Financial topics

Investments, gold, currencies, surviving after a financial meltdown
xakzen
Posts: 80
Joined: Wed Mar 25, 2009 11:59 am

Re: Maximum Ruin Update

Post by xakzen »

Higgenbotham wrote: ...
Another thing we have to keep in mind is if there's a severe financial calamity, that doesn't mean the shorts will get paid. So even if the S&P starts moving in the "right" direction, and my account value increases to the point where my net worth is higher than at the time this speculation was started, Maximum Ruin can still hold true. For those who are reading this and saying the exchanges will guarantee any defaults blah blah blah, I have a one word to say to that: Bullshit.
Read carefully the SPIC fine print. You are guarantied that any missing securities from your account up to $250,000 (?) will be replaced. You are not guarantied that your securities will have any value ;)!
at99sy
Posts: 182
Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2008 9:22 am

Re: Financial topics

Post by at99sy »

Does anyone truly believe in the employment/unemployment figures the government is issuing?
Unemployment dropped to 9.7%. Really!? Seriously?! Do they expect people to believe these totally bogus numbers?
Is this a case where they are trying to keep polishing this piece of 'poo' until it is so glossed over people will stop asking questions?
Jobs lost every week and unemployment filings up every week and magically the number of unemployed also fell. That's like saying that my bank account balance fell every month, my bills got bigger, my paycheck fell every month and magically I have more money than when I started. BS
My brother lives in middle TN and has been in construcion for 30 years. He puts the TN unemployment in the construction industry at about 70%. He has an extensive "blackbook" that he keeps phone numbers for companys and past jobs. For the past year he has seen about 50% of the companys go out of business and most of the rest have fired everyone except key people and even the owners are out in the field doing the hard labor now. I have noticed help wanted ads in my area of NH drying up to the point that nothing is available and for sale ads multiplying rapidly. The housing market is DEAD. Incomes are falling, businesses are closing, tax revenues are falling but town and county budgets are increasing by enormous percentages.
Where is the accountability for this behavior? Is anyone accountable?
It is really getting frustrating.
sy
freddyv
Posts: 305
Joined: Sat Oct 04, 2008 4:23 am
Location: Oregon, USA
Contact:

Re: Financial topics

Post by freddyv »

at99sy wrote: Does anyone truly believe in the employment/unemployment figures the government is issuing?
...
...even the owners are out in the field doing the hard labor now.
...
Where is the accountability for this behavior? Is anyone accountable?
It is really getting frustrating.
sy

I don't believe anything any of our leaders say to us these days. I always do my own research and that usually suggests that we are being manipulated, if not outright lied to. I skew conservative but I was willing to give Obama a chance to convince me he was the right man for the job. He did not. Since he has been in power I see that he is incompetent. In particular I worry that he truly believes that he and his cohorts know what is best for us and that they are willing to do whatever is necessary to save us from ourselves.

The other day while I was leaving my office I noticed an affluent-looking older woman painting the building. It was obvious she didn't really know what she was doing and I quickly came to the assumption that this was the owner's wife. I struck up a conversation and sure enough, it was. The building is about half empty as are many of the buildings in the area and so they felt that they needed to spruce it up a bit to attract tenants. They should have hired professionals because now I am thinking about moving out after they painted the marquee a hideous peach color. The color itself is not so bad but it's the wrong color for the sign.

As for accountability I think that John Xenakis has the best explanation I have heard, and that would be the greedy boomers and the gen-xers that seem determined to undermine anything the boomers built. President Obama and his administration are the perfect examples. It is obvious to me that these people believe that everything they have been handed is bad and must be torn down and rebuilt.

As for being frustrated, and tying in with that last paragraph of mine, it is a fact that we are now a socialist country, at best. My niece has a 4 year old son, and I love both dearly and so I make sure that they have a safe place to live and that her son has the mental and physical stimulation he needs to have a chance in this world. In other words, at least one member of her family supports her through her early adulthood so that she and her son do not end up destitute and living on the streets. But I am fighting the government, which seems insistent upon keeping them reliant on welfare of various types.

The other day she asked me to help her with her taxes and so we started with her federal taxes. I came to the conclusion that she would not owe anything even though she had earned about $10,000 in 2009. I suggested that she try out one of the online tax services to see if she might even be due a refund beyond anything that she had paid. I suggested this because I know a number of people who do not pay taxes but get paid by the government each year. She did so and it appears that she will have $3,000 coming to her. Yes, the federal government has taught her that not earning too much will get you a nice check at the end of the year. BTW, her plan is not to pay off her debt but to spend all of that on a vacation for herself. I am frustrated beyond belief, at both her and a system that has taught her this is how to live.

My friends, our system is through. That's my opinion but there is no doubt in my mind. We will either whither slowly and die away or implode suddenly and then likely, start a war with someone in order to gain back the wealth that we threw away of our own volition. My guess is that we will lose that war.

I am one of the most independent people you can imagine. I think for myself, I have built my own business from the ground up and I have never taken charity from anyone, much less handouts from the government. I also have a tremendous imagination that has served me well throughout my life of 50 years. Yet I can think of no path forward except to hunker down and hold on. Our government is out of control and they have all the power they need to do whatever they wish. They take from us and give to their supporters and we do nothing; no one goes to jail and no one loses a job.

BTW, in almost every way my life is going well so there is no reason I should feel this way except for what I see going on around me and my knowledge of history. I fear for the young in our nation, but perhaps this is what will make them adults to be proud of; perhaps they need to see this mess that we have created in order to build a better world.

Fred
http://www.acclaiminvesting.com/
wvbill
Posts: 65
Joined: Sun Oct 05, 2008 9:46 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by wvbill »

freddyv wrote:



...My friends, our system is through. That's my opinion but there is no doubt in my mind. We will either whither slowly and die away or implode suddenly and then likely, start a war with someone in order to gain back the wealth that we threw away of our own volition. My guess is that we will lose that war.

... I fear for the young in our nation, but perhaps this is what will make them adults to be proud of; perhaps they need to see this mess that we have created in order to build a better world.

Fred
http://www.acclaiminvesting.com/
Yes, I agree. This change/collapse must be complete enough to change everything and that will begin by changing attitudes -- and it seems that will take a "2x6 along the side of the head" for most... Before this is over they WILL get it.

Bill
sadhic
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 7:58 am

Re: Financial topics

Post by sadhic »

I do not know how to understand this forum and the way the normal American now feeling about the present meltdown.
However I wish the guys here to know how the normal Indian feels about the meltdown.
1) The fact is out of 1 billion Indians a mere 2 to 5% Indians are connected to stock market .So , due to FII or any global collapse ,only these guys will be affected with their associated issues.

2) But due to this bogus economy, some considerable amount of normal Indians are dragged towards a life style which in fact required a considerable money to maintain which may be these guys may not have after collapse . This will in fact reduce these 10% Indians to nothing and make them par with rest of Indians.

3) Here the normal Indian means - he need mere 200$ a month is enough to live happily all over India. Just to understand, you can get a good driver for your car at 75$ for a month.

I think America may open their gates to the rest of world to come and live there which will in fact reduce the American normal day to day expenses without reducing the facilities they are enjoying now. What I meant is you may see millions of Indians( may be Asians ) ready to come America and buy the excess houses and would like to live there. These millions for sure will bring trillions of $ and cheap work force to America which is the only naturally way to restart the economy.They may even live in america and work in gulf or else where .
abs
Posts: 36
Joined: Sat Dec 06, 2008 3:01 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by abs »

I have long thought that one "way out" is to increase immigration rates of highly educated and young foreign nationals to the US. Of course the dilemma is that social mood will preclude this from happening anytime soon . . . It is a non-starter.

Andrew
The Grey Badger
Posts: 176
Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:50 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by The Grey Badger »

Some things can't be cooked away.

Dow -103.84down-1.04%
9,908.39
Nasdaq -15.07down-0.70%
2,126.05
S&P -9.45down-0.89%
1,056.74 :roll:
intheknow
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Feb 08, 2010 9:58 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by intheknow »

I find this site very interesting. I think many of the points are valid. However, I am not a pessimistic person by nature but I am a realistic person. I keep reading about the impending crash but I do not think we will have a crash as it is being described. My two cents, which is about what it is worth, is that you will see and are seeing a seperation from "wallstreet" and main street. In that I mean you can have companies in the S&P do well even though we have high un-employement, structural problems, etc. Earnings are starting to come back from the brink and if you look at ex-financials they are not that bad. The market has two main factors, time and price. I think instead of having a spectacular crash in terms of downside price, what you will see if a long period, maybe several years where the market trades in a range basically sideways as the time factor works off the excesses. Much like Japan. If you look back to the seventies, the decade was basically flat. However, if you are looking in real terms and take into consideration inflation, then yes I beleive the market will be a bad place to be for the next several years. Much like it has been the last 10. This is my first post so I thought I would keep it brief and not talk about some of the real issues in soviern debt and how I believe that will play out but I would very much like some thoughts on my post. In conclusion, I believ what you will see if the stock market trade up to 1100 on good news and down to say 900 on bad but to stay in that range for years as a function of time rather then price. Thoughts
jldavid47
Posts: 33
Joined: Mon Aug 24, 2009 3:30 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by jldavid47 »

at99sy wrote:Does anyone truly believe in the employment/unemployment figures the government is issuing?
Unemployment dropped to 9.7%. Really!? Seriously?! Do they expect people to believe these totally bogus numbers?
Is this a case where they are trying to keep polishing this piece of 'poo' until it is so glossed over people will stop asking questions?
I think this number was a case of Seasonal Adjustments Gone Wild. If you look at the non-seasonally adjusted
numbers, the unemployment rate was 10.6% in January. The seasonally adjusted numbers showed 138,333,000
people employed and 14,837,000 unemployed. The actual numbers were 136,809,000 and 16,147,000 unemployed.
That means that the seasonal adjustment added 1,524,000 to the employed number and subtracted 1,310,000
from the unemployed number. Now, seasonal adjustments are necessary to be able to get a proper comparison
month-to-month and to determine trends. What happened here, I assume, was that January, 2009 was WAY worse
than normal which skewed the adjustments in such a was as to inflate this year's employment numbers. I'm
not saying there are no shenanigans going on, but there is a logical explanation for the number. However, don't
be fooled - things probably have not improved as much as the guvmint said.
OLD1953
Posts: 946
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 11:16 pm

Re: Financial topics

Post by OLD1953 »

It may take more than an economic collapse to cause a regeneracy. We did not have a regeneracy during the Great Depression. It was finally managed after the attack on Pearl Harbor. A very sudden total economic collapse might cause a regeneracy, but it seems unlikely that this will be the case. The most probably scenario at this time, IMHO, would be a nuclear explosion in a US harbor or the outbreak of nuclear war in Asia. I consider the first to be most likely, though it undoubtedly will lead to the second in short order.

And now, a peeve of mine. Words have meanings, especially words referring to governmental systems such as Socialism, Facism, Republic, Democracy and so forth. Common misusage has greatly damaged these words to the point that they are often used to mean "whatever I want them to mean". Yet they do have meanings.

Short definition with link to Webster online below.

Socialism means a social system in which government owns and controls all means of production, private property is limited or nonexistant.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism

Communism in THEORY means a social status in which the state has withered away and vanished, in PRACTICE it means a totalitarian government that owns and controls virtually everything though it may have single party elections. This is what leads to that conundrum in which people say communism has never been tried, it probably never can be tried save on a very limited scale, because I can't imagine any state in which the powerful will willingly "wither away".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/communism

Facism is genrally used to refer to Nazi Germany or Adolf Hitler and his particular policies, which is at best partially correct, and webster seems to somewhat perpetuate this error.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism

Italy was actually the birthplace of Facism, and it actually refers to a totalitarian state buttressed by irrational racial or ethnic or religous superiority beliefs in combination with an economy that is independant of the state in a sense, but is bent to the desires of the state. It should be noted that large corporations did well during the Facist rule of Germany and Italy. Mussolini referred to the corporate state of facism in a number of places.

http://www.historyguide.org/europe/duce.html

http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaste ... solini.htm

The word, incidentally, refers to the Roman fasces, a symbol of unity, which lives on today in many places, among them the US House of Representatives which has a number of them on display, and on the back of the mercury dime. (No, I'm not saying the House is full of Facists. Sigh.)

Many believe Democracy to refer to a system in which everyone votes, which is incorrect. Classic Democracy refers to Athens or Greece in general, in which all CITIZENS participated in government, usually after the age of 30 or so. However, 90% or more of those persons residing in these countries were slaves who could not so participate. No country has ever given the vote to everyone, there are always limits of age or sex or requirements that one hold or own property worth a certain amount, etc. In any event, Democratic states in the classic sense do not exist in modern times (well, there is a small state in Africa that comes close, but never mind that).

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/democracy

Republics are states in which people vote to choose representatives who meet in assembly to decide on what laws are suitable for the governing of the state, within limits imposed by an overriding law.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/republic

Most modern governments are republics, with economic elements ranging from socialism to facism embedded in them. A factual analysis of the US government shows attributes of both, as would an analysis of the British government or the government of Japan. This doesn't make the US a socialism any more than a facism, nor the others.

Finally, the most important difference between the modern republic and all former systems of government is the separation of the head of state from the power of the purse. This system was probably invented by pirates (yes, I'm serious) to control the power of their captains, as they became pirates to get away from the British system of giving money to the captain of a vessel to accomplish a voyage. Since the captain got to keep the money left over, there was a very rapid race to the bottom for outlays of food, drink and so forth, to the point where men would mutiny and seize the ship. At which point, they had to invent something to prevent the same thing from happening again with a corrupt captain and officers mistreating them. So they invented the office of quartermaster, who controlled the money of the ship, and was in control of all stores, supplies and outlays of money and kept the books. This was adopted in our modern governments and we see it in the US government each year in the contentious passage of the budget.

Okay, I apologize, enough lecturing on something I'm sure you already know. It's just that careless usage of words bothers me, probably my training in semantics peeking through.
Last edited by OLD1953 on Tue Feb 09, 2010 11:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
Post Reply

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: aeden and 4 guests