18 ...
... and then, eventually, inevitably, inexorably, one possibly even otherwise fine-weather day, all changed
we know that day as teotwawki day of reckoning, and
we aim to live a normal day for the full day, through the night, and think about what if anything to do the next day - that is our reason for gold, the elemental gimmick that withstood all test since inception.
we hang on to gold faith because it is more difficult to plan around a core belief requiring the de-materialization tractor beam to beam us upward to a saviour space ship.
:0)
(7) 2015 just started, and it is already fun
of the year i only hope that my health holds, family remain good-to-go, friends stay good-as-good, the passion for whatever i do on day to day remain high, and income balances out out-go, and balance sheet stay all-together.
i do not ask for the outrageous.
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cheers, tj |
