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

To: carranza2 who wrote (201263)	9/5/2023 6:13:03 PM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Recommended By 3bar Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217485

I read the review. The review seemed reasoning and I guess represented the book quite well and went on to offer the same criticism I'd have made given the representation of the book. I don't buy the cyclical ideas. Yes, the idea that strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create bad times etc makes some superficial sense. A man creates a great company. His sons and daughters manage to keep it going for a generation. The grandchildren are dissolute entitled wastrels who fail it. That's a similar idea. That's also sort of true. Except that it omits that each descendant is only a hybrid of the great man who passes on only half his genes to each child, which then is halved again in the next. Even if he was cloned, a company is a product of its times which might not have a future once the product or technological life cycle has risen and fallen. For example, optical fibre. In 1987 I was beside myself with excitement to find I had Karl Michel as a neighbour. uantwerpen.be He's a solid state physicist. His friend was inventing and producing optical fibre. For years in BP Oil International I had been promoting information systems and had concluded fibre and chips/solid state physics were the holy grail. In fact I was offered the best job in the world for me [to go to work for the bloke who was going to take over that for BP]. But we had decided to go back to NZ. With the coincidence that I also happened to meet Bill Gardiner of Qualcomm in 1991 having conceived in 1989 of exactly what Qualcomm was doing I ponder how such coincidences happen. I wonder about the theory of reality as a simulation as that would fit the situation. But so would happenstance and confirmation bias = that's what I'm looking for and there are lots of solid state physicists and optical fibre makers and people working for Qualcomm [though only 350 in 1991]. Anyway, from that first optical fibre and solid state physics excitement only a third of a century ago, the product life cycle came and went. To such an extent that I have just cancelled our optical fibre service at home and though it was installed at our Tauranga house, I haven't bothered to buy the service, instead getting wireless data at sufficient speed and cost that it's not worth the extra expense. Huge companies such as JDS Uniphase came and went. CenturyLink has turned into Lumen and has nearly gone bust, with share price now at $1.50 down from $50 and great dividends. A Silicon Investor acquaintance Kelly Kameyer who visited Auckland 20 years ago ended his life on returning to USA as he was bankrupt from tax on his investment in JDSUniphase but the share price crashed so he had the liability but no means of payment. So theories on how nations and companies come and go need better foundations than simplistic cyclic theories. Greece was great but never came back. Egyptian Pharoahs, Roman Empire emperors had their day and have faded and gone. Islamic jihad spread from the Atlantic ocean out into the Pacific ocean and down into sub Sahara and up to Tours and the Gates of Vienna and into eastern China. But it was nothing much during the glory of vast European success. China was hot stuff 600 years ago but faded to not far off nothing albeit with a hefty population of warring and starving people. The Taiping rebellion was horrific and Mao's Maelstrom no good either. USA has still got plenty going for it. I do think that mongrel genetics and competitive chaos have got something going for them, and democratic messes enable that chaos that's apparently awful but maybe allows the wonderful to be created and survive the mess. Totalitarian, organized, orderly, government-approved countries, planned and managed by bossy kleptocratic corruptocrat bastards have some good aspects, but they don't provide the best stuff. Though they can do okay as chaos is inefficient and costly. The USSR had excellent space station technology for example, though the Lada wasn't as swishy as a Lexus. There does seem to be a good chance that 95% of the world's population is doomed due to MAD Americans not having an off switch and launching into full scale war with Russia, China, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and whoever. But wait. Look what the chaos has coming, maybe. Trump plus Vivek. Then Vivek for another 8 years after an apprenticeship. If Vivek can get Ayn Rand/Mqurice/VVVs adopted by USA, and a lot more besides, this could be the beginning of the best time ever in biological history. Nothing less than what I've argued for decades is the purpose of it all = the launch of extra-somatic sentience. The Great and Glorious British Empire enabled India to go democratic and integrate with the rest of the world, so that Vivek could become president of USA. Sure, it's a vast muddle of swarming billions, but look at the reality. Indians such as Sanjay Jha [Qualcomm], Sundar Pichai = Google, Satya Nadella = Microsoft, Jayshee Ullal = Atrista and how about Rishi Sunak = PM of England [I'm not in favour of him but there he is], Sadiq Khan = London mayor [arrgghhhh], Humzar Yousaf = boss of Scotland, Leo Varadkar = boss of Ireland. All created and enabled by the wonderful Christian mongrel democratic VVVs of England via the Great and Glorious British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. USA tediously glorifies their stupid Independence Day but they are just unappreciative offshoots of the same Greatness and Glory = one can't expect all one's offspring to understand their antecedents and genuflect with gratitude to their progenitors. But appreciation or not, the future awaits. And that's where we're going. USA via the Great and Glorious British Empire and the constitutional process that derived from the Great and Glory, now has, via bumble stumble and the abilities, energies and VVVs of Ashkenazi Jews, those high-powered Indians [Pakistan is just a wayward part of India] and everyone else who has muddled in, got the best off the world right there, right now, to go into calamitously catastrophic cataclysm in MAD nuclear war and almost complete obliteration of humanity, or choose Vivek/Big Don and Go for Glory into parabolically exponential acceleration to asymptotic hyperbole. The dopey cyclic theory of countries is simplistic and stupid and false. Though it does have a bit of reality to it = somewhat like the CO2 Global Doomsterism of Global Warming/Greenhouse Effect/Climate Change/Climate Weirding has simplistic theory foundations, based on false premises of Earth in Balance and cyclic theories of harmony which in fact never existed in the big picture. Earth is in a crystalization process that has nearly killed off life by CO2 starvation and carbon burial. But that's another story. Mqurice

To: carranza2 who wrote (201263)	9/24/2023 7:53:13 PM
From: TobagoJack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217485

Re <<You might find this interesting.Perhaps not.>> ... best do. bloomberg.com Chinese Gold Buying Is Driving a Paradigm Shift in Bullion The relationship between gold and real rates has unraveled Prices have been supported by central bank buying, investors By Eddie Spenceand Yvonne Yue Li 24 September 2023 at 16:12 GMT+8 What determines the price of gold? For much of the past decade the answer was easy: the price of money. The lower rates fell, the higher gold climbed, and vice versa. Gold is the quintessential “anti-dollar” — a place to turn for those who distrust fiat currency— so it seemed natural that prices would rise in a world of low real interest rates and cheap dollars. Or when rates went up, gold, which pays no yield, naturally became less attractive, sending prices tumbling. Well, not anymore. As inflation-adjusted rates soared this year to the highest since the financial crisis, bullion has barely blinked. Real yields— measured by the 10-year Treasury inflation-protected securities, or TIPS, — jumped again on Thursday to the highest since 2009, while spot gold nudged down a mere 0.5% the same day. The last time real rates were this high, gold was about half the price. The unraveling of the relationship between gold and real interest rates could be a paradigm shift for the precious metal, leaving investors struggling to calculate its “fair value” in a world where the old equations don’t seem to apply. It’s also raising questions about if and when the old dynamic might reassert itself – or whether it already has, just from a new base. So what’s holding prices up? Analysts point to a combination of voracious central bank buying – led by China – and investors that are still betting a US economic slowdown will be good for gold, even when the regular playbook says it’s time to sell. China’s Gold Binge Extends to 10th Month as Reserves Climb “Our models told us it’s $200 too expensive,” said Marco Hochst, a portfolio manager at Berenberg. Yet the firm’s 319 million euro ($340 million) multi asset balanced fund which he helps manage is still holding about 7% of its assets in gold. “In our view the future looks much more attractive for gold.” There are various different models or calculations to assess the fair value of gold — many analysts create their own — but at their essence most reflect the basic principles of where bullion is trading compared with real US bond yields and the dollar. Normally money managers would sell the haven metal as the dollar strengthens and the interest paid by other safe assets like bonds and cash rises. But they haven’t done so on the scale that would be expected, creating the large “premium” to where the models say it should be trading. “I get no yield on gold, but I can get yield on cash. Where am I going to go?” saidAnthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial Inc. “In that respect, I’m surprised at how resilient gold has been.” The “premium” has endured for over a year, as a record gold-buying binge by central banks helped the metal withstand monetary policy tightening globally. There are some initial signs that sovereign demand is starting to slow, making gold more vulnerable to downturns. Crucial to the outlook will be if institutional investors decide to sell up if prices test new lows. However, some analysts argue that rather than breaking down entirely, gold’s relationship with its key drivers has simply been reset at a higher base. That could allow it to set a record if yields or the dollar drop again, according to Macquarie’sMarcus Garvey, who sees prices rising to $2,100 an ounce next year as the US economy slows. “There has been a level break higher in the nominal gold price,” Garvey said. “Once you get the financial flows as a tailwind, I think it makes a decent push higher.” A litmus test may have been the turmoil that engulfed the US financial sector in March. Real yields and the dollar fell as Silicon Valley Bank teetered on the brink, triggering fresh inflows into gold-backedexchange traded funds. Despite already trading at a lofty premium, the metal rallied to within touching distance of the record it set during the pandemic, but eventually slumped as the crisis eased and investors sold into the higher prices. Gold Whale Won’t Ignore Bearish Drivers Forever: Macro View But others are more skeptical of a repeat, particularly with the threat of a banking crisis having retreated and bonds offering meaningful yields for the first time in years. With gold looking relatively expensive, it might struggle to attract meaningful flows even in a US slowdown. “There are other assets such as long term bonds that can be used in the portfolio for the same purpose as gold, but come with carry,” said Marco Piersimoni, co-manager of the 6.2 billion-euro Pictet Multi Asset Global Opportunities fund, who has halved his allocation to the precious metal in the past 12 months. “In the current environment gold is not a very convincing diversification asset.” — With assistance by Eddie van der Walt