tom Andersen

Faces of Death: The U.S. Dollar in Crisis

There are of course those self - correcting measures that will help things out. For instance, when the Euro went from 75 cents to double that, combined with a real estate value decline of 60% or more in various places like Florida, all of a sudden a German could buy a Florida condo for less than 1/5 of the price he would have paid just two years ago. So they buy. Which helps the dollar, the real estate market, airlines, etc.
If the dollar drops even more, then the Asians will start buying. Not just real estate. At the end of it all, the US will not be the largest economy in the world, but everything will be ok. Sort of a 'we overspent and now we have to get back to real work' kind of an event, as opposed to a 'hyper inflationary end of the world' event.

Great Depression Not Imminent, But Inevitable

One sign of the top - when people are saying "this time its different". The sign for the bottom is the same. 1981 was pretty bad with 20% interest rates. This just does not seem as bad as that.

A good downturn will help clean out the 'stupid economy' - wind power, solar panels, defense overspending, silly government spending, people who can't read and add getting expensive mortgages, e-zee corporate credit, etc...

The Only Chart True Investors Need to See

Look at 1962 - 1982: - 20 flat years. Looking at that chart, if anything, it shows that the market needs a breather like that again. I for one won't wait for 12 more years for the uptick! (We are flat since 2000).
--Tom

Cool Hand Bernanke Protects a Bankrupt Fed

The slide has already begun. US Real Esate prices are less than 50% of what they were three years ago, when measured in world currencies. 10x? That will not happen anytime soon. Eventually, though, inflation is always catching us. Perhaps another factor of 2 over the next few years. At this point I think that the Asians, oil barons and others will buy much of the US. They won't buy intangibles, but rather companies and land. This sort of thing happened to the UK. The pound dropped as low as parity to the US. It is $2 now. They did alright in the end. But not many people spend like americans can.