ozzy43

Are GLD and SLV Legitimate Investment Vehicles?

In response to the comment immediately above (if it does not, as the author insists, vanish quickly):

Anyone who believes that the Wall Street Journal and NY Times are disinterested, unbiased bystanders who would be willing to expose fraud by financial elites is really living in Wonderland. Many of the people benefiting from the fraud are among the same people who control those Establishment media. It's not surprising that someone who is so blind to the fraud that is the mainstream media would insist on blinding himself to other possible frauds. I notice that his post here was not even in response to the article above - did not address the significant points at all but preferred to post a diatribe on an article cited in the article above. Perhaps THAT is why the post will vanish, if it does. Sounds like obsession to me...

Now, in regard to the article in question, the issue some of us have is: self-directed 401k accounts do not permit acquisition of physical metals, but *do* permit investment in ETFs. In such a case, what would the author suggest as an alternate? Would CEF be the best bet? I don't like miners at this point because I expect this bear market rally to fail at some point, and that would likely drag down miners as well, though perhaps not to the same degree.

Winners and Losers in the Bailout Bonanza

Much of this seems sensible, BUT - I have to call foul when I see statements like this:

"Assuming the managers of the government’s new $700 billion slush fund are even halfway competent, they’ll avoid the real rubbish, and leave the biggest losses for banks’ shareholders to absorb."

Government money managers competent? What planet are you from? The whole point of this deal, Paulsonanke's blatant lies notwithstandnig, is to stick the taxpayer with as many of the toxic assets as humanly possible. They'll go straight for the rubbish - and pay top dollar (hold-to-maturity prices rather than 'fire sale prices') for it, as recent quotes from the deadly duo PROVE. The only way this would NOT catastrophically impact taxpayers is if the real estate market goes rocketing upward while the default rates plummets immediately. Anyone see that happening any time soon? If so, I have some ocean front property here in Phoenix and I'm ready to make you a sweet deal.

Let's please understanding something quite simple: this is a BAILOUT. It is not an economic rescue plan - obviously, since it does not address root causes of the actual economic problem. As Mish Shedlock astutely puts it:

"Before one can work out a solution, the first step is to identify the problem. The problem is not a lack of liquidity, it is not a lack of trust, it is not lack of consumer confidence, it is not subprime lending, and in fact the problem is not housing at all.

The problem is consumers and corporations are deep in debt with no way to service that debt.

Attempts to bail out banks and brokers at taxpayer expense will do nothing but add to consumer debt, weaken the US dollar, and literally waste $700+ billion dollars that can and should go to more productive uses."

It's a bailout - and who is getting bailed out? The crooks in the executive suites of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, et.al. And it's being rammed down the throats of the other set of crooks...err...of our inaptly titled 'representatives' who pitifully bleat about the need for 'oversight' (to anyone who believes that these clowns and stuffed suits are even *capable* of such a feat, I re-ask my question: what planet are you from?) before handing over a probable multi-trillion dollar check (consider: when was the last time a govt program cost what they said it would cost at the start of it? Seventeen eighty-something?).

To take a Goldman Sachs flunky like Paulson at his word - arguably a man more responsible than any other in the world for the toxic garbage now steadily and ineluctably poisoning our economy to death, thanks to his actions while CEO of GS (doesn't *anyone* do due diligence on these shady govt characters?) - is to exhibit the most astonishing level of naivete.