Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

Just a thought:
Everyone could try thinking for themselves after looking at the arguments presented by different people. If you are looking for a financial messiah they are in short supply.
Roubini is 100% correct at present and EJ is likely to be 100% correct at some point in the future.
If you bought gold at $1 000.00 frankly you have only yourself to blame. The signs of bubble hysteria at that point was unmistakable - and not in hindsight: I sold my gold positions even though I believe in its long term relative rise.

I see you were signed up here when gold topped out. What was the matter, were you too bashful to start a thread and warn everyone that it was a bubble?

You need to step up and issue warnings when you see things like that.

[Down Under]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

Now, don’t base your price of Gold on the spot price because that is not it. Paper gold price and physical Gold price are not the same, as a matter of fact going forward they will have an inverse correlation.

You will know the real price of Gold when the system crashes and everyone is heading for the door, then you will understand what Gold is about. My family and I did quite well with Gold when Argentina collapsed, and we will do the same when U.S., Inc. re-orgs.

Hi Sapiens,
Would you mind elaborating on that (your personal story & your gold), I would be quite interested in reading that story.

Ditto, I'd be quite interested, as well.

[bpr]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

Roubini is 100% correct at present and EJ is likely to be 100% correct at some point in the future.

Yep. That's how economists work, when they're right, they are right for a minute. But that minute is enough to make a career out of.

Oh, and I, too, would greatly appreciate some more details from Sapiens' experience in Argentina.

TIA

[Supercilious]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

I see you were signed up here when gold topped out. What was the matter, were you too bashful to start a thread and warn everyone that it was a bubble?

You need to step up and issue warnings when you see things like that.

It doesn't work like that. I did it for oil and ....

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showpos...&postcount=289

Sometimes it seems that proving that EJ was and is always right is more important than acknowledging reality...

When asked why he changed his position on an issue, John Maynard Keynes said: "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"

[bpr]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

Sometimes it seems that proving that EJ was and is always right is more important than acknowledging reality...

Timing is different. There's no reason to be prematurely calling EJ's failure.

Time will tell that both were right. On different principles, maybe, but the fundamentals are there.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

I see you were signed up here when gold topped out. What was the matter, were you too bashful to start a thread and warn everyone that it was a bubble?

You need to step up and issue warnings when you see things like that.

Well, though I realize you were responding to the other gentleman somewhat tongue in cheek, and that your real point might have been something like (guessing here):

While market calls that turn out to be correct after the fact usually seem increasingly obvious to their creator in retrospect, still making calls in realtime is an uncertain business at best.

... still I'd like to note another angle on this subtopic.

It's easier to make calls for my own money, telling no one else at the time, than it is to make calls affecting other peoples money.

The change in emotional perspective changes my entire investment behaviour. My private calls work well (on average, so far, knock on wood); the calls I make affecting other peoples money are either too conservative, or cost me too much sleep, or lose me friends, or just plain screw up. I'd either have to adapt a professional discipline to overcome this, which sounds like way too much work, or else I have to "keep it to myself", so as to avoid these undesirable head trips.

It does matter whether one tells others or not. It affects our judgement and our calls. The human emotional infrastructure that almost all of us have is somewhat ill suited for this trading business.

Likely this is inherent in the business; investing is a giant poker game, played against other humans. You might talk about "how to play poker", or share tales of great poker hands in your past with other players, but you never reveal your hand while actually playing.

The very same herd loyalty that is valuable in sharing and gaining understanding (such as on sites like this) is dangerous in the actual hunt.

For myself, and I suspect many others, this means in part not telegraphing to others the specifics of my personal market calls in a timely fashion.

[Sapiens]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

Hi Sapiens,
Would you mind elaborating on that (your personal story & your gold), I would be quite interested in reading that story.

Thanks,
Adeptus

There is nothing to tell, other than for you to know that the "ship of state" does not turn on a dime.

[labasta]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

"I haven't read any of his stuff for a while, but it seems that his depression has begun. Funny that it doesn't seem to have been precipitated by the retirement wave, but rather by the housing collapse."

Seems to me that, in a way, the housing collapse is related to the coming baby-boomer retirement wave. As the baby-boomers enter retirement, their activity in real estate is diminishing, posing a serious threat to FIRE sector profits. FIRE therefore expanded its horizons looking for ways to replace the baby-boomer RE economy, hence crappy underwriting, subprime loans, option-ARMs, etc.

Sounds like you've hit on something there

[laphroaig]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

Deflation? What deflation???

Bet these guys would like to see some deflation.

Looks like good old stagflation [falling sales, rising input costs, falling employment] to me...

Whirlpool posts lower profit, cuts more jobs

Tue Oct 28, 2008 8:13am EDT

ATLANTA (Reuters) ...In North America, Whirlpool's biggest market, sales fell 7 percent to $2.7 billion, and higher materials costs led to a decline in operating profit...

...The 5,000 job cuts include plant closures that have already been announced as well as new reductions, the company said...

And the inevitable consequence is HIGHER prices, despite declining sales...

http://www.newsobserver.com/business/story/1272705.html

"To offset higher costs, Whirlpool will raise the prices of its products sold in North America by 8 percent to 10 percent in January. "

(I wonder why this detail didn't make it into the Reuters story?)

[FRED]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

Sounds like you've hit on something there

Remember also that starting in 2001 - 2003 when the stock market was falling, baby boomers en masse "escaped" the stock market into real estate, mostly by buying second homes.

Approximately 35% of all home sales in 2004 were second-home purchases, and baby boomers make up the majority of buyers for this growing trend. Boomers have both the means and the motivation to take advantage of the attractive housing market, and they represent a high percentage of the population.

Now what are they going to escape to? They're too old to do drugs. :rolleyes:

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Deflation: It's time to call a spade a spade.

Now what are they going to escape to? They're too old to do drugs.

In my youth, I drank and did other things to slow down my racing thoughts and to distract from the anguishes of youth. I had little money, and spent what I had.

In my middle age, I went to excessive consumption of sugar and caffeine, in an effort to make my brain keep going faster, and to excessive consumption of debt, to get "more stuff" for self and family.

In my old age, I've become a bit of a health nut, and learned much about nutrition, in an effort to live longer, and I've adapted a more frugal way of living, in order to remain solvent. When visiting an old college friend a few weeks ago, I learned he had made the same transitions, to physical and financial well being.

There is a tiny, but vigorously expanding boom happening in various exotic plant and ocean life for which various health and medical benefits are claimed. The web has become a fertile ground for spreading information and misinformation (you decide which is which) about this, and for selling such products.

When we see the mess they are making of our finances, we start watching out for our own financial health much more carefully. When we see the mess they are making of our medical system, we start watching out for our own physical health much more carefully.

... that's a couple of ways in which I anticipate the demographics of us baby boomers to lead us, over the next few decades.