Archive - Sep 2011 - Blog entry

and speaking of Europe...

A historic look at gold to S&P correlations.

You know the saying...It's not paranoia if they're really after you. Europe is much, much closer to universal bank collapse than the media is letting on. You, my friends, are getting a distorted picture of mis(or dis, depending on your paranoia level)information. Enter Bear Stearns 2.0 without a JPM to swallow it with Fed help, or Lehman Brothers 4.0x5!

I fully believe that the financial system is now more in danger of systemic collapse than at any point in history (including 2008). Do NOT be fooled by the rally of the last few days. We saw rallies of 8%, 11%, even 17% during 2008. Those investors who bought into them got taken to the cleaners.

Europlosion in T minus 3... 2... 1...

Diversification serves as a cover for the fact that the great majority of commercial investment industry employees know little more about markets than you do and are nothing but glorified salesmen and saleswomen in fancy suits and expensive cars, thanks to the large fees their clients pay them every year. Think about it. Did you really need a Private Wealth Manager to lose 35% to 40% of your portfolio's value in 2008? For anyone that can think for himself or herself, the facts clearly prove that concentration trumps diversification as an investment strategy. This should not even be a debatable point for anyone that understands anything about investing strategy.

All you need to read and some more.

This post doesn't get into whether 9/11 was caused by incompetence, criminal negilgence or something more sinister ... It focuses only the fact that high-level whistleblowers want to tell us what happened, but no one in Washington or the flapping jaw media wants to hear about it

Our hats off to JP Morgan for a creative depiction of the current European debt crisis, although we typically take a dim view of any investment vehicle that's associated with the word "leveraged" as recommended by JPM.

This is the Japanese approach to economic recovery. They spent trillions and have a first class wasteful infrastructure and a stagnant economy. Why hasn't the $830 billion Recovery Act spending worked to create jobs? This speech is another liberal fantasy by President Obama. He is clueless and apparently desperate because he cannot come up with anything that works. We are witnesses the failure of Keynesian economics on a grand scale.

Ben said nothing. He has nothing up his sleeve. The question is, does Obama dish up a plan on mortgages?

Therefore this week's number is worse than last year, worse than the average of the past 5 years, and worse than the past 4 years since the depression began in terms of the increase in new claims since the previous week.

Good af'ernoon, as enny fool kin plainly see. ah's delighted t'be in th' Twin Cities an''d like t'thank th' Economic Club of Minnesota fo' invitin' me t'kick off its 2011-2012 speaker series.

Trading opinion and analysis, 9/7/2011