Financial topics

[aedens]

Browne's original idea, outlined in his book Fail-Safe Investing, was that a safe, easy-to-follow investment portfolio should consist of 25% in long-term government bonds, 25% in cash (money market funds), 25% in stocks (growth style mutual funds) and 25% in gold.
His thesis was that each of these assets would outperform during one or more economic environments, whether it be prosperity, serious inflation, recession or depression. And this outperformance would outweigh the underperformance of some of the other assets during particular periods. For instance, gold's outperformance during the 1970s inflationary period more than offset the underperformance of stocks, bonds and cash.
Browne surmised that such a portfolio would deliver good long-term returns with limited volatility. He's been proven right as the Permanent Portfolio has done just that, outperforming the vast majority of mutual funds in the U.S. with very few down years. Note that the listed fund has deviated somewhat from Browne's original proposed allocation, though not by a lot.
Now I'm not advocating that you necessarily go out and invest directly in the Permanent Portfolio fund as it depends on your particular needs and circumstances. However I am suggesting that Browne's ideas may be worth considering as a potential guide to navigating the uncertain economic environment ahead.
Interestingly, investment guru Marc Faber has proposed a remarkably similar investment portfolio to that of Harry Browne, the only difference being that instead of owning long-term government bonds, he suggests real estate instead (he thinks inflation is on the way and is a well-known bear on long-term U.S. government bonds

This post was originally published at Asia Confidential: http:asiaconf.com

[Higgenbotham]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s08TKIqp3aY

I just listened to a bit of this interview with Charles Nenner's guy and he says early on that Charles got his people out of stocks at S&P 1505 but he is projecting as high as the 1580s by the end of April. Since Charles is a cycles guy this is how I figured he came up with that, shown with the red lines separated by 165 days that would project to April 30. I don't think that's what is happening due to many other factors that indicate the blue and green cycles are likely the correct ones but this is probably the biggest bubble in world history so nothing seems impossible. Just from a strictly cycles standpoint I think the blue and green cycles show better resonance.

CYCLES.gif (45.75 KiB) Viewed 3112 times

[aedens]

We will get confirmation by the 10th. I tend to agree with his opine. His clients protection ethics are foremost so he stops out early. We are shifting as to 20 x 5 to assets. prop, metals, gstocks, gpaper, gbond select. These ambitious men were not naive; they were overconfident about their ability to manipulate. Culture change is inclusive to attributes and enumerated facts that swallow the common man whole devoid of knowlewdge not from a
defect of the nature but design.

[aedens]

http://www.icij.org/offshore
Systemically Important Financial Institutions (SIMI) The USG will protect the SIMI institutions, as they interpret, not as the people interpret.
Meanwhile as putin noted they had 90 days to report to the Kremlim in Rubles. Tick Tock
http://news.goldseek.com/GoldenJackass/1365105720.php

[Higgenbotham]

December 23, 2012

If the productive small businesses begin to go under, then the only option left is to strip the capital directly from the savers through taxation, confiscation, or default.

The world has arrived to this point and the crash, collapse, dark age, whatever you want to call it, is next.

[aedens]

swaps we already noted just went off

[Higgenbotham]

Ran across this tonight. I don't think it matters what time of day the next one happens; it's not going to come back.

On September of last year, Dave Lauer—a high frequency trader turned whistleblower—stated before a Congressional subcommittee in Washington that due to the technological arms race being waged on Wall Street, the “U.S. equity markets are [now] in dire straits” and that “we are truly in a crisis.”

Taking his case before Congress, the previous senior quant for one of the largest HFT firms explains how the “unpredictable and disturbing behavior” of algorithms interacting at speeds we can’t comprehend has led our markets to become “unwieldy, overly complex, and extremely fragile”—a situation that demands not just incremental change, but radical technological reform.

As he explains:

[The stock market] is subject to manipulation, whether nefarious or accidental, on a daily basis... Technological mayhem is more frequent and likely to increase...It is simply a matter of time before we have another catastrophe of the same magnitude or worse than the Flash Crash. The next time it happens, we may not be so fortunate with regard to the timing – it was only luck that the Flash Crash didn’t start in the morning, inciting markets around the world to crash, or at 3:45pm EST, with the market closing after the drop, but before it could recover. If this were to happen, there would be an overnight exodus from the market with disastrous consequences for the US economy.

http://www.financialsense.com/contribut ... bservatory

I don't think these people are all that smart, but they've figured out in vague terms that they are screwed. They have no idea what it means or how badly though.

[aedens]

They will sooner than later now H. I firmly pin this on the taxpayer and who they sent and why since they expect it all about them.
We know this bluntly here. The love of many shall wax cold before the event anyway. They deny just as the founders said they would and
they are to confused and selfish to pretend to care.

[Higgenbotham]

They will, and when they do it will be utter panic at all levels of US society.

[aedens]

As coyote noted the Penn and Teller episode (where they have environmental activists signing a petition to ban dihydrogen monoxide), I am not surprised that people did not get the joke. The amazing thing is the fact that the radio station, and society in general, felt the need to pander to this ignorance by actually suspending the radio show hosts. In effect, they were forced to apologize for the public's appalling ignorance. This is the society that progressives have been fighting for one in which the listener defines acceptable vs. unacceptable speech based on his or her own hurt feelings and ignorance.

http://www.bearishnews.com/wp-content/u ... rtoon1.jpg

The Ickes depicted in the cartoon is FDR’s Secretary of the Interior and father of Harold M. Ickes, Bill Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff.
The similarity between FDR’s destructive socialism and Obama’s is uncanny.
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Starting next year the ACA imposes a new $100 billion tax on health insurance. The tax will start at $8 billion in 2014, increasing to $14.3 billion in 2018, and will continue to increase each year. Poof The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) supports Ignagni and Goodman’s warnings, stating that the health insurance sales tax will be “largely passed through to consumers in the form of higher premiums.” Unfortunately, as Goodman predicts, “this is only one example of many middle income taxes buried in ObamaCare.”