antiquary

Wall Street Breakfast: Must-Know News

Doubleguns, contracts have been breakable for centuries, contrary to your statement, and many economists argue that they should be if that's the economically sensible thing to do. Our bankruptcy laws have reflected that for centuries, too. It's neither anyone's business nor their duty to validate or even respect anyone else's unilateral expectations, in or out of business. You pays your money and you takes your chances. The old fishing adage comes to mind-- "that's why it's called fishing, not catching."

A Tale of Two Economies: U.S. vs. China

I'm strongly reminded of the doom-mongers of the 1980s who said many, many similar things about Japan. Where is Japan now? You talk a confident game, but I strongly suspect it won't shake out that way, despite our debt level.

Could the Dow Sink Another 50% by 2012?

"As Harry Dent...pointed out"?

One cannot "point out" an opinion. Pointing out something is reserved for facts, and facts only. Fifty years ago it may be possible to say that Mr. Dent pointed out these things, assuming they come true, but certainly not today. You have two strikes against you in my mind when you can't use language correctly.

Mr. Dent's conclusion is suspect, as well, and smacks of the Rush Limbaugh effect-- of taking extreme positions for the sake of getting attention. (The fact that his books have sold many copies says very little in his favor; should we give Danielle Steele the Pulitzer prize for literature on that basis?) This kind of book comes out every so often, and tends to smack of the predictions of the arrival of the Rapture in A.D. 1000, A.D. 2000 and in many other years. "Surviving the Great Depression of 1990", anyone? The fact that Mr. Dent's previous books have come out more or less as these things were occurring, not several years before like Daniel Arnold's "The Great Bust Ahead" (2002), makes Dent rather like someone offering to sell you the winning lottery ticket number the day after it has been drawn.

The truth is, even if someone's worldview successfully encompasses the astounding complexity of the economy, it is an example of the best use of the metaphor inherent in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The position of electrons cannot be discovered by shining light at them because the photons affect the electrons and skew the results. Similarly, the market can't be well predicted in an era of keyword-triggered automatic trading because commentary itself skews what it is describing.

For myself, I plan to ignore the rending of garments and gnashing of teeth, and simply get on with the business of life.

Dow Nears 50% Retracement; Tread Carefully

Freddo, go stick your head in the sand. The rest of us will be ignoring people like you who are wailing and rending their garments. We'll be moving forward, and outcompeting you left, right and center. "No cause for optimism," my ass.


On Feb 24 02:15 AM mr freddo wrote:


> There is currently no cause for optimism. None. Nada. Investors
> are freaked that they are going to lose the other 50% they haven't
> lost already.
>
> I'm going to go hide in gold stocks and silver for a while but my
> long positions will be getting battered so there won't be cause to
> rejoice if gold continues to move upward.

Let's Just Say It: Print More Money

It's true that one of the causes of the minirecession from 1937 to 1938 was that they allowed the money supply to contract, but this doesn't mean that the reverse is necessarily true today.

On the other hand, if you could know that printing more money would allow banks and individuals and so on to get out of their preexisting contracts by paying them off (at a discount, of course, in dollars that are worth less, but that has to be better than defaulting would be), so that they then could move on to loans and other contracts entered into based on today's economic reality, not yesterday's, then much of the stress on the system would evaporate. It would be like removing a single domino from the middle of a chain. Essentially, it would be like an evenly spread tax on all holders of dollars, to restore flexibility and fluidity. But how you could know that that move would have that effect, I don't know.