mplaut

Gold: How the Mainstream Gets It So Wrong

" From 1880-1935, the United States was locked on to the gold standard at a price of $21/ounce. Those were the days of monetary stability, fiscal discipline, and sanity."

I am no economic historian, but just a quick search finds that there were major Panics in 1884, 1893 and 1907. According to the book "The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market's Perfect Storm" - Stock market crashes and banking panics had surfaced periodically in the United States and elsewhere throughout the nineteenth century.

Panics and crashes are caused by human character failings including excesses of greed and irresponsibility.

Neither the Federal Reserve nor a gold standard are magic bullets. We have to get grip on ourselves and improve our moral performance. No system will be effective against determined and creative efforts to game it.

The fault lies in ourselves and that is where we must turn to correct it.

Lockheed Sees 290MW Solar Project It Was to Build Cancelled

There was an article in the New York Times that said that a lot of solar power plants have trouble arranging for the amount of water that they require to operate. The areas that are richest in sunshine are often very poor in water.

Murphy's Law?

Social Security: Here's How to Extend the Fund's Life

I think it would be a good idea to show different options for the means test: 100k, 200k, 300k

Obviously the higher we can make the cutoff point, the better it is.

Misguided Thinking on Natural Gas

You have nailed it: "...they’re huge income generators in an environment where yield’s hard to find."

Many of the MLPs with solid distributions pay a yield that is so high (more than 10%) that you can be happy with the yield as a yearly return on your money and you do not have to worry about price.

Yield is determined by analyzable aspects of the business. Price is a function of (mass) psychology. Which would you rather be dependent on?

Another Natural Gas Bull Sticks His Neck Out

Play NG with MLPs that are hedged and producing a lot of NG. They pay a distribution and although they will probably not rocket up as much as some of the more leveraged players, they are safer and will probably have nice gains. JMO.

John Hussman: A Tale of Two Data Sets

OK. So it is clear that either the market may go up more although on the other hand it may go down.

Thanks a lot.

Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF Takes a Hit on UBS Downgrades

ISCHF (Israel Chemicals) is a company similar to MOS and POT but different in that it pays a respectable dividend making it less volatile and paying you to wait for the big ag boom.

Investing in Natural Gas: It's Time

All indications are that natural gas will EVENTUALLY go up, but it may well go down more before it goes up. If you buy now you had better be prepared to hold through further declines.

Linn Energy: High Dividend, Low Valuation

Line is not an exploration company. They own well-established producing properties with long production lives. That is also the only type of property they buy.

Dave's Top 10 Reasons This Recession Will Last Forever

A lot of the comments are not pure economics but that does not mean that they are not relevant to economic issues.

The points are well-taken, but they may only mean that there will be a "new normal" of slow growth - more like Europe than the US in recent times. So what? Why is that a problem?

A lot of Europeans are happy with their lives. Why do we have to have 5% growth to be happy? With the kind of wealth that we already have, it should not be too hard to learn to live and be happy with 1-2% growth.

Enterprise Products Partners, Linn Energy: Petroleum Profits Without the Drama

There are Closed End Funds that invest in MLPs and their main reason for being is that they are ok for IRAs. I have not researched them and cannot recommend any. In regular accounts you are better off with the MLPs themselves.

Kinder Morgan's Dividend Payout Rate Is Unsustainable

You cannot determine whether the distribution of a MLP is sustainable by looking at its payout ratio. You have to look at the free cash flow because straight profits can be whipsawed up or down.

KMP will have no problems sustaining its distribution.

LINE yields over 11% and will also be able to keep it up for the foreseeable future.

MLP distributions are also tax advantaged for the most part, but filing the return is more complicated.

Calpers: Betting the House

IMO there is no question that further risky bets do not meet the test of being what a prudent man would do.

The Fine Line Between Profits and Theft

There is no fine line between not doing your homework and being informed.

GS deserve to have their wings clipped IMO, but they are not guilty as charged here. They did not just load up AIG and wait for the government to bail them out. You write: "they had no right to it, as AIG was in fact insolvent and they would have collected zero had the firm gone into bankruptcy."

In fact, GS knew that AIG was not a reliable counterparty and they had hedged and collateralized all of their exposure to AIG. They would have gotten their money whether AIG was bailed out or not.

See:
economicsofcontempt.bl...

I repeat that I still think that the government should claw back some of GS's recent profits, but they did trade very smart and did not rely on AIG or a government bailout of AIG as charged here.

The Silvinet Deal Continues to Hit Potash and Mosaic

I believe that even $460 is a good price for the potash producers. It is still way above the price only a few years ago. And they will fight to keep it higher.