E.D. Hart

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147 Comments

    • Fri Sep 26th 20:06 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The Calm Before the Storm?
      Inclined to agree with SWRichmond...well said.
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    • Fri Sep 26th 19:00 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      It's the End Of the World As We Know It and I Own Gold
      "Gold's run-up in recent years is the direct result of the negative real interest rates you mention. This is a historical anomaly, and we will eventually see reversion to the mean spread between inflation and interest rates. These low rates have both driven down the value of the dollar and driven up the value of gold and real estate. When that trend inevitably reverses, expect investors to flee back towards cash. You mention that gold can be used as loan collateral - could this be how the big investors are earning income with gold? Expect these positions to be violently unwound if anyone gets even a tingling sense that the price is about to drop. "

      I have no doubt that the secular bull market in commodities will eventually come to a close--in about 15 years.

      Why do we have low rates?

      Is it because we are in a very low inflationary period and it is required to keep prices relatively stable?


      or is it because we have a federal reserve that is too afraid to take its medicine and pay the price of the tech bubble, then the housing bubble, and eventually the commodity bubble?

      If you believe the goverments reports about inflation and jobs then you may be inclined to the former. If you beleive that the government systematically lies to us about jobs, growth, and inflation for their own agenda--then you may be inclined to the latter view.

      If the latter view is correct, then we are likely headed into a period of much higher inflation for a sustained period of time.

      If you believe the "crisis is largely contained" Fed and Treasury...then it is feasible that we are merely witnessing an anomoly that will revert to the mean shortly.

      The government would love for you to believe that Gold is a horrible investment, and that you should hold dollars and treasuries.

      Who do you believe? I expect gold to violently explode to the upside as people get a tingling sense that dollars are guaranteed to lose much more value than they are used to losing.

      Kinda depends on whom you trust.

      And I'm not even a conspiracy buff...just a middle class guy with a two kids that i want to send to college.
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    • Fri Sep 26th 18:45 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      It's the End Of the World As We Know It and I Own Gold
      Diamonds are also a good currency for hoarders...you can put $250,000 in your mouth and take it out of the country.

      Gold is good also.

      These equity and debt bugs are puzzling to me.

      Cant eat gold? So what?

      You cant bury a steak in your back yard and dig it up when you need to to trade for anything you need--like bullets or cigarettes, bribes, etc.

      Stock bullets? Yep that makes sense, you can do both.

      Gold isn't insurance as most insurance expires worthless. Gold is a store of value--like cash--only better.

      if you are a debt bug---and have all of your assets stored in treauries--I hope you are taking into account that you are paying the government for the privelege of loaning it money.

      You are guaranteed to lose money by buying US bonds in todays market.
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    • Sun Sep 21st 18:38 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      $800 Billion for RTC 2.0 - Then What?
      Well said and well written. Thank you.
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    • Sun Sep 21st 18:33 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      We've Crossed the Line from Capitalism to Socialism
      Two possible fallouts from the recent bailout:

      Inflation
      or
      Deflation

      Historically, I searched for examples where governments have added massive amounts of debt to their balance sheets.

      Because the government gets the benefits immediately from inflation, (and controls the printing press) but the costs are delayed--the odds favor inflation to a great degree.

      And inflation is a tax on everyone, although obfusticated, and it does hit the lower classes harder.

      In effect, it is regressive.

      Eventually we must raise real taxes to pay off the debt, in addition to the higher taxes of inflation.

      Its a double whammy in the offing.

      The saddest part of this mess is that it could have been avoided by a different ideology, (and different leaders)---that government has a legitimate role to play in the regulation of markets.

      Good government is not synonymous with socialism.

      Now the price for the Bush administration's incompetence can be measured in trillions and decades.

      The price of this Hooverian administration will be measured in higher taxes and higher inflation down the road for the next leaders who clean up this mess.

      Ironically Hoover was also a Businessman who didn't understand Capitalism like our current MBA President who also doesn't understand Capitalism, and ironically they both made crises worse with bumblefingers, and "the damage is contained" statements.

      Our country has been gravely injured.
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    • Mon Sep 15th 04:08 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      The U.S. on the Precipice
      “Capitalism without financial failure is not capitalism at all, but a kind of socialism for the rich.”

      This is at the heart of the follies of the last eight years.

      Please pay my student loans and mortgage for me, Bushies.

      Thanks!
      (oops, that wont work, I'm not rich)
      View article »
    • Mon Sep 15th 03:58 AM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Time For Growth Stocks Like Apple and Google?
      Except if inflation increases and multiples contract, GOOG and AAPL would be hurt badly.
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    • Tue Sep 9th 20:05 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Six Situations to Monitor for the Remainder of 2008
      Wham: "Let's not forget that Bush didn't have a choice. Nothing is worse for our economy than letting terrorists mow us down on our own soil. Sounds like you'd rather take your chances with that. Typical leftist Dem philosophy."

      No choice other than listen to Cheney and not listen Colin Powell? He had to listen to his inner Neocon circle of advisers, and ignore others who said that invading the country that didnt attack you is a bad idea? Thats not leftist rhetoric, that historical fact. Dozens of books have been written about it, from left, right, to center.
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    • Mon Sep 8th 16:14 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      $300/Barrel Oil Is Coming - Barron's Interview
      Read some of Maxwell's other posts (the primary author in Barrons) and you will see he does take into naural gas supplies, and disruptive technologies. His research agrees nicely with Kurt Wulffs at McDep.com.
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    • Wed Sep 3rd 23:44 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Should We Listen to Boone Pickens on Oil?
      Conflict of interest? Is that what this is about? By that measure, I would have to assume that the president lied about oil in Iraq, or that Enron lied about its profitability....oops.

      oh, wait, um...a better response would be that just because someone stands to gain from something, doesn't mean they are lying in promoting it.
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    • Wed Sep 3rd 15:35 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      More Thoughts on Mohamed El-Erian's 'When Markets Collide'
      Thanks Geoff for your insightful analysis. I believe that what you reference is true, widely known, and uncommonly followed. Like eating ice cream every night before retiring, we often know the right thing to do and fail to do so anyway. Asset allocation is unsexy, unfun, and requires patience and long periods of inactivity. Like eating carrots, its good for us, is widely known, and uncommonly followed.
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    • Mon Sep 1st 17:04 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Questioning Obamanomics
      The laffer curve says nothing about where current taxes should be: (they may need to be raised) In economics, the Laffer curve is used to illustrate the idea that increases in the rate of taxation may sometimes decrease tax revenue. Since a 100 percent income tax will generate no revenue (as citizens will have no incentive to work), the optimal tax rate that maximizes government revenue must lie below 100 percent. Increasing taxes beyond that point would decrease tax revenue. The Laffer curve was popularized by Arthur Laffer (b. 1940) in the 1980's. However, the underlying principle has been well known since at least the time of Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah (1377). In his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, Keynes described how past a certain point, increasing taxation would lower revenue and vice versa.[1]

      The Laffer-curve is central to supply side economics, as it provides an argument for why lowering taxation may actually increase tax revenues. Many economists have questioned the utility of the Laffer Curve in public discourse, as current tax rates are usually below the revenue maximizing rate. According to Nobel prize laureate James Tobin, "[t]he 'Laffer Curve' idea that tax cuts would actually increase revenues turned out to deserve the ridicule with which sober economists had greeted it in 1981."[2]

      Wikipedia.
      View article »
    • Mon Sep 1st 16:29 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Questioning Obamanomics
      and this:
      Socialism has come to Wall Street, borne on the back of an elephant. Nouriel Roubini writes:

      “Tenth and final point, so what is left as the only solution is the outright formal or informal nationalization of the U.S. financial system. That effective and creeping nationalization is already underway with the variety of actions that the Fed and the U.S. Treasury have taken and that we described above. So this is the paradox of this U.S. administration: it was so rabidly and ideologically free-markets oriented and averse to any sensible regulation and supervision of the financial system that its policies of being asleep at the wheel caused the biggest asset bubble and credit bubble (not just in mortgages) in U.S. history. And now the unavoidable bust of this bubble is going to force an effective nationalization of a good chunk of the U.S. financial system as no one else but the government can do the job.
      This is what the free-market ideologues at the Fed, Treasury and White House have now become – especially after the bailout of Fannie and Freddie’s shareholders, management and bondholders – Comrade Paulson, Comrade Bernanke and the Bolshevik Great Leader Bush. But then their whole approach and ideology has always been not one of free market capitalism but rather one of privatizing gains and socializing the losses; or socialism for Wall Street, the rich and the well connected. So they will now get what they deserve and worked so hard to achieve: a nationalization and bailout of the U.S. financial system.”
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    • Mon Sep 1st 16:12 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Questioning Obamanomics
      MY point was simple: We already have socialism.

      It is either a type you are for or a type you are against. If you are relatively well off, these people (statistically) are more likely to vote for the Republican version of socialism that rewards the corporations and wealthy.

      Many (65%) of corporations pay no taxes, and many of the wealthy pay far less (after all taxes are considered including FICA and Medicare) as a proportion of their income than the so called middle class. This is a fact that is easily verified.

      Buffet has said as much, that he pays less, as a percent of his income in taxes than his secretary. Many other have made the same observation.

      We are a long way from Soviet style socialism, and very deep in American style socialism.

      American Style socialism is that we resent the poor and admire the rich, and set up taxes to preferentially treat those we admire. It wasn't always this way in America, but it is today.

      Fannie and Freddie and BEAR STERNS, and countless real estate speculators have (or will be) bailed out of their bad bets,,,at the expense of everyone else. The business of America is business right?


      Many of the Obama bashers who are against his commie satanic grand scheme to bankrupt this greatest of all nations--The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA--were for the socialism and military/corporate autocracy of the Shrub before they were against the socialism of Obama.

      Be consistent. Oh, and not hypocritical.

      If bankrupting the nation is evil, and loss of liberties is evil, and socialism is evil, and trampling the constitution is evil and satanic---then surely you didn't vote for BUSH/CHeney......right...
      View article »
    • Sun Aug 31st 18:33 PM | Rating: 0 0
      Commented on:
      Questioning Obamanomics
      Who said that " In America, the only socialism acceptable is the socialism of the rich".

      Certainly rings true under the BUSH dynasty. Bail out the rich(Bear), cut taxes on the rich, and spread the remaining payments for the damage to the people that pay taxes. Then make successive generations of the unborn pay for the $53 trillion in entitlements and unfunded programs.

      Others have called this "privatizing the profits and socializing the losses" which is exactly what is happening in this country on a grand scale.

      I'm a capitalist to the core, but will be voting for Obama as the lesser of two evils.

      We need to fear fascism in this country, and the socialism of the rich, not the communism of Mao, or Stalin.

      Under Bush, the nations MBA president, and Oil businessman we've lost control of both our nations fiscal future, and of our nations energy security.

      Sorta the opposite of what one might expect? Ironic isn't it?

      View article »
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