Jim Rogers calls a next bubble in food again

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

We have 25 fruit trees now I think. We have 3 different kind of raspberries, 2 kinds of blueberries, gooseberries, grapes and hardy kiwi. We're just started getting fruit on our trees this year. We got about 5 apples, 10 pears and a handful of cherries. I'm looking forward to next year.

I find my hardy kiwi is taking a long time to grow. I think we planted it 3 years ago and still no fruit.

When I bought my home in 2001 I planted fruit trees and table grapes in my suburban back yard.
Turns out I'm a truly lousy farmer. Peach trees died (twice). Big gorgeous fruit cherry trees croaked this summer after doing fine for ten years. Apples have never been edible. Grapes always come on good, then wither into an unspeakable mess of glop. One pear tree does give me a little fruit.
It all seemed so easy on paper- plant the trees and vines, water , spray once in a while, get food.
Apparently there is more to it than that.
When the world as we know it ends, I guess I'll need to barter with you guys for food using my other skills and assets.

[jiimbergin]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

We have 25 fruit trees now I think. We have 3 different kind of raspberries, 2 kinds of blueberries, gooseberries, grapes and hardy kiwi. We're just started getting fruit on our trees this year. We got about 5 apples, 10 pears and a handful of cherries. I'm looking forward to next year.

I find my hardy kiwi is taking a long time to grow. I think we planted it 3 years ago and still no fruit.

I planted the hardy kiwi last year and had tremendous growth this year.
I have told everyone that I expect fruit in 2013, but I am hoping for next year
I do expect to get our first apples, peaches and cherries next year.




i

[shiny!]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

When I bought my home in 2001 I planted fruit trees and table grapes in my suburban back yard.
Turns out I'm a truly lousy farmer. Peach trees died (twice). Big gorgeous fruit cherry trees croaked this summer after doing fine for ten years. Apples have never been edible. Grapes always come on good, then wither into an unspeakable mess of glop. One pear tree does give me a little fruit.
It all seemed so easy on paper- plant the trees and vines, water , spray once in a while, get food.
Apparently there is more to it than that.
When the world as we know it ends, I guess I'll need to barter with you guys for food using my other skills and assets.

As a gardener I sympathize with you. It's frustrating and discouraging when a tree doesn't produce or fruit goes bad. You might want to get a soil analysis done, or contact a local gardening club and attend a meeting or two to get some advice. Sometimes it's a matter of overwatering, or underwatering, or poor drainage, or a soil deficiency.

Many times people are actually doing everything right, but the store sold them a plant variety that doesn't do well in their climate, or the plant was virused before they even purchased it.

Most counties have an agricultural extension office with a "Master Gardener Hotline" that you can call for help with gardening problems. Maybe you can call yours and talk to someone who is an expert on fruit trees and grapes. Sometimes they can send a volunteer out to your house to look over your situation and make suggestions. I used to be a volunteer in the Master Gardener program in Albuquerque. The training we got was amazing, and it was a lot of fun.

[jiimbergin]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

If you only have one, that could be the problem. Kiwi plants have gender, and require at least one male and one female plant to fertilize the fruit.

Yes, I believe one male can handle up to 13 females! I have only one of each.

[shiny!]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

Yes, I believe one male can handle up to 13 females!

I won't go there...

[doom&gloom]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

responses in bold again, I am too lazy to be as clean about c&p as you...

We were not talking about ag as an investment or even investment in general. We were talking about the limits to growth.

If we are close, there should be some signs: significant downward changes in supply causing price spikes. Increasing hunger.

There have not been any such indications.

One could say that about gold in 2001, but that has certanly been a good way to go. I make no claims that ag is going to be like gold, or that the limits of growth have been met, but my belief from all I have read tells me being in ag is NOT going to be a bad place to be for the next few decades. Now I have cited why, but you ask me to continue to prove things as trends which are not as materially relevant as I expect them to be. Same as convincing someone gold at the bottom was a great investment. I may be right, I may be wrong, but I certainly believe that the trends are in my favor, and I believe some others have tossed some anecdotal evidence your way to support them.

If I read this correctly - you're saying "one cannot know", yet you're basing investment decisions on knowing we're at the limits to growth?

As I noted above - when near a peak of anything, there are signs.

What signs said we were near the peak of gold's decline that were so readily apparent (without hindsight)? And why must you believe that we need to be at a "peak" to make ag a good investment? If I make 6-12%/yr returns on investment, and own something that does not depreciate like paper, and stands the "test of time" as one of basic human necessities, is that not enough? Or shall we all be looking for the "home run" every time? I don't see ag being a home run, I see it as a good investment for the reasons I have stipulated previously. You go off on credit issues, etc etc. I just look at return on investment in something i expect to keep for a very long time. I owned my business for almost 17 years. It returned to me quite well, but if you had asked me if I could quantify why it would be as good as it was, I could never have done it. I could have cited trends, I could have cited need, I could have cited any number of actors, but I could NEVER have proven it the way you are asking me to do so with ag here. Oh, and that business made me enough money to allow me to retire and invest in ag and metals...



I'd be interested in seeing what the input/output/transport cost differences are between Brazilian cerrado farming and generic Uruguayan farming.

Assertions without data are not very helpful to anyone.

Well, lets talk one aspect, distance. Via a guy I know who invests there, plus another who visited, you are looking at iirc 12-16 hours+ of BAD road time to get anything to port from their particular operation. (I obviously cannot talk about all operations and you know that.) It takes me 2 or less. I'll just leave that one to hand out there a bit...

I agree that there don't seem to be any approaches which promise increases in yields, but you're making the assumption that yield is the only variable.

INCORRECT. I simply state that as one factor that I no longer see changing to the benefit of additional ag production. It may still appen, but it sure looks like we hit the wall.

As the historical data I put up shows - a huge amount of land was taken out of production from 1920 to 1997. At least part of this is due to urbanization, but I think it unlikely that it is all urbanization. At least another part is simply due to more marginal land no longer being used for subsistence farming.

I already stated as much...

Nonetheless higher food prices would permit profitable use of previously marginal land - much as higher oil prices lead to utilization of more marginal sources of oil like tar sands.

In such a case, overall yield degradation might be accompanied by overall higher absolute food output.

Not necessarily, as higher input costs into marginal land yield less profit. Supply and demand say that when more output comes to meet the demand, prices will fall, and again the marginal land will drop out of production. this is just like the cycle in mining, where mines get built during god times, prices fall, and no mines get built again until people know high prices are "here to stay" long enough to make sense.

My point was that the number of people living in a rural setting has actually gone up. Simultaneously the number of farmers has gone down. Much of this is due to mechanization, but more importantly much of this is due to the low profitability of farming.

There is plenty of low profitability farming out there. I looked into pecans (i think it was) and was amazed anyone made anything at all. And the land used for harvest in the US is quite small. Dairy sux as an investment, and is too labor and spoilage intensive. Fruits are too perishable and delicate, and very labor intensive. Only industrial ag made sense from a labor, energy and return aspect to me. So that is the route I chose. As to more people living in rural areas, I think we have to define rural. I can drive around my local counties and there are LOTS of people living "rural" on their 1-10 acre tracts, but growing nothing but lawn or trees. Go 30 minutes by land in almost any direction from Seattle and you will find plenty of these folk, and you will find them in pretty much every state. Does not mean they are anywhere close to "rural" as we used to see it a century ago.

Higher prices mean less necessity for gigantic economies of scale such as you see with the gigantic agribusinesses. It would not surprise me if the same dynamic exists in farming as was carried out by Wal-Mart in the retail sector, and the cure for it is the same.

Economies of scale coupled with (supposedly) open markets have brought us the rather low pricing we have today for industrial ag commodities. Many of the factors I had previously mentioned will bring us higher prices in the same over time.

Unless one walks into an existing operation with everything in place and in tact, it takes time to get an ag operation up and running. Ag is thus like oil in some respects -- you cannot just bring a "field on-line" and expect immediate results. 97 million people in population growth will ensure more land is brough online eventually, but it will probably not be enough.



If you wish to assault the data - actually the University of Georgia's - that's your choice. I'd suggest you look it over first.

I'd also note that you haven't actually provided any data thus far, only an assortment of platitudes and assumptions.

And yo have provided ONE set of data in a complex and changing environement. I suggest you think about it as well.

I'd say that you might consider alternative viewpoints, such as this one by that noted anti-ecology NGO called "The Nature Conservancy"

http://www.calrice.org/Industry+Info...?id=1302578040

The Central Valley is largely composed of desert, true. But it has a large region which was formerly marsh as well. The rice grown there is not just white, but also wild rice.

It wouldn't surprise me if this meme of wasteful Central Valley rice farmers wasn't in some way motivated by the competitors for that water: the city of Los Angeles

Interesting, they make many of the same points I make as well -- water issues/competiton, population growth. Who wins when the city of LA is starving for water, a bunch of farmers, or the political might of "the people" who are thirst and need to water their lawns? How much acreage has been taken out of production by the snail darter and other such critters? How much is lost to lack of water in water tables that are shrinking? As I will repeat AGAIN, this is a very complex and dynamic issue.

I believe in fact and dispassionate analysis.

I believe that being emotionally invested in financial investment leads to major errors, which in turn often lead to major losses.

As you have apparently found an avocation, I think that's great.

To transfer your avocation into recommendations for others, that's not so great.

You have not provided anywhere NEAR enough "facts" to prove this is not a good investment.

Let me leave you with one simple aspect of this dynamic to think about: current prices reflect current supply and demand (and probably a little manipulation as well). 97 million people a year, every year =/-, need something to eat. Your Nature Conservancy article discusses forecast world population growth. If you believe in what they say, you believe that they forecast a roughly 40%+ growth of population on this planet. We are aware of shrinking water tables, we areaware of riviers that are over allocated, we are aware of the "wealth effect" of moving from grains to a meat diet, we are aware that there is not much more land that can be brough on-line for production.

So tell me, if all the TRENDS point in one direction? What more do YOU need? this si not a chemistry science proof you know.

[Southernguy]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

Ciue: For what I read above it seems that DG has made a very good investment decision. People shall always need to eat. And in Uruguay in particular in 2002, after a terrible financial crisis and after GDP had fallen in four years about 20% (incredible as it may seem), rent of the land was still positive. Many farmers were being foreclosed, and prices had fallen off a cliff.
Banks had sequestered many peoples money, and there was a general cash starving. However you could not find good agricultural (that is tillable land) for less than 50 dollars yearly for an hectare.
OTOW I warn: this is not an investment for everyone.
First there is a problem with scale: don´t even think of it if you do not have several million $ free to invest.
And in the second place: don´t do it if you do not have a good record at business managing.
After all is just that: business.
It´s absolutely certain that the general trend towards oil exhaustion and the limitation of productive land, against growth population and economic expansion makes land a scarce and scarcer over time resource.
So, being invested in it for the long haul can never be considered a bad investment.
That´s my 2 cents.....and good luck DG!

[c1ue]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

One could say that about gold in 2001, but that has certanly been a good way to go.

Actually, it is exactly the iTulip hypothesis - so far borne out - that the limits to economic growth via money printing were about to be hit, and then morph into devaluation, which in turn was to lead to gold's price increasing.

What signs said we were near the peak of gold's decline that were so readily apparent (without hindsight)?

As you apparently either didn't read or don't remember what the original iTulip hypothesis was: that the ratio of numbers of dollars in new debt to actual economic growth had achieved unsustainable levels and was headed for systemic breakdown.

This ratio was around 2 in 1995, had gone over 3 in 2001, and since then has gone geometric and flipped over into the negative.

Show me something similar in ag.

You go off on credit issues, etc etc. I just look at return on investment in something i expect to keep for a very long time.

I pointed out the credit dependency. You note credit isn't an issue for you. But credit is an issue for the industry - or do you dispute that?

I owned my business for almost 17 years. It returned to me quite well, but if you had asked me if I could quantify why it would be as good as it was, I could never have done it. I could have cited trends, I could have cited need, I could have cited any number of actors, but I could NEVER have proven it the way you are asking me to do so with ag here.

As I noted before: if you are in an avocation, having faith is great. I am truly happy that it worked out for you.

As an investment, I prefer something a little more certain.

Well, lets talk one aspect, distance. Via a guy I know who invests there, plus another who visited, you are looking at iirc 12-16 hours+ of BAD road time to get anything to port from their particular operation. (I obviously cannot talk about all operations and you know that.) It takes me 2 or less. I'll just leave that one to hand out there a bit...

Distance is a factor, but it doesn't mean anything by itself.

One of the largest markets for Iowa corn is...Japan. The distance by cargo ship and/or train from Iowa to Japan is far, far larger than 16 hours. Japan imported 625 billion bushels of corn in 2009 from the US - a very significant portion of which was from Iowa.

So while your anecdote is useful and interesting, it clearly does not paint the whole picture.

Not necessarily, as higher input costs into marginal land yield less profit. Supply and demand say that when more output comes to meet the demand, prices will fall, and again the marginal land will drop out of production. this is just like the cycle in mining, where mines get built during god times, prices fall, and no mines get built again until people know high prices are "here to stay" long enough to make sense.

Now you're being inconsistent again.

On the one hand, you're saying inexorable rising demand from will drive ag land prices via rising food prices.

On the other hand you're trying to say now that rising food prices won't bring otherwise marginal farm land back into production, because food prices are too volatile.

Well, that same argument applies equally to oil. Oil prices have gone up and down dramatically in the past 5 years - from a low of $20-ish to a high (thus far) of over $140. Yet there is no question for oil that the overall prices have gone up enough to bring marginal oil sources into profitability - more importantly into being classified by nations as official reserves (see Canada).

I don't disagree that marginal ag land is less profitable. I merely point out that higher food prices as you posit will lead to previously unprofitable ag land becoming profitable, and in turn leading to greater supply despite lower yield.

As to more people living in rural areas, I think we have to define rural. I can drive around my local counties and there are LOTS of people living "rural" on their 1-10 acre tracts, but growing nothing but lawn or trees. Go 30 minutes by land in almost any direction from Seattle and you will find plenty of these folk, and you will find them in pretty much every state. Does not mean they are anywhere close to "rural" as we used to see it a century ago.

True - the 'rural' of today probably aren't subsistence farmer like the rural of 100 years ago.

Then again, these rural have far less barriers to entry to becoming subsistence than their fellow urban city dwellers.

Economies of scale coupled with (supposedly) open markets have brought us the rather low pricing we have today for industrial ag commodities. Many of the factors I had previously mentioned will bring us higher prices in the same over time.

Unless one walks into an existing operation with everything in place and in tact, it takes time to get an ag operation up and running. Ag is thus like oil in some respects -- you cannot just bring a "field on-line" and expect immediate results. 97 million people in population growth will ensure more land is brough online eventually, but it will probably not be enough.

All without dispute. You still haven't addressed the point I was raising though: increasing prices for ag products means the entry of many new competitors into the food production space. The low prices due to the recent decades of industrial ag is precisely a significant factor in the reduction in farmland being utilized.

Let me leave you with one simple aspect of this dynamic to think about: current prices reflect current supply and demand (and probably a little manipulation as well). 97 million people a year, every year =/-, need something to eat. Your Nature Conservancy article discusses forecast world population growth. If you believe in what they say, you believe that they forecast a roughly 40%+ growth of population on this planet. We are aware of shrinking water tables, we areaware of riviers that are over allocated, we are aware of the "wealth effect" of moving from grains to a meat diet, we are aware that there is not much more land that can be brough on-line for production.

So tell me, if all the TRENDS point in one direction? What more do YOU need? this si not a chemistry science proof you know.

The difference between us is apparently a sense of history.

Every argument you've brought forth has been used in the past - both distant and recent.

Malthus, the Club of Rome, Ehrlich, etc etc have all argued the exact same way as you have been.

And to be fair, some day these arguments may prove right.

However, given the dismal (pun intended) past performance of these arguments, I think it is only reasonable to expect a higher burden of proof than mere linear extrapolation of existing trends.

I'd also note that the 40% growth you speak of is 28 years of growth at 1.14% (2006 growth rate) and 42 years of growth at 1.09% (present world population growth rate). This growth rate has been slowing down for at least this decade, and I'd bet for several decades overall:

http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=xx&v=24

Country	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2011
World	1.3	1.25	1.23	1.17	1.14	1.14	1.14	1.17	1.19	1.13	1.09

If you then add in the still increasing crop yields, the time frame for 'crisis' seems many decades away.

My point is simple: while the trends you've noted do exist, at the same time it is not at all clear to me that the conclusion you draw is as clear cut as you believe it to be.

If so, then the criteria for investment probably needs to be a little more clear cut.

Ciue: For what I read above it seems that DG has made a very good investment decision. People shall always need to eat.

This type of thinking is exactly what went into: Housing prices always go up. They aren't making more land. We all know how that turned out.

And in Uruguay in particular in 2002, after a terrible financial crisis and after GDP had fallen in four years about 20% (incredible as it may seem), rent of the land was still positive. Many farmers were being foreclosed, and prices had fallen off a cliff.

This is a much more cogent point. If prices are depressed due to an exogenous event and you're distress investing, that itself might make all the difference in investment decision.

However, I think it is safe to say that Uruguay farm land prices today are not distressed.

[doom&gloom]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

I going to make this a simple reply because we will never see this eye to eye. In a few years we can revist this and find out if my thesis was right or wrong.

And speaking of thesis, the gold thesis was predicated upon certain knowns and unknowns. The known was the amount of money printing, the unknown was the premise that government would act in certain ways. Had government not acted in a predictable way, the thesis would have failed. There was NO 100% proof positive that such would happen, only best guess scenario that it would based upon historical prescedence. This the thesis has been borne out.

I have my own thesis going. You dispel it because I do not provide you with enough "proof" to make it credible to you. However, frankly, I don't have to do it. It is credible enough to me as the gold thesis was to those who bought into it in the early days of itulip when there was far less "proof" about what would happen. I can no more prove how much land will be lost to water depletion than you could have proven how much money would have been printed. I can no more prove how much marginal land will fall out of production due to high input costs than you could prove how much gold would be accumulated by Russia, India or China. I stand where itulip stood in 2001.

As I said before, this is not a chemistry experiment. Investing in gold had some basis, and later the theories that would cause the price to rise bore fruit. But they were still theories. Another president, with a different CONgress, and a different Fed chair could have made a large difference in performance. There are many variables in my investment thesis that could change the long term outlook of it. Many remain to be seen, many are in the works already. Either way, no matter what I would put up here, I am sure I could no more "prove" it a good investment than you could gold in 2001.

Can YOU actually PROVE peak oil to me? Can you actually prove we will not hit another super giant field somewhere? Look what shale gas did to that segment, and no one saw it coming the way it did. Your desire for "proof" in as large a market as ag is not attainable I am afraid. No more than such proof was atainable in 2001...

Hindsight is 20/20 my friend.

[c1ue]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

And speaking of thesis, the gold thesis was predicated upon certain knowns and unknowns. The known was the amount of money printing, the unknown was the premise that government would act in certain ways. Had government not acted in a predictable way, the thesis would have failed. There was NO 100% proof positive that such would happen, only best guess scenario that it would based upon historical prescedence. This the thesis has been borne out.

The iTulip thesis has clear data, checkpoints, and a mechanism.

Your thesis doesn't have clear data.

Checkpoints: I haven't seen any.

Mechanism: Sometimes you say lack of water. Sometimes you say too many people. Sometimes you say urbanization. Maybe it is all 3, but every mechanism is without context.

What I'm left with is your belief that "its different this time".

And that's fine.

Maybe you're right, and maybe you're wrong, but the inability to justify beyond feeling does not make for confidence in the thesis.

Can YOU actually PROVE peak oil to me? Can you actually prove we will not hit another super giant field somewhere? Look what shale gas did to that segment, and no one saw it coming the way it did. Your desire for "proof" in as large a market as ag is not attainable I am afraid. No more than such proof was atainable in 2001...

I don't need to prove the nonexistence of a super giant - even if this were possible - because even the discovery of a single supergiant oil field isn't going to change the dynamics of Peak Cheap Oil (not Peak Oil).

Only a series of supergiant oil field discoveries would change the short term dynamics of Peak Cheap Oil.

[doom&gloom]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

the data and checkpoints have occurred over time.

Time has proven the thesis correct. If it were a 100% "sure thing" I believe EJ (cannot speak for you) would have felt either compelled or safe to invest 100% of his funds in that thesis. But he did not, he invested in gold, silver, Treasuries, and..??? Did YOU put all your wealth into gold n 2001-2002? If not, why not?

But since you are now so convinced (in hindsight) that the thesis was 100% correct back in 2001, why not give me all the evidence available as of 2001-20021 proving what we have seen happen in 2008-2010 was 100% completely known in 2001.

[c1ue]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

But since you are now so convinced (in hindsight) that the thesis was 100% correct back in 2001, why not give me all the evidence available as of 2001-20021 proving what we have seen happen in 2008-2010 was 100% completely known in 2001.

The iTulip thesis in 2001 is right here on this web site.

You're welcome to read it.

And again - I'm not saying you have to conclusively prove anything now.

I've been asking you for similar evidence - as the 2001 iTulip thesis provided for the iTulip thesis - for yours.

[doom&gloom]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

The iTulip thesis in 2001 is right here on this web site.

You're welcome to read it.

And again - I'm not saying you have to conclusively prove anything now.

I've been asking you for similar evidence - as the 2001 iTulip thesis provided for the iTulip thesis - for yours.

no, sorry, link it, spell it out FROM 2001-2002, or back off. You may be selling, I am not buying. If it's all here as you say, from way back when, just link it on up for me.

i'll be waiting...

[c1ue]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

Interesting, you've been a reader and poster on iTulip.com since March 2007, and you've never read the iTulip thesis?

And apparently cannot use Google to find 'iTulip thesis 2001'?

Here is but one of many public pronouncements of the iTulip thesis:

www.itulip.com/images/itulipHardAssetsIntro.pps

This presentation at the Hard Assets conference summarize the 1999, 2001, and present iTulip theses, including why 1999 and 2001 were wrong.

Note, however, that the predictions of 1999 and 2001 were wrong due to EJ's belief that there would not be another bubble; that the federal government and Federal Reserve would act responsibly to address underlying issues with the US economy.

We all know how that went.

Yet even so, the predictions from 2001 - which were originally forecast for 2006 - echo eerily if simply shifted by the duration of the housing bubble:

http://www.itulip.com/recession2001.htm

	Reflation Efforts are Ineffective: Deflationary Recession	Reflation Efforts are Ineffective: Inflationary Recession
Overview	Private sector debt (consumer and corporate) produces a debt trap that constrains liquidity, reduced consumer spending and capital investment The consumer stays in hibernation as households pay off existing debt and fear loss of employment income Tax cuts fail to stimulate consumer spending or capital expenditure	Tax cuts in mid-2001 create fiscal stimulus which combined with monetary stimulus ends the current recession in 2001 Dual stimulus ignites significant price inflation in late 2001 Exploding fiscal deficit created by tax cuts combined with falling tax receipts cause long term interest rates to rise Fed hikes rates to tame inflation, pushing the U.S. quickly back into recession for 2002 - 2004 as in 1980 -1982 As the U.S. economy weakens, dollars flood back into the U.S. from a sales of dollar denominated foreign owned assets causing a domestic dollar inflation in the price of imported goods, especially energy
Discount Rate	Less than 2%	Greater than 10%
Price Level	Deflation less than -2%	Inflation more than 10%
Peak Unemployment	15%	10%
Duration	More than 2 years but less than 5	More than 2 years but less than 3

Clearly we are in the deflationary recession.

[doom&gloom]

Re: Jim Rodgers calls the next bubble - Food

And there you go. After chasing me about investing in things to perfection, I finally make you put up what was NOT 100% perfect at the time of forecast.

See c1ue, you chase me for the kind of information you would not provide, and when you did, your own info from 2001-2002 does not show that everything works out exactly as one expects it will.

And is that not the nature of investing? We can only take the best information available to us, analyze it appropriately from our own viewpoints, and then invest (or not) accordingly. there simply is NO SURE THING, because if there were, we would all get on board and soon it would be a bubble and crash from over-value.

You did NOT meet the burden of proof you put on me. Think about that the next time you go chasing someone tail trying to prove what you yourself cannot -- the no-risk perfectly cast, no fail, investment. The economy is dynamic, the world is dynamic, things can change, interfere. Get a c1ue.

Oh, and BTW, yes, I had read the thesis, and tat is how I knew you were full of yourself when you started this debate. I just had to make you prove for all of us.