Quote of the Day

[don]

Re: Quote of the Day

Cow, any way to make that chart fit the page?

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Quote of the Day

Cow, any way to make that chart fit the page?

I used the "width" attribute of the HTML "img" tag to post the above, as in:

<img width=550 src=http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/images/norton_ariely.jpg>

Posting this way is a bit tricky, because the "Preview Post" button mangles the HTML img tags into BBcode IMG tags, dropping the "width" attribute. So once one gets the post the way one wants, after perhaps previewing it and then writing the mangled BBcode tags back into the desired HTML tags with width attributes, one has to "Submit Reply" without doing a final preview, so that you get the HTML you wanted, not the mangled BBcode.

[don]

Re: Quote of the Day

Thanks Cow, this one was all about perspective...which my posting didn't have

[GRG55]

Re: Quote of the Day

From Ritholtz's blog:

[I think Gartman's track record throughout this gold bull market has been dismal - anybody track the timing and accuracy of his recommendations?]

Quote of the Day: Gold is “Hyper-Overbought”

By Barry Ritholtz - October 1st, 2010, 5:00AM


“. . .we shall urge the greatest of caution upon everyone, everywhere regarding gold. It is not just over-extended to the upside; it is hyper-extended. It is not just overbought; it is hyper-overbought. We cannot strongly enough urge everyone to avoid buying gold here and we shall go so far as to suggest that those who are long begin the process of quietly heading for the exits and to reduce their positions to the most minimal ‘insurance’ positions possible. Everyone should have perhaps 5% of their liquid assets in gold, but at this point anything beyond that level is excessive.”
–Dennis Gartman, September 29 2010

[flintlock]

Re: Quote of the Day

If it's "hyper-overbought", why even 5%? What other investments does he recommend buying that are "hyper-overbought"?

[don]

Re: Quote of the Day

Would either of you guys see any value in using gold as a short-term value repository? Parking cash, that I will probably need in 6-8 months, in more gold, doesn't necessarily wash in this usage. Do you agree?

[flintlock]

Re: Quote of the Day

Would either of you guys see any value in using gold as a short-term value repository? Parking cash, that I will probably need in 6-8 months, in more gold, doesn't necessarily wash in this usage. Do you agree?

No, not for short term. There certainly could be some bumps in the road for gold. There really are not a lot of great short term places to make money right now. six month CD?

[don]

Re: Quote of the Day

With ZIRP you can't help but get a bit antsy but you're right, a no-return is better than an equity loss.

[GRG55]

Re: Quote of the Day

Would either of you guys see any value in using gold as a short-term value repository? Parking cash, that I will probably need in 6-8 months, in more gold, doesn't necessarily wash in this usage. Do you agree?

The transaction costs to change from Dollars to whatever and back again in 6-8 months are a big disincentive, whether gold or pretty well anything else, such as another currency. However, the danger of holding Dollars is loss of purchasing power, so you may want to see if there is some way you can lock in your cost exposure to whatever it is you plan to do in 6-8 months...unless of course you think there's a chance for a bounce in the US Dollar sometime over that period.

That last thought isn't completely crazy, imo. If David Rosenberg's "zero growth 4rth Q" comes anywhere close to panning out there's probably another acceleration in the pace of deleveraging that will follow...and that means increasing demand for US Dollar cash to pay down that debt.

[metalman]

if you buy a parrot

if you buy a parrot you must teach it to say... "help! they've turned me into a parrot!'

[don]

Re: if you buy a parrot

if you buy a parrot you must teach it to say... "help! they've turned me into a parrot!'

Or: "Either I go or the wallpaper"

Easy choice.

[Jim Nickerson]

For any Tea Party suckers who read here.

"Vast forests have already been sacrificed to the public debate about the Tea Party: what it is, what it means, where it's going. But after lengthy study of the phenomenon, I've concluded that the whole miserable narrative boils down to one stark fact: They're full of shit. All of them."

That is from Matt Taibbi's article "Tea & Crackers" http://www.rollingstone.com/politics...RS_show_page=0

[don]

Re: For any Tea Party suckers who read here.

Companies are taking home the highest share of national income since 1947 as shown by the WSJ graphic above. This is because while corporate profits have rebounded very fast, the U.S. worker and smaller businesses have lagged. The hope is that smaller companies and Americans will recover in a lagged fashion.

http://www.businessinsider.com/compa...#ixzz11OvH4H8s

About 100 London-based Goldman partners earned an unusual mid-year bonus of tens of millions of pounds in stock this August.

Goldman Sachs has secretly handed its top London-based employees tens of millions of pounds-worth of free shares following a decision to cap their pay in the wake of this year's Labour Government tax on bank bonuses.


There are two issues here - how they got the bonuses and why.

http://www.businessinsider.com/goldm...#ixzz11OvkiT2a

The Untouchables

During the boom they had absolute power. They couldn't be touched. They couldn't be stopped. And even now, with Ireland on its knees, they still can't.

THE FINAL cost of the Anglo Irish Bank bailout could be €34.3bn. That's the worst-case scenario. And if the past two years are anything to go by, the taxpayer could be forgiven for expecting the worst.

There were 4,239,848 people living in Ireland at the time of the last census. So if the worst-case scenario does unfold, every man, woman and child in the country has a bill to the tune of €8,500 to pay for Anglo Irish Bank. On top of the Anglo figures, finance minister Brian Lenihan will also signal details of a four-year budget plan early next month.

Anglo and those four budgets have placed a noose around our necks.

http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2...-untouchables/

[don]

today's quote

Old Wall Street Sheeple Guideline: Shear, don't slaughter

Today's: Take 'em down....

[don]

Re: today's quote

Does the Bundesbank have any Gold in its vaults?

Lars Schall: One topic that is widely discussed among gold bugs in Germany is the question where Germany’s gold reserves are located at. May I ask you what you believe is meant by the 1.700 tons of gold in the US bullion depositories under such terms like “Custodial Gold” and “Deep Storage Gold”?

James Turk: I believe that the Bundesbank’s vaults are empty or nearly so. When Germany accumulated its 3400t of gold reserves in the 1950s and 1960s, most of it was held abroad in the US and UK. This was standard procedure at the time because it avoided the cost of shipping the gold to the Bundesbank. Also, back then gold stored in the Federal Reserve or the Bank of England was considered to be safe because central banks did not lend gold to bullion banks, which for the most part only began in the 1980s.

Eventually, however, bullion lending became active central bank policy, and even the Bundesbank’s balance sheet shows that it is now participating in this activity. When the Bundesbank lends gold, the gold is removed from the vault and given to a bullion bank, which then sells the gold, receiving dollars as proceeds from the sale. The bullion bank then invests these dollars in assets with yields higher than its cost of borrowing the gold in order to earn this spread, which is the so-called “carry trade”.

Because of its misleading accounting as I explained earlier, we just don’t know how much of Germany’s gold the Bundesbank has loaned. My guess though is that they have loaned all of it, which is why I believe its vault is basically empty. One half or 1700t was loaned directly by the Bundesbank to the big bullion banks like JP Morgan Chase and Deutschebank. And there is enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that the remaining 1700t was loaned to the US government, which in turn loaned this amount to various bullion banks. The record keeping for this transaction results in the change in accounting terms that you mention. This of course is a serious matter, and there is an important point here.

http://maxkeiser.com/2010/10/05/does...in-its-vaults/