socphd71

Gold vs. Silver: There Is No Debate

Plebian, the technical term for an organization like the Silver Users' Association is "monopsony" or "oligopsony." These standard terms are defined in the Wikipedia and elsewhere on the web. "Monopoly" and "oligopoly" refer to market control by sellers of goods or services (usually goods); "monopsony" and "oligopsony" refer to market control by buyers (usually services). For a simple example, think of the hospital in a one-hospital town. It is a monopsony for the market in Registered Nurses.

Oil's Glut Being Mopped Up

"joshtrend" is another pseudonym for Cetin, I'm pretty certain. No wonder his comment doesn't make sense.

What Is Even More Enticing than Gold? Silver

(1) Isaac the terrible wrote:

"AGQ- Double silver ETF. Load up on call options and you're looking pretty.

AGQ is at an all-time high. The ETF was introduced on 1 Dec 2008. There are not many options outstanding nor were many traded today. Since silver is far from an all time high, why is AGQ? Why buy options in a small market? This is strange advice.

(2) What does it matter how much gold and silver are in the earth's crust, or what the ratio is? What matters is the cost to mine an ounce compared to the price the mining company can get.

How Will Health Care Policy Changes Affect the Industry?

Brendan Stevens says that 'health care is difficult to understand." It is not that bad when one starts with the basic (or root) problem, rather than beginning at one of the tangled twigs and branches.

The basic problem is simple: THE US HAS DEVELOPED THE WORLD'S LEAST EFFICIENT HEALTH CARE SYSTEM. For the same outcomes, we spend more GDP than any other nation in the world. (Outcomes are relatively simple to measure results such as Longevity and Peri-natal Mortality.)

Before you, dear reader, get all riled up, note that I DID NOT SAY that we have the world's worst health care. Nor do we have the world's worst health care system. N.B.: The Wikipedia says, "Health care systems are designed to meet the health care needs of target populations."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

If you are unfamiliar with this phrase, please 'Google' "Health care system" or "Health care delivery system."

Brendan Stevens discusses the problem of multiple payers or multiple insurers. My Dear Wife (DW) and I have two payers: Medicare and Mercy Health Care. These payers sometimes shuffle claims between them, thereby delaying payment for services rendered. Providers, however, must pay salaries, suppliers, overhead, etc. punctually. They must, therefore, increase fees to compensate. Multiple payers increase costs without improving outcomes. Other countries with health insurance have only one payer per person.

I use myself to illustrate another problem: Uncoordinated care.

Since my last hospitalization (August 2009) I have seen the following outpatient health care providers. Physicians (MD and DO) are listed first, followed by Dentists, followed by Master's level providers and others.

Cardiologist for heart disease
Nephrologist for kidney disease
Opthalmologist for annual eye exam
Family Care physician for "primary care"
Psychiatrist for medication monitoring
Youngest stepdaughter, an associate prof of family medicine in a distant state.

Dentist for general dentistry and dental diagnoses
Endodontist for root canal
Oral Surgeon for tooth extraction

Podiatrist for fungus nails and for peripheral neuropathy

ENT nurse practitioner to clean my ears
Cardiac nurse practitioner for heart disease
MSW for psychotherapy
Registered Pharmacist for prescriptions and advice thereon

Optician to adjust glasses and to order new ones
Certified hearing aid specialist to test ears and adjust hearing aids

Who coordinates the information from all these providers? DW, with some assistance from yours truly and our psychotherapist, a former hospital social worker.

Perhaps we do an adequate job. But what about the many other people who, like me, have multiple diagnoses?

To summarize: a missing twig of the US health delivery shrub is a person to coordinate care thereby saving money by avoiding duplicate visits and duplicating medications.

45 Dividend-Paying Stocks with Decent Balance Sheets

I'm writing this 3 weeks after the original post; obviously, many things could have changed. I looked up the first 30 stocks listed (those with yields of at least 10%) on Yahoo finance. My personal screen: Eliminate (1) all "royalty trusts," "limited partnerships," etc.; (2) all banks; (3) all stocks for which Yahoo lists a yield of 10% or less as of today; (4) overseas stocks for which Yahoo lists yield as "NA".

I'm left with 4 stocks out of the 30: BX (10.7%); NGPC (11.2%); WWE (12.2%) TICC (14.9%). I'm already long WWE so I have three more companies to research. Not a bad haul.

A Novice's Guide to Precious Metals (Part I)

Where did you find the "four criteria money must possess."? What about other definitions of money, e.g., a medium of exchange?

Could Ownership of Companies Like Silver Wheaton Be Outlawed?

This article is inflammatory nonsense much like what I've read whose purpose is to scare gun owners into believing that "the government" will confiscate personal weapons. The cost (financial and political) of either would be overwhelming. IMO, the Obama administration is trying to pursue middle - of - the - road policies. There are numerous articles out about how upset Obama's "left" supporters are by this (to them) new found discovery.

How the New Credit Card Legislation Could Affect the Industry

Unfortunately, this adds nothing to what is easily available elsewhere.

The Rise of the Silver Surfer

1. Low commodity prices are a danger for SLW. The miners from whom they are buying will reduce their output in response to low prices for their base metals. Thus, they have less silver to sell to SLW.

2. The author (J.M. Brown) mixes good sense with nonsense. There is more of the former, but watch out for the latter. (a) What is the history of the gold: silver 15:1 ratio? Gold has been used for millenia. Silver for how long? I don't know. So this statement is completely unsubstantiated. (b) How long have people known that the ratio of silver to gold in the earth's crust is 15:1? vs. How long have people been buying, selling, and minting silver and gold? (c) Gresham's law is: "Bad money drives out good." (d) The "slingshot effect" is ridiculous. It shows that Mr. Brown has an excellent imagination. If he uses ideas like this to sell to his clients, I'm glad I'm not one.

3. One can find lots of junior miners on the Agora.com website. Then you can do your own homework.

Disclosure: long Energold Drilling (EGDFF), FNX Mining (FNXMF), ECU silver mining (ECUXF). These all trade under different symbols on Canadian exchanges.

Why We Have to Keep China Happy

Good article: But the author leaves out the flip side of the relationship. China needs to have the US import a lot in order to keep unemployment from surging. The US has been importing less and Chinese unemployment has risen. The Chinese government is as afraid of high unemployment as many Americans are of high inflation.

Philip Morris International Is a Strong Buy

College Trillionaire (C.T.) can't "prove" that PM is a better buy than MO, nor vice versa. As less developed countries become more developed, they often move towards government financed universal health care. Then the financial costs of smoking hit. Neither I nor C.T. can know how many governments will, in the future, restrict and/or tax smoking. Nor can either of us know whether an unnamed and ever changing basket of foreign currencies will outperform the dollar. Remember, the recession / depression / financial panic is world wide.

Paul Price recently wrote a SA article urging people to buy Monsanto (MON). I agreed with him on the ground that MON is, by one reckoning, the world's most evil company -- worse than tobacco or banking. P.P. didn't like that. C.T. might not either. As "Dividend Machine" almost points out, the more evil the company, the better it is as an investment. See

ethicalinvesting.com/m.../

and many other sources.

Dollar Chart Tells a Much Different Story than Pundits Do

Great article. User 353732 doesn't seem to understand it. Mr. Kim says that a declining currency is a problem which is difficult to overcome. User 353732 claims that better leadership will save the US. Will it also save the US empire, now in significant decline and an enormous drain on US resources? Obama is about as much of an imperialist as Bush was. Our resources will continue to go down the drain in far off countries. Mr. Kim says that our currency will, under such circumstances, continue to weaken.

China, the US' major enemy, enjoys a much stronger currency. China also seems to be developing a superior technological work force and base. Granted, their demographic profile is much weaker and the country bears an enormous pollution burden.

Monsanto: The Quintessential 'Growth' Stock

Thanks for your post, Paul. I try to practice what I preach. MO is an evil company, I agree. As you say, "Philip Morris kills ... every day."

Note that it took 30 years from the epidemiological evidence on cigarettes to the biological link. With genetic modification (GM), we don't even have the epidemiological evidence. MON, nonetheless, is engaged in a world class experiment. GM foods -- often called 'Frankenfoods' -- are almost unavoidable in the US, China, and many other countries. Most of Europe is still mostly GM-free. When the children who were conceived, while their parents were on GM foods, grow old, the evidence will start to come in.

Meantime, we have many suicides among Indian cotton farmers whose GM crops failed. Also, many Americans are now boycotting milk from cows given a GM hormone.

Buy MON; the most evil companies make more money than the least evil companies.

Monsanto: The Quintessential 'Growth' Stock

I agree that Monsanto is a theoretical good buy. This is based on the maxim that, THE MORE EVIL A COMPANY, THE BETTER IT IS AS AN INVESTMENT.

Here's one link, of many, to be found by Googling "Monsanto"

www.ethicalinvesting.c.../

I won't try to even list, let alone describe, Monsanto's evil practices. Others have done a much better job than I could.

Disclosure: Long MO (formerly Philip Morris). No position in Monsanto.

Indonesia: A Must-Own Emerging Market

Do any of your predictions change if Yudhoyonu, the incumbent, wins?