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Guest Post: Are We Approaching An Epic Failure?
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You can learn a lot about an advisor(s) by how he or she warns you about advice, including their own. This is a quality warning and should be taught from 6 grade on. Of course it won't because the system needs naive suckers to blindly follow bad advice.
"Before we get to the meat of the investment note we want to mention one thing first. Since the world is full of experts that you can find on CNBC, Fox News, Bloomberg, Wall Street, Ivy League Universities and politicians, the potential client has a vast array of advice at his disposal that can make him or her financially secure, right?
We will let you decide that but we wanted to give you a few tips that we have found useful in trying to decrypt the news streams that are floating all over the place. We would advise you to be skeptical of everyone and everything when it comes to your money—that includes us.
Everyone you see or hear from has different incentives to tell you what to buy or sell. CNBC has a very optimistic viewpoint about where markets are headed because if they do not then advertisers (financial institutions) who buy commercial time (and place their analysts on their show to be interviewed) will not spend ad dollars.
The analysts on the shows are helping their banks to sell mutual funds and other investment products for which they will receive a future bonus or commission from. Politicians will undoubtedly promise you the moon and stars to get re-elected.
CEOs of publicly traded companies will most likely not talk about their companies in a negative light when part of their compensation depends on stock options and a higher stock price. Consequently, we hope you remain cognizant of these incentives in choosing where and with whom to place your money."
Everyone you see or hear from has different incentives to tell you what to buy or sell. CNBC has a very optimistic viewpoint about where markets are headed because if they do not then advertisers (financial institutions) who buy commercial time (and place their analysts on their show to be interviewed) will not spend ad dollars.
The analysts on the shows are helping their banks to sell mutual funds and other investment products for which they will receive a future bonus or commission from. Politicians will undoubtedly promise you the moon and stars to get re-elected.
CEOs of publicly traded companies will most likely not talk about their companies in a negative light when part of their compensation depends on stock options and a higher stock price. Consequently, we hope you remain cognizant of these incentives in choosing where and with whom to place your money."
This is absolutely fucking true but amazingly not comprehended by 99% of "investors"!!!
Win!
99% it used to be pre-2008.
Now it's much, much less ... look at the volumes in the market...they are not buying their lies anymore and know something is rotten.
I look forward to some of those investors that have just woken up to the financial scam their belief system has relied upon all their lives asking themselves alot of difficult questions about the scam that is western democracy.
+1000....:-)
So if this is it, what would you do with 100 grand cash? Buy a bunch of freeze-dried food water and gold? Take the friends to the strip club? Build an ark?
Here's my humble plan. Feel free to critique/add ideas:
I dumped the last of my stock. I don't know what to do with the cash, but *luckily* I'm a couple years out of college so I don't have nearly as much to worry about.
I would list out what it costs to run your life. Not a Mad Max scenario. A realistic list of what it takes to support your lifestyle. For me the order goes rent, food, insurance, cell phone, internet, gas, electricity. Amazing how little it takes if you're not chasing purchases and servicing ridiculous debt.
Then figure out what you're spending the rest on, and get a handle on it. I'm not saying go crazy, but if you're spending $100 at the bar every weekend, pick up a 12 pack of Guinness, invite some friends over, and have just as much fun.
Sell the crap you aren't using because as we turn down harder people will buy even less, and at lower prices. Buy things that will last and that you'll get real use out of--if you'll seriously carry your ipad around every day for the next 3 years using it productively, then buy one. If you've got a much more functional netbook or smartphone, take care of it and make it last.
I used to be a hardcore inflationish but I've come around as I've realized the obscene amounts of credit my generation, my parents' generation, and every level of government have taken on. Inflation may become a problem, but right now it isn't. Having cash sitting around not being "productive" and earning a return used to bother me, but guys like Prechter and Hendry aren't looking to make money right now, they're looking to preserve it until it can be put to use again.
Buy some gold if you want to hedge against rising food/gas prices, but I wouldn't want a huge chunk tied up there before a credit implosion. Yes it'll fare better, but still take a hit. Buy some far out puts on DOW/S&P/whatever that won't cost much but will make you a killing when the next Black Swan happens.
Once you've paid down your debt, pared back your expenses, invested in a few inflation/Black Swan hedges, and seen just how long you'd be able to live on your savings, it'll be a little easier to accept that there just isn't a great place to put the rest of your money. Stay liquid, and wait for there to be things worth buying again.
Nice, well thought out post. Well done.
Bravo Zulu as well. One comment--it ain't a black swan when we all see it coming. - Ned
Sure it is. A black swan isn't an event that you don't see coming, it's an event with a very low probability, ie > 3 or more sigmas out there. Hence the allusion to "fat tails" = events that probability distributions in models indicate as having almost no chance of occurring, actually have a much greater probability of occurring.
I can see the sun going nova - but it has a very low probability over the next year = if it happens, it is a black swan.
Cheers.
To low probability I would add high impact.
P(e) is very low
I (e) is potentially very high
Statistical evidence for both is slim to none, so no reasonably accurate (i.e., confidence-percentage) method exists for assessing the risk. Thus, estimates of both are subjective and subject to all sorts of biases, saying more about the estimator than about the risks.
stopped investing?! - great... why not start trading bear(bull?) ETFs instead of sitting on cash and watching opportunity pass right by you?
Where are we going to put all the welfare people? The unemployed past 99 weeks? What happens when the dollar becomes worthless?
Mad Max? That's Australia. Wonder what the USA will be like.
(oops, duplicate)
Cog Dis, you are one of the BEST here at ZH. And the lot here is pretty damn good on the average.
Never leave us! We need you to help us reach our own personal truths. I am trying small step by small step, kind of painful each one, to break free of the sickness within.
+1,000,000 to you for your work to help guide us out from our misery and insanity.
...
For those not following my rambling to CD, please excuse me and carry on.
That's what led me to ZH; a search for truth. Found lot's of it here. Crazy.
the system needs naive suckers to blindly follow bad advice.
So, CD, is the system breaking because it's running out of suckers (the best ones are now broke)? After even governments go all-in, who's left?
The optimist in me hopes that TPTB will now re-boot in growth mode to replenish the badly depleted supply of patsies.
They can't as long as bad debt sits there as an uncoverable sucking wound. This is where Denninger is worthwhile, read him if you're unsure of the present quandry. If you hold PMs you can ignore the rest.
A honest (and probably drunk or high) broker, money manger, regulator or congress critter will admit that the economic (investment) system is stacked AGAINST the average Joe. Yet it's constantly luring the average Joe (back) into the system. So what do we call this?
The average Joe has been leaving this market in droves for months. ZH and many other web sites (and even the occasional MSM article) show massive outflows from stocks. But they have been suckered into bonds, so the game continues.
If you have been reading my comments and articles for a while you would see that I'm not throwing stones at the average Joe. I have talked extensively about the collective insanity that leads all of us, including those with the least ability to defend themselves from the wolves (average Joe) to continue to play in the insanity.
I really like the Hoe Brothers. "Fargo" and "No Country" are great but "Ladykillers" sucked.
my favorite was Raising Arizona.
You mean we're not talking about Rooster & Huggy Bear?
Loved Fargo. Adored No Country for Old Men.
Couple of others were blah (the one about crossroads or something and the one about the writer in hollywood).
But did not like Raisin Arizona. Really did not like the Odyssey one.
And absolutely deplored The Big Lebowski. TBL is probably the biggest disappointment of any movie I have seen. Watching Dan Conners do the tired old crazy Vietnam Vet thing was painful. Thankfully, I watched it with my wife, who also thought it was dreadfully boring. I've known other people whose experience watching TBL was made manifold worse by having to sit through it with folks who would laugh at such hilarity as calling a guy "the Dude" and having a drink in his hand.
And absolutely deplored The Big Lebowski.
Let me be the first to junk your a$$ back to hell maggot!
(just kidding about the back to hell maggot thing)
Meh. What can I say? I thought the who thing was a bit simple, predictable, derivative, did I mention predictable?
By far the worst part of the movie was the over-the-top vietnam vet. First, casting Fred Flintstone/Dan Conner was epic bad. Second, the crazy, snap in an instant, out of control PTSD vet thing had been done prior to this movie, and a bad rendition of it by a bad actor did nothing to improve the derivation.
Now that I think about it - Fargo was based on a real story and NCFOM was written by another guy - maybe I just like it when they do movies that they haven't had to create.
I had warned my daughter how bad this movie was before she saw it. I told her it was hugely unfunny, and that watching crap like that SNL dude play a guy with animal senses - as brainless as it was - was funnier. Hearing J. Carey say "our pets heads are falling off" is funnier than anything in TBL.
So she sees it with her boyfriend and his friends and they're seeing it for the 30th time and they're laughing at the took-my-carpet and the freaking out Dan Conners and the white russians and they kept looking at her. And she was essentially tortured for 2 hours. She dumped him soon after. No crap. Him liking that movie was an issue.
It's like me. If a woman tells me that she disliked Fight Club, check please.
Didn't like it the first time I saw it. Then I got drunk.
Same with Fight Club.
- the Dude abides.
You are a tone-deaf mouthbreathing moronic boobulous product of poor ejukayshun and dim perception.
I recommend you shuffle your lifeless form on down to Radio Shack and investigate financing terms for a humor detection system.
Yeah. That apparantly is the going theory. Put a gun in somebody's face and scream about some trivial thing because you have PTSD. God. I can barely stay in my seat - that is so creative and funny.
For my yucks I'll take Carlin.
"Maybe that's the answer to the age old question - why are we here? Plastic."
Did you ever catch Barton Fink? It's kind of slow moving but if you're into that type of stuff it's a decent story and very well executed.
I think you'll find that's actually a dolphin. Sharks don't surf.
killer whales hunt the beaches
Then they fight. You surf, or you fight.
I think in time we will look back and say that we were in Epic Fail now.Perspective is like that.The Fail is already here..just look around.The gulf disaster...and the horrible consequences to come, the destruction of what little remained of the middle class.
Very soon the US dollar will fall and the extreme likelihood of WWIII...fought over resources and control of them.TPTB are trying, very hard, to keep us in the dark.This allows them to sell us the war when they are ready.Look around...Do any of the people in power have anything in common with us?No.We are slaves and lower than dirt to them.This kind of attitude by the people in charge always ends very badly.And as I write this, most Americans are self medicating with food, alcohol and television.
Epic Fail imminent.
You mean this?
http://volyymi.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/revolution-void.jpg
The fail happened long ago, friend. We gotta hurt before we change it. Not enough hurt, yet. And when enough finally do, it will not just be a epic fail, it will be a freefall into the void itself.
Drawn in by this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fa/Enter_the_Void.gif
We get this:
http://larvalsubjects.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/void-709422.jpg
Kind of like that.But with radiation and acres of fresh glass.
And no food.
Painting pictures worth a trillion words are you?
William Bonzai eat your heart out.
Too busy working Thelonius Monk changes to calm a troubled spirit in a very troubled world.
btw, Revolution Void is well worth listening to, considering it's free...
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/2225
<Cough> Peak oil <cough cough>
<cough> yep <cough>
http://www.propublica.org/ion/blog/item/moratorium-wont-stop-unprecedented-bp-project-in-the-arctic
exactly right
</cough>
</cough>
</cough cough>
</Cough>
FTFY
Damn good post
I like the investment preamble to such service that reads:
"All investments that pay you dividends or appreciate are false, either by paying you something you did not work for (the former) or are in an unhealthy mania. These conditions are caused by a credit banking system. This type of banking system is something that we are aggressively attempting to destroy before it destroys us."
"So if you are still interested in investments, please urinate into the 50,000V socket next to the exit door and we will clean your ashes up later, because you are the problem."
Looking at short term yields, the 6mo. yields have collapsed, while 3mo. treasury yields are still on last Friday:
http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/rates-bonds/government-bonds/us/
I was following the 10 year all day. Got to under 3.02 at one point. Thinking we could close at sub-3.00 this week. Definately something to watch.
Looks like 6mo. yields were adjusted back to normal this morning.
Well, with the Pre-Crime units getting funding, all those revolutionaries will be marked from birth for future elimination...
As an RE broker, never seen it like this. It's really over. I see some bloggers hanging on to nothing. fools
Do describe some more. Are you seeing a sudden stop?
Obviously discarding anything superfluous except for the extra amalgamation of words in that sentence :)
No, I'm not being a grammar dickhead, I'm just a sucker for irony.
Simplify : Cut the crap.
"The past is prologue". What an Orwellian story if accurate. Millions of people are going to have to be eliminated when the SHTF. We have small cotrie of monsters walking in our midst with a zombie bureaucratic nightmare waiting in the wings.
Another from the Bard, "Strike while the iron is hot" or face a "tomarrow and tomarrow and tomarrow creep into this petty pace from day to day--" Milestones
I've already had my DNA changed by a seedy little lab in Thailand.
Nobody can trace me anymore. (Except for the seedy little lab in Thailand.)
Not only that, but I love my new furry ass and tail.
The Hoe Bros mention 3 means for Sovereigns to reduce Debt:
1-Increase Taxation
2- Lower Spending
3- Print Money
Do these folks do the Stress Tests for the IMF? They COMPLETELY ignore the possibility for reducing debt by DEFAULTING on it.
Somebody somewhere is going to start this Daisy Chain sometime. That which is mathematically IMPOSSIBLE to pay back will NOT be paid back. End of story.
RE
That's an option the big banks and usurers would rather you not make people aware of. When they walk away from making payments on an office building it's called "cost cutting" and doing business. When the working man walks away from his mortgage it's called "being a bum". Terminology is always important on these things.
Yes, although they write very very funny, they did leave some options out. They also did not take into consideration a dead GOM and crashed 4/5 states which is a whole lot bigger than a Katrina aftermath. Thanks for the Daisy Chain description. You made me laugh out of my chair.
Ordered some Canadian dollars today & the lady said "WOW, there sure has been an awful lot of orders for Canadian money today". It was very odd how she said it. Made me feel like an epic fail for the USD is coming soon.
Liberal BS....America was a great nation before multicult was forced deep throat down America.
Why is segestan being junked?
Just like all retelling of history in the modern world .. the truth must be .. Junked.
Perchance dear freind, it is because Segestan is being a filthy racist.
+1 well put.
So if you don't want to open your borders and embrace a huge influx of foreigners who change the way your country is, that makes you a racist?
I think you wouldn't know what racism is if it bit you in the ass.
As my Potowatami ancestors said when they saw the first white immigrants:
Well, there goes the neighborhood.
+ 1 un-junk.
+ 1 another un-junk Segestan
It used to be that we were a melting pot. Come here, get with the program (act like an American), enter the Middle Class.
That has changed. Political / Cultural BS re political correctness.
Bad times coming. Get ready.
When was it a melting pot?
And people are talking about rewriting history.
The fact is they dont like their version of history became obsolete.
I can tell when the US was propagandized as a melting pot. I cant tell when the US was a melting pot.
But who knows? Maybe I am going to learn something here.
Yup and murderer Ted Kennedy had a lot to do with what is wrong with this country. We can have a welfare system or we can unrestricted immigration but we cannot have both...else every single poor person in the world will make their way here. Insanity. Here is some choice quotes by Teddy.
Teddy said back in 1965 then what he said in 1986 then what he said in 2007. At least he is a consistent liar.
This farce he brought upon us with the help of hapless clown Republicans has LA decending into gang battles between black and chicano gangs.
Hate crimes in Los Angeles County rose to their highest level in five years last year, led by attacks between Latinos and blacks, officials said Thursday.
The annual report by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission showed hate crimes rose by 28%, to 763, with vandalism and assault leading the way. Latino-vs.-black violence drives hate crimes in L.A. County to 5-year high – Los Angeles Times
Isn't this country great...giving everyone in the world a chance to come here and fail.
Perhaps the tone of the opening sentence might have flicked a few bullshit detectors on.
The truth needs minimal hyperbole to tell its story.
As long as we argue Republican or Democrat we are going no where. Time to pull our heads out of our asses and understand that we repeatedly took the bait and we willingly allowed ourselves to be duped with false promises and distractions.
After allowing a respectable time for feeling sorry for ourselves, maybe it's time to WAKE UP.
+100
+100
wow, i am amazed that this comment was junked ! he is speaking the truth. the truth is brutal & some people can't take it. Scandanavian countries with a homogeneous population are very stable & do not have all the social problems that the U.S & England has. Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland place a high priority on a happy, healthy & content population. The U.S. & ENGLAND have become a cesspool. People come into this country deliberately to take advantage of the system, they suck the system dry & leave problems & the responsible people pick up the pieces of these parasites. Our society was stable, too, until NIXON took us off the gold standard, bankers & debt & illegal immigration for the past 30 years have had terrible social consequences. i won't 'junk' you, i admire you for telling the truth.
Other countries with "homogeneous populations": Rwanda, Cuba, Congo, China, Zimbabwawe, Iran, North Korea, Venezuala, Serbia, Croatia, and pretty much every other fucked up country in the world.
I guess the question you need to ask yourself is: "Is you learning?"
I junked you and for good reason (mainly because you don't know what you're talking about).
Rwanda, Cuba, Congo, Iran are not ethnically homogenous (I mean seriously...Rwanda...the place where the Hutu tribe butchered 800,000 Tutsis in '95...how dumb do you have to be to call it "homogeneous"?)
China is not "fucked up", not in many definitions of the word. If you're referring to the totalitarian gov't however, well: how exactly is that related to ethnic homogeneity? Same goes for N Korea. Serbia had problems in Kosovo *precisely* because of Albanian immigration over the last few decades - and guess what, the US southwest is starting to look more and more like Kosovo in that sense.
As for Croatia, you clearly have no clue what you're talking about. It's got problems like any other place, poor management/government, but it's still a developed country with gorgeous geography, hot babes, and a fantastic HOMOGENEOUS indigenous ethnic culture. It most certainly is not "fucked up".
China is not homogenous as well.
North Korea is by the way.
Totalitarian government? You seem to have no problem rolling up to this N.Korean example through other totalitarian governments while pointing the lack of ethnical homogeneity to address the point of the mess.
When people want to see a trouble somewhere, they see it.
China if 93% Han Chinese, although if you're referring not to racial ethnicity but language, regional culture, etc., OK point taken.
Not sure what you mean with your 3rd paragraph. To me it's obvious that N Korea is a mess not because it's homogeneous, but because it has bad government. Why is this obvious to me? Because south of the 38th parallel is South Korea, also completely homogeneous - and it's prosperous, industrialized, and democratic.
What do I mean? Easy. All the others are also totalitarian so...
Funny.
Huh, yes. People coming to the US to take advantage of the system?
Ummmm, is it not the way the US has attracted people since day 'one'?
Dont you remember that the US has a history of distributing land taken from the Indians through the US state to US citizens and people who asked for US citizenship?
Werent the members of the second category peopley undubiously people taking advantage of a system?
Here's we have a rightful specimen of the second category of people who populate this site: people who are disgruntled because the system works for people they wish the system should not work for.
The first category of population being people who are disgruntled because the system no longer works for them.
Of course, people can be part of both.
As to being disgruntled with the system itself, well, only a very tiny segment of population is.
Except it isn't anymore...
Come on. The system is still working. And it might even work better and better for certain causes. For people still in of course.
And the very fact some people are still in angers people on this site.
You know, I have to agree. Things were much better before the English and the Spanish and the Irish and the Italians and the French and the Germans and the Jews came here.
Fucking Retard.
I think Mr RollingBearing hinted at the distinction between 'assimilation' and 'multiculturalism'.
I don't know if forced multiculti has exacerbated the simmering racial tension in the US or not, but it's worth thinking about. It's definitely not a 'fucking retarded' idea.
No matter though. One way or the other the middle class is doing its best to eradicate itself, with the help of TPTB.
Please tell first if Blacks in the US are assimilated and second, if they are, how assimilation helped them.
Best way out of this question is imo to deny they are assimilated. This way, you avoid the burden of tackling the second question.
They aren't. But doesn't that just add strength to the argument against multiculturalism? i.e. If you can't assimilate them, there's just more risk that they (assume "they" is just some racial/ethnic group that's distinctly different from the majority, in the U.S. it would be blacks and latinos) will become a disgruntled downtrodden underclass? So what's the benefit of diversity then? You end up dividing your society along racial, ethnic, and cultural lines and get back what exactly?
Taking the easy path.
As expected.
So now the easy part. If they are not assimilated, the US has always been multicultiral and then has been great under multiculturalism.
Since I have just been adopted by the HonkinonBobo tribe out of Oklahoma, I can now say this:
If you cannot trace your family history as being present in the CONUS before 1521, get the Hell Out. Damn Eurotrash.
Even after following the entire thread, I'm not sure if his comment was trashing multiculturalism, or moreso the leftist, PC bullshit.
Press 1 for Spanish
Press 2 for English
Press 3 for Italian
Press 4 for French
Press 5 for German
Press 6 for Yiddish
Press 6 for Gaelic
"Cann Hoe"
Really this must be some karmic retribution for the atrocities "Cann Hoe" must have commited in his previous life. That or his parents are really fucked up.
Shades of the "Ebullio" newsletter - http://www.zerohedge.com/article/blown-commodity-hedge-fund-has-some-wise-parting-words-great-flation-debate. Don't work in the field, so don't know if these firms are real, but had the sense that Ebullio was a prank then (their website logo pretty much sealed it), and wonder the same here. Still, a humorous but solid read, and the "Debt Star" demotivator is a complete hoot.
+1 on the Debt Star. That was awesome.
The social experiment that is unimpeded, unconscious consumerism, that has breeded the latest and greatest species of useless breathers, is indeed reaching excremental velocity.
Prepare thy fans for maximus excreta.
Well said. That was laid on with a trowel.
Their analysis of peak oil shows common ignorance about a fungible commodity. We cannot burn crude oil in our cars or jet engines. We burn a finished product that at present is made by disassembling the molecules in crude oil and reassembling them into the molecules we want to use as a fuel. Many if not all of these products could be made by converting other hydrocarbons such as coal or sewage sludge, but at present it is less costly to convert crude oil.
Thus, the issue of "peak oil" is only useful to those with agendas to push or those with terminal worrying. The only thing that counts to a buyer of gasoline is the price of gasoline. It doesn't matter one whit how much crude oil is available. What counts is the market price of whatever raw hydrocarbons that someone will use to be converted into gasoline.
At a world price of $80/bbl, it costs about the same to convert coal into diesel fuel as it costs to convert crude oil.
Ummmmm, never come to your mind that an approach by price (or monetary cost) is flawed when it comes to energy?
Energy has its own unit, you know. One that is a real unit, unvariant in our time and space dimension. What you measure today is the same as yesterday as it will be tomorrow.
Fact is that oil outcompetes every other way to get the products.
Fact is that other ways will emerge and impose themselves not because they are better than oil but because they will be sort of last recourse ways. You know, the ways you are got to use when you have exhausted every other possible and better way to accomplish what you want to accomplish.
Since "The GoM Gusher" I refer to all oil as Terminal Oil. It takes me to my happy place.
TEAM OBAMA TO THE RESCUE:
http://williambanzai7.blogspot.com/2010/06/team-obama-to-rescue.html
I posted nearly the exact post to this article yesterday and was junked multiple times. I will watch the incoming tsunami from a high vantage point as the grasshoppers who have been with no viable skills who have been gaming the system are swept away.
Ahhh, sweeet Darwinism!
Why trash. Mix in a little entropy and lets party.
I posted nearly the exact post to this article yesterday and was junked multiple times. I will watch the incoming tsunami from a high vantage point as the grasshoppers with no viable skills who have been gaming the system are swept away.
Ahhh, sweeet Darwinism!
Methinks the article should read "We are in Epic Failure, Do you know it?".
Really, bar the shouting, every article (even here on ZH), points to fulcrum-less moves, wild ones. What we are witnessing is the death throes of a way of life, a philosophy of life.
And since we (greater) all love life, regardless of it's quality, or should I say only for it's quantity, we (greater) will hang on, keep trying to play the game, keep getting side-swiped, get-up, dust-off, play again.
Our never-say-die attitude, combined with the blinders of the dominant paradigm, make us all perfect rats for the lab we are in.
There are ways out, like the Devil card in the Tarot, the chains that enslave us are golden and in place by choice.
ORI
http://aadivaahan.wordpress.com
Nobody seems to be answering the question, directly, are we approaching an epic failure?
Well, if my 2010 predictions are right, then yes we are, and about now too.
Time will tell. What do you think? Cards on the table.
Approaching epic failure? Brother we have been in the chute for decades.
Don't worry about America or any other nation on earth. A great long term plan is almost ready to come to fruitation . After the coming world wide financial crash, a better world will slowly emerge.
Phoenix Rising,
A phoenix is a mythical bird that is a fire spirit with a colorful plumage and a tail of gold and scarlet (or purple, blue, and green according to some legends). It has a 500 to 1000 year life-cycle, near the end of which it builds itself a nest of twigs that then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix or phoenix egg arises, reborn anew to live again. The new phoenix is destined to live as long as its old self. In some stories, the new phoenix embalms the ashes of its old self in an egg made of myrrh and deposits it in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis (literally "sun-city" in Greek). It is said that the bird's cry is that of a beautiful song. In very few stories they are able to change into people.
Thanks for the reply RangarD. Well I've been out of stocks since end of January just sitting in cash adding to the stockpile. Looks like Jim Cramer was actually right for once when he told everyone to bail on the market a couple weeks back.
This is so indicative of the underlying problems of our service and finance based economy. When and if we experience a "significant adverse effect" to our economy that crushes this perverted way of doing business I think it will INCREASE our quality of life. By that I mean that we will by default revert to more agrarian and productive methods to CREATE ACTUAL VALUE AND PROSPERITY. Everything else is just dots on a page and has no real bearing in the physical world. Our biggest problems for the poor in this country are obesity and diabetes! Zen Buddhists say "No Work No Eat".....I like it!!
For any Peak-oilist I suggest you look at the book End of the Coal Age from a century ago where the author insists we are running out of coal and no viable replacement exists, meaning societal collapse is only a few years away. Turned out he was wrong. Even if there is a global peak in production it will not be the world-ending scenario some are predicting. It doesn't mean we can keep doing what we have been doing, but the thing is we aren't. All around the world policies have shifted so that our usage of oil will gradually decline. Eventually, whether in electric cars or some other method, there will be a break-through allowing for wide adoption of vehicles that do not make use of oil and when transportation use largely evaporates there will not be any real concern.
Not to worry. Our Fearless Leaders will pump more cash into the markets. Watch for a new 52 week bottom when the down elevator stops, and buy back for the next walk up the stairs. Get nervous on the next high, cash out, and repeat until all the various chickens come home to roost, the epic Epic Fail. When they can't slam gold down anymore, you'll know the jig is up.
Epic Failure?, more like a slow global train wreck that started a few years ago.
We have gardens and are trying to stash useful stuff away for the future.
I figure the government will try to steal everything we grow to feed city people soon enough.
The trick is/will be to look a little deranged so that avoidance is easier than the percieved reward of a confrontation.
When the confrontation comes I am going to keep my head down, mouth shut, whiskey hidden and powder dry, while trying to have a little fun.