Mike10613

The Collateral Damage from Cash for Clunkers

I like the Chinese idea of cash for old domestic appliances. My computers are out of date and I have just bought a new cooker, microwave and electric kettle. I live in the UK though and most of our industry was decimated by a previous government and now we have to import most manufactured goods from China and the Far East. We also have to import most of our energy because the infamous Margaret Thatcher and her government closed down the coal mining industry. We are now a nation of Asian shop keepers who are having a hard time with more competition from the big supermarkets. We are also a nation of lottery ticket sellers and anything to do with alcohol or gambling is doing well.

I think the US government could start a giant lottery with a 1,000 cars as the smaller prizes every Saturday night on television. A big prize like a luxury house to entice and of course a nice lump sum of cash as the main prize. I'm sure some television company would tender a huge sum for the rights to present such an event. But a lottery is after all a huge raffle and they do say that politicians don't have the brains to run a raffle; so perhaps it's not a good idea. They could try a party in a distillery but the American people who attended would still go home dead sober!

Why Is the U.K. Recovery Outpacing the U.S.?

I'm British. I pay my credit card off always. I have no debt. I have investments that are doing OK. There is a difference in attitude especially amongst the baby boom generation. Who are angry at the pathetic interest rates on savings. The Starbucks speculators and the buy to let speculators and the anti-regulation spin doctors in governments are to blame. The UK is in a mess and unemployment will get worse. Despite crap interest - people are saving more. The government wants us to spend our way out of recession. When you're broke cut down - don't splash on on a credit card you can never pay off.

Why Obama's Economic Policies Are Failing

I read Obama is putting a lot of government money into wind farms. I checked out the big maker of turbines this morning Clipper. The search is still in my Google box - CWPR.L share price - the price on the LSE AIM market looks good if the rumours are true. But is Wind power a good investment for the US government to get in to? I even heard our head of State HM The Queen was buying into it.

Fool's Gold (Part 2)

I live in the Black Country in England, where the Industrial revolution started. Employers used to pay wages with brass tokens. I can see that coming back if paper money becomes worthless. I can see shops taking silver coins in exchange for food and farmers taking gold for food in bulk. I hope it doesn't happen, but enough quantitive easing and we may get to a situation like that and the price of all commodities will rocket. Gold, silver, oil, brass farthings and we may be cutting down trees to stay warm in winter. Queueing at soup kitchens. Growing our own food. Personally, I shall stock up on sugar as well as gold. It converts to alcohol so easily! lol

'The Crash of 2008 and What It Means' by George Soros

I found George Soro's book easier to understand then your article! Reflexivity is a concept that he invented and quite easy to understand.
Just take a look at nature, it evolves depending upon th environment, a late Spring means flowers bloom late. Reflecivity is a philosophy of changing your investment stategy and economic policy based on the current environment and ignoring rumours (especially the ones peddled in Starbucks) and looking at cold hard facts. Equities? Look at annual reports - ignore rumours. If the price of a stock goes up ask why. Don't jump on the band wagon just because it's moving - it could stop again! Quantitive easing looks like an unmitigated disaster, but it is really too early to tell. The value of currencies are relative to one another and relative to commodities. We can expect currencies to vary a little. But they will diminish in value against commodies. Precious metals and oil in particular. When you see the leaves falling from the trees you have a idea that winter is not far away. So reflexivity can help predict the future to a certain extent but can't tell you if next summer will be hot or not!

Groundbreaking WSJ Story on Gold

I don't eat bread. It's a good idea to use a silver coin to buy meat and veg though. Then buy back the silver coins with gold?

Gold Bulls Outnumber Bears

My instincts tell me we may have to wait awhile for gold to really go up as it certainly will. There will be a pre-Christmas demand from the jewelery trade and bullion will be bought slowly by the Chinese government and I would be surprised if other Asian governments didn't buy gold in too ready for a new Interational Gold Standard or something very similar.

Geopolitical Risk Is Positive for Gold

The US should buy gold with the money it's printing. Paper for GOLD! That has to be a good deal!

Up, Up, And Away: Why Interest Rates Will Continue to Rise

Good blog, based on facts. Interests rates will go up and we will have inflation. I bought a digital photo frame a month ago when Amazon had them on "special". Now the stocks have run out and they have to import more, the price has nearly doubled. It is a good time to buy consumer goods before current stocks run out. Soon prices of consumer goods will rocket, hopefully for us in the UK we can still produce some of our own food and if food inflation and energy inflation is low then the poor won't get hit too hard. My bank is American and doing sub-prime credit cards at 34.9% which is legal loan sharking. My card as an established customer is around 8% and if it went high I would cut it up! The savings division was paying 5.9% now down to just 0.4% and is being sold off to a British building society. They aren't short of funds in banks, just short of brains and they are still greedy for profits. An old fashioned building society that is still mutual taking over the assets of a multinational bank - now there is food for thought!

Up, Up, And Away: Why Interest Rates Will Continue to Rise

Good blog, based on facts. Interests rates will go up and we will have inflation. I bought a digital photo frame a month ago when Amazon had them on "special". Now the stocks have run out and they have to import more, the price has nearly doubled. It is a good time to buy consumer goods before current stocks run out. Soon prices of consumer goods will rocket, hopefully for us in the UK we can still produce some of our own food and if food inflation and energy inflation is low then the poor won't get hit too hard. My bank is American and doing sub-prime credit cards at 34.9% which is legal loan sharking. My card as an established customer is around 8% and if it went high I would cut it up! The savings division was paying 5.9% now down to just 0.4% and is being sold off to a British building society. They aren't short of funds in banks, just short of brains and they are still greedy for profits. An old fashioned building society that is still mutual taking over the assets of a multinational bank - now there is food for thought!

Manipulation of the Gold Market

I agree that physical gold is a good investment. You know you have it for sure. It's not part of a Ponzi scheme. We know governments run Ponzi schemes to take from the young to pay welfare to the elderly. We know that the US constitution says all currency should be in gold or silver. We know gold coins are still legal tender in the US. But you get paid with a $5 gold coin and put that down on your tax return and it tax evasion. The US government says there is gold in Fort Knox. Can we be sure? If so how much? The price has been manipulated and the British government dumped gold around around $250 an ounce not so long ago. Even stock certificates are just paper unless they represent something solid. A company, no matter how big, is not solid without proper regulation and auditing.

Gold Left Behind by Silver

Demand for both gold and silver has dropped with industry requiring less and the jewelery sector. Most demand comes from investors. Demand from manufacturing will increase when we eventually come of of this depression which I see lasting as long as the one in the 1930's. Gold is slightly more important than silver in jewelery and electronics. However, if prices are high when industry picks up silver will be more in demand. It's a good conductor of electricity like gold and doesn't oxidise and good for contacts. It's not as good as gold, but if gold is trading at $5,000 an ounce or more; manufacturers will look at silver. Also worth looking at are semi-conductors which again are depressed but some will rise very fast when the world economy starts expanding again.

The Myth of Gold Confiscation

I wouldn't worry, I have low energy lights brighter than the average politician.

U.S. Treasury Owned Gold: What Can It Buy?

Paper money is like a stock or share certificate. It promises something. On our currency in the UK, notes say We Promise to pay the Bearer the sum of five pounds ( of whatever the denomination of the note is). That refers to it's weight in gold. However, the Bank of England and therefore the Crown, doesn't deliver on that promise and hasn't done so since the abolision of the gold standard. Of course, the Bank of England doesn't have to bring back the gold standard to make paper money worth something again. It can use any liquid asset to back the currency; but gold reserves must be one of them. It can use silver, property, natural gas reserves, oil reserves, even the air we breathe as that is used to transmit radio frequency electro magnetic waves as liquid assets as well as gold.. The bank made a big mistake selling gold reserves cheaply and should start buying gold and with a wide spread. Maybe buy at $900 an ounce and sell gold sovereigns at the equivalent of $1,000 an ounce or more. It could also buy shares in ailing companies like banks at a big discount. It could raise money by increasing interest rates to realistic levels and stop robbing people of their life savings. It could in this depression scrap the tax disk on cars and add a little to petrol and diesel tax. It could scrap the television licence - these two measures would lead to greater efficiency and combined with realisitic expenditure at the BBC and funding of the BBC with public service announcements; we would see a large amount of money collected by goovernment and less being wasted. The excess could then be used to rescue the economy. With no car tax to pay or TV licence people would spend money in the shops and that alone would help lift us out of the depression; both economically and psychologically. The various agencies that are supposed to regulate the economy should be made to do so; OFGEM is a prime example that has failed miserably and led to massive increases in the price of gas and electricity because of mergers and takeovers that limit competition and encourage monopoly thinking. Politicians have no idea when it comes to understanding economics and their economists are stuck in the past reading about the great depression and trying to talk us into thinking this is a recession and everything will be fine next year! Will it hell!

Gold Should More than Double in Next 6 Months

I don't think gold will increase in value that quickly, it doesn't tend to bubble like other investments. I saw a fund that went up 500% in 3 years on the bubble and then came the credit crunch and it was back where it started. Gold in the same period went up steadily and beat the other indexes for stocks. It does fluctuate because governments and the IMF dump gold on the markets; in large quantities in panic mode. China is building reserves, but with caution so as not to buy too fast and increase demand and price too much. They simply export less and produce more. The same applies to silver.