Financial topics

[RDRUNR]

Amazing to see John's post this morning about Greek 2-yr bonds hitting 50%... Even with a 21% haircut, maybe I should start bailing out Greece myself? I was there in May for a vacation and it was a broke, but lovely place.

Opinions?

[RDRUNR]

This is interesting today:

"one euro could buy you 1.65 Swiss francs, but in recent weeks, one euro could buy you little more than one franc. This has done a great deal of harm to Switzerland's tourist and export businesses. "

As we are actively planning to drive Europe next week for a 12 days and going through 11 countries with a highlight of the Alps. Switzerland was on the list of places to go (Interlaken and Basel, Zurich) but due to the rise of the Swiss Franc, we scrubbed that country from the places we will be visiting. The prices are just too high vs the rest of Europe to visit there (hotels, Petrol, food, tolls, taxes, etc). So Austria will be getting our money (about €1400) instead of Switzerland.

[vincecate]

Contrary Investor and Mish are talking about generational cycles:
http://contraryinvestor.com/mo.htm
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... st-of.html

[aedens]

Contrary Investor and Mish are talking about generational cycles:
http://contraryinvestor.com/mo.htm
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... st-of.html

http://mises.org/books/capital_in_diseq ... _lewin.pdf
The Team's are aware and have been. The forums cover this moral
pathology as we get time to improve each other.

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This is the consequence of GD and a very tacit sample of the "credit malinvest" Mish wishes to make us undertand?
We are at the end of the third wave and no side can fix this macro aggregate delevering for now.
The consumer will take many years and the younger generation will not for now. Of course credit is needed
and there locusts of it already decided the future decades.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/chart-sho ... en-started

Lewin states as hayek noted the ultimate givens in social science are the ideas of individuals, including their judgments
of value. There is no accounting for these in terms of more ultimate (physical) causes.
“Saying that judgments of value are ultimately given facts means that the
human mind is unable to trace them back to those facts and happenings with which
the natural sciences deal with. For Hayek, equilibrium was never understood
as a state that could ever actually be said to exist, although its logical existence is clearly implied.
The duality Mises conveyed is beyond the missive the majority will ever regard.
http://www.thetrader.se/wp-content/uplo ... 9/lego.png <--------- euro solution

[jdcpapa]

Financially speaking, as an American, I was not inspired by Mr. Obama tonight. He punctuated my realization that this nation is a shell of it’s former self.

[aedens]

Financially speaking, as an American, I was not inspired by Mr. Obama tonight. He punctuated my realization that this nation is a shell of it’s former self.

Hobson's Choice it was.
Also the bouncing ball is beta not alpha so the beatings will continue unabated upon the meek which is us.
http://scepticalmarketobserver.blogspot ... bbery.html
For banks that have filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the sum stands at an astounding $2.2 trillion.
Extrapolating over the coming decade, the numbers would approach $5 trillion. I guess there refunded now are they not?

As a taxpayer I am not amused either. They have unleashed more than they ever will acount for.
The Fed knows as does the Executive branch. Will the voter ever understand?
In plain view of all we are powerless. Jefferson warned. Homeless...
We wouldn't dream of speaking of a Keynesian child or a Marxist child
but Richard Dawkins did and has argued that ideas spread from mind to mind much as viruses spread from host to host.
It's a cynical view because it suggests that to succeed, an idea need not be true or even useful,
as long as it has what it takes to propagate itself. What merits consideration?
Hence the duality Mises correctly diagnosed and consequences.

[richard5za]

As a taxpayer I am not amused either. They have unleashed more than they ever will acount for.

I don't live in America but I understand your sentiments. There's a saying that "if the USA catches a cold the rest of the world gets pneumonia" so I reckon we will catch the wash too, in a manner of speaking. And Europe is looking decidedly 'loony'.

What I do think after that Obama speech, which in my opinion contained little that will be useful, is that gold and silver remian good safe havens. So I am going to put in some work this weekend having a look to see if I want to increase my investment exposure to precious metals or gold miners. On a different note, I keep wondering whether Wall Street and the 'big' monied interests may have some sort of hold on Obama?
Richard

[OLD1953]

Of course they do Richard. They, and their allies, know they can survive no matter what happens. Therefore you can have insanity like the recent debt ceiling "debate" in which the side that does not care what happens can demand whatever they please, because their backers are safe no matter what - or at least they think so, which is the same in effect. (Hell, there were reports of congressmen who were shorting US debt that week - they were set to make a buck if it all went south.) Witness the extreme spending to rescue financial institutions so the wealthy backers would not lose a dime. This goes all the way back to the S&L "crisis" wherein the FSLIC was ordered not to follow the law but to make all investors 100% whole. And just how many investors in that year had more than 100,000$ in an S&L account? Which investors demanded the S&L's pursue imprudent policies or they'd withdraw their money? It wasn't the sub 100K boys, they don't have any influence in such matters.

The heavy political backers now "know" they can do whatever they please and the government will tax the middle class and issue more debt to make them "whole". Risk has left the system (in their minds) and they just do not care.

In any negotiated situation, especially one with a time limitation, the negotiator who DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE RESULT WILL HAVE THE CONTROLLING HAND. There is no exception to this rule. The only way out of this trap is for the system to crash and burn so badly the political backers no longer have the money to bribe anyone. And that is where we are heading quite rapidly.

[aedens]

I feel Higgy has a good line on the air pockets we noted and it ties to the beta plays seen as linked IMO.
I note it as slippage but we concured as pockets. Inside I feel it is a control burn we mentioned in the forums
for various funtions to the rentier class issues. I keep thinking about the master builder dilema of that school
of thought and as we already know metals is the safey valve of currency issues to remind that in the long run there
is no unpopular government. Checks and balances in play if we wish it to be or not.
Mr. Market does speak if we want it to or not. Delicate balance to foster faith for policy makers
to the citizens. The world is finite and the trends run deep to the so called growth models they insist.
From my Boss: “It’s amazing what can be accomplished when you don’t care who gets the credit“

[OLD1953]

More of a sudden downdraft than a pocket, but I concur. There is great risk in the markets at this time. Great risk in everything. And the commodities bubble will not be kind, nor will the Greeks. Greece is entering the bandaid mode of thought, wherein people start screaming "get it over with so we can adjust and get on with life". People cannot live in the stress of a crisis forever, even if nothing else forces it to break, the people will eventually break and demand any change that gets away from the stress, no matter what.