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On "Intellectual Monocultures", Record Soybean Prices And Absolute Returns
Back on March 7, 2011, when discussing the phenomenon of Zero Hedge, prominent tech blogger and recent Bloomberg paid content expansion Paul Kedrosky had this to say: "After prolonged exposure [to Zero Hedge] I have to turn off my wi-fi not to sell all my U.S. dollars for physical gold, start an anti–Goldman Sachs blog and buy a Kansas soybean farm protected by a moat. But here is the crazy thing: Zero Hedge — a morning zoo of pessimistic financial blogging — is fun. Granted, you (O.K., I) can't read it for long without the aforementioned soybean-farmer effect, but the downbeat site has found an entertaining niche at the intersection of The X-Files, finance and tireless anti–Goldman Sachs–ishness. So while I don't read Zero Hedge regularly — it's too bearish, too conspiratorial and too much of an intellectual monoculture — I like knowing that it exists." This is all poetically ironic. Because in the 15 months since this statement made the public record, gold has returned 13.24% (after hitting an all time record high) while Goldman has declined by 33.85%...
... But most entertaining is that moments ago soybean futures just hit an all time high, and are now up 36% since March 7, 2011.
Perhaps that Kansas soybean farm, with or without a moat, would not have been such a bad investment after all.
Then again, it is oftentimes wiser to urge the nouveau intelligentsia of the world to piggyback into the latest bandwagon of brilliance-cum-slam dunk investment such as Facebook. After all it is techy, it's growthy, and is full of sophisticated buzzwords.
As for this intellectual monoculture, we will stick with the 20%+ blended YoY, if too bearish and conspiratorial, thing.
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New crop November Soybeans about to break $17 in night session. Returns about to go much higher.
Dang! No one told me I needed a moat around this place!
plenty of status quo douchebags like Kedrosky out there; in fact, most of them are.
But clearly, THEY are not an intellectual monoculture...
Are we not men?
No, we are Zero.
Z - E - R - O
FTMF LULZ
Bloomberg = A version of CNBC (aka The Clown Network & literal propaganda channel for the sell-side crew) that tries to project a slightly more serious image.
Michael Bloomberg is bullish on equities above and beyond all else because without a viable equity "markets" (sucking in and vaporizing "investment flow" from flyover country), New York City wouldn't have the ability to project an image of a successful city to the naive.
New York City & London = the ultimate black hole of The Money Masters.
Long real assets, short confetti and the propagandist whore media rags like Bloomberg confetti is made from.
just another useless personal opinion .. but methinks there is great potential in some B'berg (like there are really fine journalists at NYTimes - I truly believe that) ...but agree with you about B' berg.
And to think in a moment of weakness old Rupert the Red ( yes he was back in merry old Oxford days) went to B'berg for 'leadership' for WSJ ... ugh. Bring back some of the old WSJ with the revamped digital WSJ Rupert has made possible .... that is my 2 cents
He forgot to add a few years of long term storage food and a couple good battle rifles with several thousand rounds of match grade ammo to his list of must haves.
I think Kyle Bass could be the poster person for Zerohedge. In fact I would like to see him in a ZH t-shirt standing in front of his moat with his rural Texas retreat behind him, on top of a big stack of his gold bars, holding one of his sniper rifles. Now that would make a great poster! Maybe WB7 could make something up like that?
Bloomberg commenting on Zerohedge's success is like "Stringer" from The Wire commenting on Marlow Standfield's recent success.
Is it too much the congratulate me on my call on Zero Hedge many years ago on the complete and total worldwide economic collapse that I vehemently thanked God for every day on my knees because that's the only thing that will fix most of our problems?
Is it too much to say I was right and now that Alex Jones, Max Keisre, Gerald Celente, Reggie Middleton, et al are using the same words I spewed for years, "Complete" and "Total", in their conversations about the worldwide economic collapse?
And fuck you's all, I'm changing the rules and voting for the greater of a cunt hair's worth of evil difference between the two presidential candidates. I'm voting for that little bit more of greater evil. I'm voting for Barak Obama!
Romney invented Obama Care for crying out loud.
How about you take what few dollars one has and vote on Gold or Silver?
Or how about taking you retirement and vote for a local business that has influence in your community?
Or is being a nagging slave to nameless and faceless icons of vaporized paper the best for you?
I used to be in concert promotion----We did DEVO in Boulder at the Mackay Auditorium in their peak.....It was truely the funniest concert I have ever been to...or worked for that matter.....with the Boulder wackos and the Devo freaks..it just worked...very fnny indead
I had to get a lot of shots for that once before.
No chance . Shyzophrenia or multiple PD makes everyone of them to an debate club, even when alone.
Price of embedding .
Kedrosky is a very smart, stand up guy. Don't put him in the "douchebag" category. Seriously, I've been around here a long time and it is incredibly bearish and there's always a doomsday around the corner. He acknowledges that and correctly states that those "doomsday predictions" haven't really come to fruition.
I like this site, actually I love coming to this site. It has great information but it truly needs to be a bit more balanced. Not everything is an "end of the world/they're screwing you over event".
I used to read Kedrosky daily as well until they somehow fucked up his blog format as to make it unreadable. Too bad.
Just my 2 cents.
There is
NO
such
thing
as "balanced"
anwhere on the face of this planet.
Why should ZH even make a token effort to be "balanced"?
@haroldwang
Your two cents is made of gold---thanks for calling it what it is and this oldman is in complete agreement om
ps:I will give myself a red mark to proudly start the parade since I am a day behind
Hopefully Kedrosky put his money where his ass was and took the other side of those trades, he being such a brilliant guy and all...
Tyler be testifyin', dey be hatin'! :>D
@vast-dom
Yeah, but
he was polite in his use of 'intellectual-monoculture' rather than 'gang of rednecks' or 'ignoramuses' or 'bunch of fucking fascists'.
I like the term 'intellectual-monoculture' as it is less personal and says the same thing. I will try to remember to use it during those troll nights on zh.
and also, vast, there is no reason to be so defensive----he was being polite and not personal om
I gotta bluff, but no water below it this year.
In related news...boy does that roadkill t-shirts girl have huge jugs.
You ain't a just whistlin dixie there, buck...
WASHINGTON | Mon Aug 20, 2012 7:41pm EDT
(Reuters) - Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is likely to shrink to a record small size sometime next week, and then keep on melting, a scientist at the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center said on Monday.
"A new daily record ... would be likely by the end of August," said Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the data center, which monitors ice in the Arctic and elsewhere. "Chances are it will cross the previous record while we're still in sea ice retreat."
The amount of sea ice in the Arctic is important because this region is a potent global weather-maker, sometimes characterized as the world's air conditioner. This year, the loss of sea ice in the Arctic has suggested a possible opening of the Northwest Passage north of Canada and Alaska and the Northern Sea Route by Europe and Siberia.
LOL. Mainstream media accusing Zero Hedge of being a monoculture...
It's like a used potty calling the kettle smelly
ZH tells the truth. All the other cocksuckerz just complain that they do.
And there will be less and less dissent going forward from MSM, so the ZH truth star is set to continue its rise.
Remember that post yesterday when an ex-marine got detained for posting violent rap lyrics on FB?
In Australia, people have been sentenced to JAIL for creating a FB page where users could rate sex-partners.
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/jail-for-creator-of-root-rate-facebook-page-20120821-24jr5.html
AND THERE IS ZERO OUTRAGE FROM MAINSTREAM AUSTRALIAN MEDIA!!!
I still want to sell zhtv.com advertising...please
Jesus God, man.
Of course there's no outrage.
Oz is a land of passed out blackout drunks incapable of most social interaction except passing and blacking out.
I mean really, how can the Aussies rate a root not remembered?
Old Paradigm: Paul Kedropsky & peers (rhetoric and spin and biased opinions that lead to faulty knowledge)
New Paradigm: Zerohedge (information; i.e., statments of facts about the world, economy, etc. and opinions based on fact that results in knowledge)
If they ever need ad copy, that's great stuff, "After prolonged exposure [to Zero Hedge] I have to turn off my wi-fi not to sell all my U.S. dollars for physical gold, start an anti–Goldman Sachs blog and buy a Kansas soybean farm protected by a moat." - March 7, 2011
Zerohedge: "MAN, I'm tired of being right!"
http://www.jimcarreyonline.com/soundclips/ace/aceright.wav
I do not care about GS.Aparently i do care about ZH scaning this site 30-40 times per day.If both disappear tomorrow,i hope wont be the same for my PM.
I sold my US dollars for a Goldman Sachs blog, and planted physical gold in my Kansas soybean farm, which then burned down, fell over, and sank into the moat.
no idea what that meant, but please .. more posts like that one
He meant boat, not moat.
A boat in Kansas....yeah right....
*now* I get it
And what exactly is the counter-argument to anti-Goldman-Sachs-ishness? Note to Kedrosky -- the fact that your nose knows the ass of the Sachs, does not qualify as a counter-argument.
hey he left out 'shorting appl' for a 5000% loss....yes infinity losses...yea...!
Er...
Not buying /= Shorting
Today is the day I'm going to buy me some more puts in the perhaps fuitile hope that soon reality will poke her head in the door for a second.
I don't remember any advice to short appl or actually anything, even facebook. Have I missed something?
Beans, bitchez.
This is the mistake they make of course. If the real situation is poor then stating realty will seem as pessimisim.
Pesimist and optimist should be removed and assessments simply noted as realist.
Only problem with the intellecual 'multi culture', which is keynsianism, is that it has no predictive value. Austrian, though, is a bit demoralizing--once one as the ability to accurately see his country's wealth looted while preparing itself for the historical inevitability of the worker's revolution.
soybeans obviously represent an alternative to the "exorbitant privilege" of filling up your diesel tank for the day. Land is being cleared up in these here parts in dramatic fashion. This is land that has laid fallow for DECADES. Of course "winter fast approaches." All eyes on Brazil after that!
So I guess what Paul is saying that Goldman is good for the world doing God's work for the people.
I read all financial blogs, web sites..
There is nothing like Zero Hedge, its unique, and addictive..
Thank you Tyler et al..You are Number One for me.
Ay, though for those of us that read at less than 700 wpm, the non-stop stream of consciousness can be a bit overwhelming. Kudos Tyler(s).
The musical fruit...
I have turned my 401(k), my stocks, my savings account into gold coins because of zerohedge. Greatest disappointment is that the defecation hasn't collided with the oscillation yet.
I see wut ya did thar.
I have turned my checking account (avg balance: $401k, says the statement) into a trillion dollar ponzi of notional derivatives because of zerohedge.
and all from mom's basement
A curious interpretation of the term monoculture Captain...
mono y mono~~~| :> <:/~~~ fringe vermin!
let's fill the moat w/ beer!
~~~\:>oo0O<: |~~~ (...bububles, BiCheZ!)
Shhhh.
I thought he was talking bout cloning a keeper.
It's the new market...Geoengineering can determine how much money is made not lost. With the help from Monsatin and HAARP they now have full control over the agri commodites markets. This is NOT a conspiracy theory this is fact. When you control the food supply you control everything. Here is the latest clip which explains where all this is heading.Expect more droughts and floods in the future as this will only guarantee their profits! I have kept a chemtrail log for over 2 years so you don't need to tell me i'm crazy, I'm a witness!! Thank you!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEfJO0-cTis
So the Fed got alot of mileage out of talking about QE and the market pricing in QE3. With some commodity prices soaring, will the bernank be forced to talk down the markets?
In the two months I been reading ZH, I've bought 60 oz od silver, bought 3 months worth of food and have become persona non grata at family functions because all I talk about is the end of the economy and the dollar!!!!!!! Just sayin'
Sounds like you are winning on all counts. Do you dream about talking bears?
Hilarious
I like reading all these comments. Life is good. I'm smiling...
"Perhaps that Kansas soybean farm, with or without a moat, would not have been such a bad investment after all."
Carrying the point even further, the moat was also a great idea. Source of irrigation during a drought.
Then they'll end up with West Nile Virus laden skeeters, and the CDC will chemtrail the fuck out of them!
A'm I doin' it right?
You know, we need more UFO threads.
Of course we both believe that the lochness monster would inhabit the moat, so perhaps not such a good idea....
Well, Nessie's got to have some good meat for when times get rough.
Ufo's, yes.
But I think Reptoids have copywrite issues, so better leave them out.
Smoking cattle mutilations are ok.
You gotta go to Fresno for the UFOs. It's a hot spot. And talking about Reptilians, the WWF fight was broadcast LIVE from there tonight. betcha that you guys missed it. Thats why I'm late.
Now listen.
Uncle Softie Balls sold his munis to buy Gold.
Hes rehypothecating the gold with his lordship Rothschild in the City of London to buy cranberry enema juice cocktails and corn futures which he anticipates standing for delivery and let it all fucking rot thereby sharply increasing the strip of deferred contracts also in his possession.
Meanwhile, hIs Lordship Baron Rotschild is shorting the piss out of the Cable (sterling to you initiated) also with the other half of the hypothecated proceeds of the gold purchase.
has nothing to do with muni credit research or Merideth Whitney's body which we would all love to enthrall.... But you do know that she is married to a professional wrestler. Whos probably in Fresno right now, so get on it, kiddies.
God, the nutcase shit around here is amazing!
Off Topic -- if the Rothschilds are not poster children for a 100% inheritance tax over some arbitrary figure like $20M, I don't know what is. Think of what a better place the world would be if those fuckers didn't get to rule the world generation after generation. Really.
hahahaha
FMD that was good.
OK, I will give you the cranberry and gold stuff, sounds reasonable and you make a good case. I didn't know that about Whitney and hope her husbands match was good. I think you have overstated the nutcase shit around here and am mildly offended. Sure I might go all tin hat theory every once in a while, but its in fun. Anyone who is serious would state this is their crinkled form fitted aluminum hat with a battery operated phased jammer theory. So there.
Spanish Inquisition:
My whole point is that the nutcase shit is the best part about it... And most of what an outsider unindoctrinated ZH visitor would figure is that's what it is... nutcase... when in fact, the vast majority of the shit is A-1 P-1 AAA across by all services, spot on, 1000% entirely correct, no holds barred truth.
Even the crazies!!!!!!!!!!
Chief Engineer of the Division of Water Resources of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture doesn't permit that.
Pepsi owns the water and the rain, so no need to call anyone but the police to enforce their property rights.
Perhaps the moat could also be used for aquaponics. The fish could eat mosquito larve and other nasty stuff that breeds in water. The water would not only be good for irrigation but also be a source of nutrients. Gotta build a canopy over it to keep out the garbage floating down from the sky, though. I suggest a red canopy - it'd make a good target for those drones scoping you out.
Kansas soybeans would be a loser: no rain = no crop. Need an east-coast farm as on Maryland Eastern Shore (only moderate drought).
High beans is not good news. Very difficult situation in Chiina which depends on US beans for cooking oil. Also beans are fed to livestock so high prices filtering through all kinds of goods.
People can't pay high prices? Do without? No other way ...
"Soybean land" has gained considerably 2011-2012 ... thoes who farm it , not so much
"it's too bearish"
Yeah, I thought the same thing about Bill Fleckenstein in the mid 2000's. He kept going on and on about a coming housing crisis. How people were using their houses as an ATM and how it would all come crashing down.
ZH;
Cranky, quirky, highly illuminating and joyously depressing.
What's not to love?
As lighthearted and clever as this is, there’s a thread of truth afoot. There is an enemy at large and it is not a frivolous matter; but an enemy so dangerous that our nation in its trials could perish as we know it.
Here, lightly, Goldman Sachs is mentioned: yet, Goldman is an instrument of the enemy. ZH, not for entertainment or distraction from the follies of Facebook and equities, deals with the most serious commodity on earth: truth!
“Know your enemies, my dear fellow. Know them with an exactness that renders them, their habits, their subterfuges, their weaknesses, and their strengths, as clearly as if they were life-sized pieces arrayed before you on a giant chessboard.” -- Tony Broadbent, A Study in Sherlock
correct.
the true enemy is central bank lunacy. ZH knows the nature of this beast. At this point, with inflation and inflated markets, The Fed will try and engineer a market correction, like the last few times denying the market it's drugs. Otherwise Obama's re-election hopes are done and dusted. No conspirecy theory.
but they'll f*ck it up...
we are due for another hellish flash crash
http://youtu.be/-1-8k9Kq-2I
Soybeans: the barbarous relic.
Not like you can eat it.
And, you can dig it out of the ground for, like, five bucks.
If they're GM soybeans, modify that to "not you can safely eat it."
I wonder if Biderman has a moat.
If he blew up the Golden Gate Bridge he would be damn close to having a moat. He and Michael Savage could then have an angry white guys party.
LOL
Angry clueless white guys party.
So the chemtrails/haarp machine brought on a drought, as well as tropical storm Bolaven due to hit China, for a "perfect storm" of crop devastation. All the while the Reptillians/ufo/annunaki people underground, are awaiting the signal by the recently armed SSA/NOAA/DHS to save the good people on the planet. Or is Jesus himself coming? I'm really confused. Also is this bearish or bullish gold @1620?
You pretty much got it nailed.
Oh, and I don't know about gold, but, it is bearish equity. It is always bearish equity.
Goldman to Clients - Get Out of Stocks Before Fiscal Cliff Hits:http://www.cnbc.com/id/48725644
If you can't see it for yourself then so be it.3
The question is what happens when a whole bunch of speculators go to try and sell paper soybeans. If the price is too high there might not be enough buyers. Usually when price exceeds the level people are willing to pay, demand collapses.
Who knows, the harvest may be so bad that there aren't enough beans to fill the contracts. Holding a piece of paper saying you own $10 million worth of soybeans isn't worth anything without the actual beans.
Same thing goes when a whole bunch of people try to redeem that paper gold that has already been pledged to 100 other people.
Paper is really only worth the trust of whoever is buying, if there is no longer any trust, the paper can say it is worth anything you want, doesn't mean you'll get it.
All hedged too the Fed's bullsh*t. They are going to blow this market to hell. Either way
The chart for "paper soybeans" at the top of this article looks suspiciously like a double top...
"Paul Kedropsky could not be reached for comment."
I hate facts. Fantasy is so much better.
Reality is just not what it used to be!
How do you tell friend from foe?
Do they tell you the truth?
----------------------------
Thank you Zero-Hedge!
With regard to Bloombergs critique of ZH.... ZH is fascinating no doubt. Addictive like morning coffee. The only thing I tire of at times is the oft-time endless banter and lack of concenus. It would be nice seeing ZH followers sometime all agree and all applaud an idea or a story. Unanimous approval. But what? Hmmm? My suggestion is that ZH include a link each day to a picture ("todays pic of the day") of an amazingly beautiful women (person?). Simply a beautiful women. Something like "The Sun" in London carries daily on page 3. Now that might provide a refreshing and satisfying respite from the days banter.
A year or two ago, there was a poster here who always combined charts and babes in lingerie. I know for a fact that, someday, the words now to follow are going to come back and hurt me, but I'm gonna say it anyway: I miss him and his, uh, contributions.
What was that guy's nom de net?
hey we have WB7 for that angle and he's the best! Funny and pretty!
Visual Combat: A Collection Of William Banzai's Best Pieces - New York - Slideshows
Angela Merkel souhaite sauver la Grèce - Paperblog
Buy a dog.
Obviously a moat would have been preferred. That way when the drought hit you could have pumped the water from the moat to water your soybeans, have a better crop and make even more on the trade.
And just what exactly is 'bearish' on ZH? It's like labeling someone a party pooper just because they happen to notice the theater's on fire and pull the alarm.
Non-ZH Bear= Muppet.
TD : Its "nouvelle intelligentsia"...but I am splitting my own novelista "bi-culture" hairs!
I assume that your supposed "monoculture" reference is to ZH's avowed worship of the barbarous relic as financial safe haven!
Talking of "barbarous relic", here is an interesting take on what the TRUE barbarous relic of this day and age is :
http://www.goldmoney.com/documents/barbarous-relic.pdf
The Friedkeynekrug spend till it works brigade are the biggest monoculture in town- and don't you forget it!
I live in Kansas, and I can assure you there are no farms with moats. The closest to a moat is a ditch with water and a dead raccoon in it.
A soybean farm in Kansas? Thanks, but no thanks. I'm leaning towards an apple orchard in New Hampshire. In fact, I will be honing my applejack making skills with this fall's local harvest.
Applejack, bitchez. You can't drink gold.
What, no mention of The Whale?
Hunt The Whale. Harpoon The Whale. Kill The Whale. Cut up The Whale. Render The Whale. Cut lose the carcass to the sharks. Return to Nantucket and beat up drunk whale pant golfers.
AAARRRRRGGG!
At least Kedrosky was bearish on FB, but you didn't need a Ph.D for that.
My 18 yr old describes FB as a social indicator.
He says if your friends post on FB...You need a better class of friends. It allows you to see how dumb they really are.
The prediction fulfillment will be accelerating. Every day the soil around the foundation of the economy is being eroded away. The collapse will be non-linear and spastic.
You want intellectual monoculture?
Try your average newspaper or TV newsroom. No dissent outside of Obama is savior / man is causing global warming / carbon is bad / illegal aliens good / universal healthcare good / rich bad / everything is bushs fault. A single violation wins you arrest by the PC police.
No thought, the collective has decided what you must think.
Ah, another misnomer, that sounds like "puuurrrgressives".
Dont forget, free speech zones and the patriot act........oh you just did.
How convenient.
Granted it's a spot check, but I was in southern Kansas and North Carolina during the past week and in both spots the soybean crop looks fantastic. The best I've ever seen. It hasn't rained in Kansas for 40 days and 40 nights but they are irrigating the soybeans. Corn is good in Kansas and excellent in North Carolina. Frankly, I'm not buying the news just because someone declared half the counties in the states as a "disaster". My hunch is it's not nearly as bad as it's reported.