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No Record Profits For Old Assets: Jim Montier On Unsustainable Parabolic Margin Expansion For Dummies
It is widely known that US corporate profits recently hit an all time high. What is less known is that in Q4, profit margins for the first time rolled over by 27 bps, and double that if one excludes Apple. What is very much irrelevant, is that to Wall Street none of this matters, and the consensus (of which GMO's Jim Montier says "the Wall Street consensus has a pretty good record of being completely and utterly wrong") believes that Q4 will be largely ignored, and margins will continue soaring ever higher. Well, the same Montier, has a thing or two to say about this consensus surge in profits ("it is almost unthinkable that it will remain at current levels over the course of the next few years"). More importantly he looks at the Kalecki profits equation, and finds something rather peculiar. Namely Japan. Because while taking the profits equation at its face value would surely explain the 10.2% in corporate profits, of which a whopping 75% is thanks to America's burgeoning deficit, it would imply that Japanese corporate profitability, where there has been not only a long-running current account surplus, but zero household savings, and massive fiscal deficits, should be off the charts. Instead it is collapsing. Why? Montier has some ideas which may force Wall Street to renounce its bullish views, although probably won't. However, the implications of his conclusion are far more substantial, and if appreciated by corporate America (whose aging asset base is the problem), may ultimately result in a revitalization of the corporate asset base, however not before the dividend chasing frenzy pops in the latest and greatest bubble collapse.
First of all, for those who are not familiar with Kaleci, the Profits Equation, or any form of generic mumbo jumbo, here is the equation in question:
Profits = Investment – Household Savings – Government Savings – Foreign Savings + Dividends
How has this equation resulted in record profits? The chart below breaks out the various components:
Breaking this down historically yields the following chart:
So looking at historical and projected profit earnings, this is the consensus. Bear in mind this is critical for year end S&P targets above last year's closing level to make any sense without multiple expansion.
On the surface, this could be explained using the profits equation:
Let’s briefly examine the logic behind these drivers of profits. Investment (technically, investment net of depreciation) drives profits because when a firm or a household decides to invest in some real asset they are effectively buying the good from another firm, creating profits for that entity. Remember that this is aggregate; any single firm (even the world’s largest) is minuscule relative to the total amount of investment that occurs, so it isn’t possible for any given firm to bootstrap itself into profitability via investment.
Household savings are a drag on profits. This should be fairly obvious. Wages are paid by corporates to households, forming income from the household perspective. If some of this is saved, it is clearly not recycled into spending and, hence, is lost from the corporates’ year-by-year profits point of view.
Just like the household sector, government sector savings are a drag on profits. There are many transmission mechanisms between the government sector and the business sector, some reducing profits, some increasing profits. There is the tax route, whereby personal income tax reduces the amount of profits available to the business sector. Conversely, the government is also an employer, paying its employees who in turn spend and create profits. Plus, of course, there is direct interaction between the government sector and the business sector when the government is buying goods and services. All of these interactions (plus others) can be summarized into the government sector savings.
Foreign savings (also known as the current account balance) are also a drag on profits. Remember that the current account balance measures the amount that the U.S. owes to the rest of world (in terms of both actual goods and services purchased and investment flows) minus the amount that the rest of the world owes to the U.S. (again in terms of payments for goods and services and investment flows). If the U.S. is running a current account deficit, then it owes the rest of the world, and this is lost potential profits from the perspective of the domestic business sector.
Finally, we have dividends. This may seem like a counterintuitive source of profits since these are paid out by the business sector to households. However, from the perspective of the household sector, these are a form of income, which can be spent, thereby creating profits for the business sector.
This is all great. There is however one problem. Japan.
In Japan, we find a situation where the household sector is saving very little, there is a current account surplus, and the government is running a massive fiscal deficit. On these grounds, one would expect Japanese profit margins to be soaring. However, this
isn’t what we find. As Exhibit 7 shows, Japanese profit margins have been far below those seen in other nations.
What is the explanation for this dramatic outlier?
Given the massive tailwinds listed above, this can really only imply that net investment must have been massively negative - effectively, depreciation has outstripped any new investment. One can only ponder just how appalling Japanese profit margins would have been without all of the government help over the last two decades! Of course, if net investment were to turn positive (or even stop being quite so negative), then Japan could witness a marked improvement in margins.
And so once again we get back to what we have dubbed the primary cause of all of modern capitalism's problems: a dilapidated, aging, increasingly less cash flow generating asset base! Because absent massive Capital Expenditure reinvestment, the existing asset base has been amortized to the point of no return, and beyond. The problem is that as David Rosenberg pointed out earlier, companies are now forced to spend the bulk of their cash on dividend payouts, courtesy of ZIRP which has collapsed interest income. Which means far less cash left for SG&A, i.e., hiring workers, as temp workers is the best that the current "recovering" economy apparently can do. It also means far, far less cash for CapEx spending. Which ultimately means a plunging profit margin due to decrepit assets no longer performing at their peak levels, and in many cases far worse.
Furthermore, recall that in February we penned: '"No Continent For Young Assets" - Charting The Root Of Europe's Problems: Record Old Asset Age' in which we observed that the average age of European assets has hit a record high.
This also explains why banks have to dig progressively deeper into the sewer to pull out virtually anything that floats and hand it off to the ECB for collateralization, either in the open system or via repo. The reason is simple - there are not enough normal assets! And while we do not have the primary data, we are willing to wager that the average US asset's age is well on its way to record decrepitation.
The conclusion of all this is quite simple: the longer the "recovery" continues, without an actual recovery being coincident, and all is merely a game of optics and smoke and mirrors, corporate margins will start collapsing in a toxic spiral, whereby companies generate less cash, and have less cash to spend on CapEx, etc, until the next sector needing a Fed bailout is the corporate one, all the while the Fed's forced misallocation of resources forces companies to expend every available penny into dividend payouts.
Of course, this may well change. But if it does, and instead of pumping dividends, corporations do what they should be doing, which is begin the long overdue overhaul and update of their asset base, thing will eventually get back to normal, however record profit corporate margins will take a long time to return. And in the meantime, we sure would not want to be on the offer side of the collapsing dividend bubble...
Full Montier paper can be found here.
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Margin Compression bitchez
I stopped believing in any formula that does not factor in debt or assumes leverage is extinguishable at any time.
Profit = Debt + Inv. - S - G - X + D
Oh, and ... Asset dilution, bitchez
tax dividends as ordinary income as is normal
Taxing dividends as ordinary income is not normal, even in high-tax countries such as Sweden. Taxing fund-manager bonuses as ordinary income (not carried-interest) is not normal.
I'm divided about dividends. I kinda feel like they're a stealth BS substitute for what should be real stock appreciation.
Exactly the opposite is the case. The notion that the stock should appreciate constantly is mathematically absurd. Once upon a time in America *all* stocks paid dividends. The more modern notion of ponzi style appreciation of equity value is based on bubblenomics and puts hype over substance.
A dividend represents a mathematical "share" of company profits. By contrast (as everyone knows) there is often very little justification for the relationship between share-price and underlying value. A dividend is mathematically/financially supportable. Share price often isn't.
It seems to me you're both right.
In an elastic monetary system, you'd expect stock price indices' movements to at least bear some resemblance to money supply.
So, while M3/M4 were expanding, it was reasonable to assume stock prices would, too.
Ya, what I was driving at. I guess I stand uncorrected.
Taxing dividends as ordinary income is like double taxation. Taxes should be thought of as a take on the created wealth, not a take on what comes into one's pocket, whatever the source. Otherwise you end up with a confiscating dinosaur state.
Sell-Siders all over babbling about record corporate profits, and nary a peep about near-record (and possibly beyond record, by now) debt:
Robust Corporate Bond Issuance Is Approaching Weekly RecordAnd it was near 2 trillion of corporate debt back in 2011, so who knows how much higher that figure is as of now -
Law of Unintended Consequences: Corporate Borrowing Binge
Here's the problem the sell-siders and even many innocent observers never mention or don't understand:
This 2 trillion plus (by now, since the 1.8 trillion figure was back in 2011) of 'borrowing' IS NOT CASH. It's debt that has to be rolled over or repaid.
Sell side only works when markets are going up.
Don't expect them to do anything but talk their book.
Not only that, but their enablers in the financial media haven't even bothered to do their journalistic duty, as an essential pillar of our democracy /sarc, to raise questions as to why "profit churning machines" feel to the need to be "debt borrowing machines."
Not only that, but their enablers in the financial media haven't even bothered to do their journalistic duty, as an essential pillar of our democracy /sarc, to raise questions as to why "profit churning machines" feel to the need to be "debt borrowing machines."
Their enablers will proffer the excuse that they are actually in the business of providing financial "news" as entertainment.
"It's debt that has to be rolled over or repaid." <-- that, could be debatable
The calculation does take debt into account. It's a component of government savings, which is negative in this case. This is the more staggering observation from this chart--our government must continue to run a massive deficit in order to maintain these high corporate profits. Sell side analysts think that rising yields on treasuries mean money will be diverted from bonds to stocks, but rising yields really mean the U.S. government will not be able to borrow as much, hence declining corporate profits.
Mr. Mon-Tee-Ay (with an r),
Coming oil price hikes will crash, and trump, all other analysis, just like 2007. Wash, rinse, and three-peat.
I don't know. Even CNBCrap was acknowledging that this earnings season was going to suck. But the key is it is an anomoly. Yup.
Yup.
Another Keynesian metric....
God, if only the damn weather would cooperate this could go on forever.
Damn you Mother Nature !
As long as Malia is OK after that nasty Iran-caused earthquake.
I thought it was the Russians. You know, kind of a warning shot like that EMP by the Chinese off San Diego (stranded that cruise ship and all).
Wasn't there some sort of missile fired a couple of years ao as well (off the coast of California)? I think the official explanation was a plane providing some sort of optical illusion.
This is all about the oligarchs raping the productive middle class. They bonus themselves into elite oblivion with fine Fed powder while the little people wake up with the hangover.
The 3rd chart's dotted line looks like it was drawn by Lazlo Birinyi
Not to derail the thread - but it looks like we can longer track our old posts...why is this?
Anyone?
Weird. Try doing a search on your name (albeit, your name might show up more frequently than others). I know I have more than 1 lousy post... wth! Hopefully ZH is trying to protect us from big sis and hasn't sold out....
And why does it say 'new' next to my name... am I new, or is the post new?! wth!
Seems to be fixed now. Thanks.
The search method has changed.
I no longer see notifications indicating new replies to a previous article I replied to. What I can see are new comments (n/a about replies) from a particular person, including myself
this link for my comments
this link for our FAVORITE commenter
and this one for our photoshopping fav
Wait, so if businesses made *gasp* investments--sound, planned, actual--investments in their infrastructure, personnel, other capital instead of short-sighed "grab-the-cash-and-run" business models, then (well employed) consumers could actually stimulate growth? [sarc] Now why would anybody do that? Don't you know that heli-Ben can just print 'money' and the banks can give it to all ready over-leveraged consumers on plastic cards? Now why does that require any form of "investment" (which equals risk to the investor), planning, or responsibility? [/sarc]
...reduced margins equal pressure on stocks=QE(=bullish)=greater margin compression thru inflation=more QE=bullish=( Repeat as needed)...= zero profitability= all your stocks belong to us so who cares> Now for a reset on that debased currency. Not our fault, NOONE could see this coming.
OT - any opinions on Euro Pacific Capital (managed account)? I already have my silver, 5 acres, and a well diversified portfolio of vegetables. thanks
Duck,
I'm sorry but what does what you have, have to do with thisa article
Don't you have a twitter account for that stuff?
Respectfully om
I assumed many people here are familiar with Peter Schiff's company and thought someone might have some thoughts. I'm an asshole for being completely offtopic, but the 'OT' excuses it. That's the rules I believe.
OT: I can answer any questions you may have about supplemental insurance.
don't mind the board nazi's, oldman doesn't dictate what the fuck u write or anyone else, i like peter schiff but euro pac didn't do very well in the crisis which is surprising since he saw it coming, he was very bearish on the US (correctly so) but very bullish on european dividend stocks so he got creamed like everyone else, there were several people i remember complaining that they had money with him and lost 40% plus during the crisis, i read a couple of his books while all this was going on and he was right about gold and silver and not much about anything else, once again i am a fan but I wouldn't invest with him.
Also his idiot brother had a stupid piece in bloomberg recently, considering he is in charge of marketing, pretty stupid.
People go OT all the time on this board, ever since i've been around.
EXACTLY my concern, thanks.
He says the next crisis may not be the same as '08, which I can believe. He will probably be right eventually but I think there is tremendous downside potential in the portfolio if global demand destruction occurs before (or concurrent with) USD collapse.
No downside to acerage and vegetables.
Cash works for the time being, and PM's until you hear Roosevelt confiscation inklings from Obama or the next admin.
I wouldn't put more than 17% with any one person, fund, or category myself.
As cheap as natural gas is and as high as oil is that would be a long term play IMHO as ten years out it has to go up one way or another (heating, nitrogen production, etc. - and that is if they don't start running cars and trucks on it).
@Iamaman,
Thanks for taking me off the hook. I was afraid no one would ever say a word and I'd be stuck with the Dictator role forever.
You and the Duck make it seem a bit more it was a year and half ago. Most of my heroes from those days are gone------
oldman,oldtimes,oldmemories om
Hey Duck,
You're a fun guy to play with----nice response
Thanks om
About that diversified portfolio of vegetables: did you not see the latest executive order from the Big O? "All your vegetables are belong to us, if we want." And look for a visit from Mayor BloomingIdiot to verify that your vegetables are of the politically acceptable variety.
The second paragraph sums this up "mumbo jumbo".
This is keynesian(socialist) non sense. Th governmant savings should be positive, there should also be a exponetial factor related to the government savings because of the compounding effect governmnet funding has on the economy. This leads me to one conclusion. Kaleci was an idiot.
Thanks for reminding people that modern Keynesian economics is a Socialist experiment.
"Marx's work sharpened the existing differences between the revolutionary and non-revolutionary socialists.
Non-revolutionary socialists took inspiration from the work of Jon Stuart Mill , and later Keynes and the
Keynesians, who provided theoretical justification for (potentially very extensive) state involvement in an existing market economy]. According to the Keynesians, if the business cycle could be solved by national ownership of key industries and state direction of their investment, class antagonism would be effectively tamed; a compact would be formed between labour and the capitalists. There would be no need for revolution; instead Keynes looked to the eventual "euthenasia of the rentier" sometime in the far future….”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialist_economics
IF theres one thing I know its that paroblas are dangerous.
Nice article.
I guess this point will be one of the key changes in the coming new machine. I don't understand how this will come about, but it is obviously a huge glitch in the old machine especially considering the limitations of the real world vis-vis population growth sustainability and spreading the product of society in an equitable manner.
If I were younger or more interested in the human context, I would probably view this area well worth studying. There must be something 'organic' coming that no one sees because I never met any capitalists who want to spread the wealth or have a new idea about population growth sustainability; capitalists with such thoughts go by other names.
Well written and comprehensive piece, thanks om
This is 'classical economics' mumbo-jumbo. Corporate profits may ultimately fall, but the reasons above are not convincing -- there will be a bust that will swamp efforts of the best management teams in the short-run. But short of a complete lack of demand for products for a LOOOOONG period of time, companies will their adjust the allocation of scarce resources in a way to make a profit.
BTW, we've been waiting for 'record corporate earnings' to fall for a few years now....
It's like this: unless the financial world can stun us with unprecedented irrational exuberance the crisis atmosphere will live on for years.
Along with the Pentacon's 'war on terror'
is it bad that i've given up trying to find a job and just play the piano all day? i mean, that's the only thing i'll have left which has any value when the owl takes the last lick of the tootsipop...
anyway, half a year left before i get my degree in finance, which is going to be worthless when everyone realizes what type of finance the universities have been teaching (brainwashing) us with...i'm so fucked that i no longer care how fucked we collectively are...but hey gotta think positve right?
here's to a wonderfully bright future for my generation!!! /lollipop mode
diablo 3 comes out in may so i can play my sorrows away...maybe the ipad4 can run it?
Newsflash: GS clients toasted in special press conference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpniCu000f0
Just basic Austrian economics ---- to grow an economy you don't consume all the current production -- you save some to invest, to build new plants & factories that require new or laid off workers to run. Of course Mr. stupid Bernanke chooses the Keynesian approach by using ZIRP to make cheap loans available to the stupid banks and cut off all savings. Carl Menger figured this out 140 years ago. Pretty simple stuff.
Indeed. Basic economics. The more you consume the environment, the more there is to consume.
It is so basic.
#In Japan, we find a situation where the household sector is saving very
little,
japanese... saving very little.. are you crasy?
ALX
i'm not smart enough to understand 100% what any of those charts mean, but from the 66.6% i do understand, it probably sounds a lot like the third movement of prokofiev's 2nd piano concerto, which he dedicated to his best friend who committed suicide...america, why did you have to kill yourself =(
sounds like a dark times are a comin...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q2qmuCXHI0
That's the problem with all the money in equities, you can sell them only after you are dead.
The nice thing about the aging asset base is that it was also fed driven. Distorting interest rates, thus distorting the true houshold savings picture. Companies figure savings is being built up, so they better invest for the future wave of business coming at them, and create new products as well.
Ze Austrian Business Cycle proves out, yet again. Weird.
Maybe that's Bernanke's problem: he doesn't speak Austrian and therefore doesn't understand the Austrian Business Cycle. Or, maybe he's just totally clueless about reality.
"...the existing asset base has been amortized to the point of no return, and beyond."
Pretty much sums it up but since so many of us are aging, we don't care as long as it pays off in our lifetimes. Most people only think based on how things have been during there lifetimes. Look at the housing bubble, how is it that so many people believed that housing prices always go up but a longer timeline shows housing to be break even at best?
Montier is a very glib and very entertaining writer. i worked at the same firm as he did back around 2005. He is a one trick pony and has been wrong for years.
Potential margin expansion can be expected to max out at 200%. Don't forget that the government can bail out anyone that can't make sales.
Stock market bottom 2012 - http://stockmarketbottom.com
The whole economy is fraud, and if you want to get through what is coming, you need to start reading.
http://www.amazon.com/Simple-Wealth-Mr-Andrew-Costello/dp/1463523017/ref
I hear a tick can get really fat left unmolested on the back of the old family dog that is blind and one year out from being buried with the Gerbils and Hamsters of yesteryear.
Corporations are a product of middle class societies. With the rise of the middle class appear corporations.
Middle class is the king class in US citizenism.
It is quite normal that in dire times, the corporations, standard bearers of the middle class societies, are made to fare better.
Nothing unexpected here.
They're trying to destroy America. It's not stupidity or ignorance. It's planning. Dick Gregory is going on a hunger strike for 911 truth. Not that it will make a bit of difference. And AE911 truth is a great site, folks.
http://www.infowars.com/dick-gregory-announces-hunger-strike-for-911-truth/
This talk of "Asset Base" was wrong when you commented on Europe - totally wrong - and is probably wrong in terms of the US too. It is to confuse macro-statistics with micro-economics by sector. There are sectors where liquidation by dividend is the game because there is no need for net investment. The simple fact is Japan went beserk in the 1980s with Japanese Equity Warrants bringing very cheap capital, they over-invested. SONY went mad on audio-visual and surpassed Panasonic for the first time - only to find Samsung had eaten its lunch in digital and LCD. SONY had over-invested in the present and trailed in the future with no real presence in laptops or PCs and was an OEM producer for Apple but thought it strategically clever to buy Guber & Peters and Columbia Pictures to control software.
Apple simply moved to digital to control software DELIVERY rather than owning the studio. So SONY raised its cost-base by massive Over-Investment and ended up eating its capital base. I know, I ran the numbers internally. It was so predictable, and then to turn out Schlock in China to get market share was a brilliant way to destroy a business living from premium pricing and a strategy of changing the carrier - ie DAT, Betamax etc.
The irony is that Lazards under Rohatyn persuaded RCA that Colour TV was dead in 1969 so buy into Hertz and Hotels and SONY entered the market with Trinitron and cleaned up......but had a high cost base due to complexity and divisional politics by the time LCD broke the frame and LG and Samsung emnerged as top dogs.
So ageing assets - even if it were true - does not mean falling profitability. It depends where Assets are being acquired with what purpose. Shopping Malls may be an American fetish and NMC Machine Tools may be a German or Italian fetish.
Well there are facts... and then there is your opinion.
NO, I use OTHER FACTS....the Statistics available are flawed in composition and Depreciation is not related to Economic Life but to Tax Rules. In UK/US jurisdictions it was possible to alter Depreciable Life but not in Germany where Tax Books and Accounting Books were the same.
The thesis you are advancing is The Kaldorian Growth Model or even Harrod-Domar and it is not reasonable to assume that such models are valid for all time and under all circumstances, especially if the data collation is flawed and US data went through significant "refinements" under Clinton and Greenspan with bizarre notions of productivity
Well, in terms of YET MORE OTHER FACTS, we will shortly show a chart comparing accumulated D&A versus CapEx investments for US corporates over the past decade. You will be rather stunned as YET MORE OTHER FACTS reject your OTHER FACTS.
Stay tuned.
I take it your CapEx figures exclude Takeovers and the write up of Fixed Assets under the Purchase Method ? Or the write up valuation of land when a natural resource is discovered ? Do you include acquisition of Weapons Systems in the CapEx figures ? There are some schools of thought that include Weapons Purchases in Fixed Capital Formation and the USA has quite a lot more of that than Europe
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=arms%20spending%20as%20fixed%20...(p)military.PDF&ei=XxZqT5ajBMjC0QWQ4rj1CA&usg=AFQjCNFjWE_-j6oswxy8hJZVBDxNTD-zJA&cad=rja
and I'm terrified to miss it - though I doubt Tyler likes using Kaldor's Growth model since it bears the taint of Lord Keynes
sandmann, while we all wait for the refutation of what you have written - wich intuitively is 100% correct, IMHO, could you please fix the link you have used, accept my contact request and have a very, very short chat? thanks
You bastard, what about the part where you tell him this was Gene's idea and that it now has to be turned into a 'threesome'? Sexual innuendo will be dismissed with severe 'junking'...
now you spoiled my edit to the comment... which is that for me adding:
a fleet that rules the waves to the capital calculation of a nation makes some (distorted) sense to me.
I'm thinking as an example at the German "High Seas Fleet" of WW1 that was used as a collateral/pawn during the armistice. Though I'd balk at adding the Queen to this calculation...
Sexual innuendo? YOU are the one with a clearly sexually offensive avatar here!
Nothing wrong with a geometrical depiction of a bluewaffle.
ZIRP as an impediment to investment is bit counter-intuitive. Aren't low rates supposed to foster investments?
About dividends: if fixed income securities return is low, dividends can become competitive at a lower level, leaving more money to the company for investments?
AAPL will crash before May and below 800. Here is also a nice overlay made by a coleague on GOOGLE 2007 prechrash chart. They match PERFECTLY.
http://saposjoint.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=2626&start=1620#p36919
I am amazed that people are buying $500.00 IPDAS and paying for apps etc today. I guess pretentious society never learns and say I got to have it at whatever cost.Dumb Sheeples falling for crap. The guy i work with pays 120.00 for his smart phone service and states he cannot save due to bills. Dish TV, Large Truck, smart phone and a 4K Sq foot home for family of 4. Dumb breeding leads to more dumbness. we are seeing the procreation of dumbness in the USSA
So corporations will be 'updating' their assets with new equipment providing very little technical improvement compared to what has worn down (ever see those gems of old tools that NEVER seem to wear down), and, like a mouse on a treadwheel, all this spending is only maintaining the 'systems' previously in place (with fewer people).
This is also reflected in the infrastructure 'improvements' we need. Which we do of course - yet, a bridge is a bridge and a road is a road, and for all practical purposes, identical to the original.
Finally, we have households that can't afford it, but must go into debt for a new vehicle with very little technical improvement. And essentially all three of these expenditures (capital assets, infrastructure, and retail durable goods) are a doubling-down that the current status quo can be maintained.
Are the hopes that this new global-'app'-technogadget-service-cashless-economy, improving productivity and entrepreneurism, a little mislaid?
aye.
All that blather to say societies should focus more on a larger picture of energy and transportation (where real improvements are absolutely needed), food localization, dismantling globalization, rebuilding communities and education, and that there type stuff. doing more with less. whatever. that's my platform. damnit
OT, but this is really weird.
Mexican Earthquake Oddity
Oaxaca Mexico endured a 7.9 earthquake today, 3/20/2012.
This earthquake has a strange simularity to Sept 11, 2001.
During 9/11 our 'esteemed' government was running terror scenarios that were eerily similar to the actual occurances. Enough so that it created a lot of confusion through out the defenses.
See Here
In England, similar exercises were underway basically replicating the Subway bombing
See Here
Today's earthquake happened to occur on the exact same day, near the exact same time, at the exact same magnitude as a previously planned drill dealing with a 7.9 earthquake in Mexico on 3/20/2012.
Heres the earliest reference I found:
See Here
There are others:
See Here
See Here
Here's a source directly commenting on the 'coincidence' (click the link contained in the article):
See Here
What the hell is going on?
the mayans warned them so they were ready for it?
we can pretend until we can't.
what's the problem?
We will never stop running huge defecits so everything is OK. Bullish!
the asset duration lasts too long, but maybe on some point, it will give rise to replacement hence more capital spending.
http://www.cnhedge.com/
http://www.jinrongbaike.com/
Bad theory, Bad Practice – Bad Ethics
Posted on March 21, 2012
http://betternature.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/bad-theory-bad-practice-bad...
.
Conclusion
Mainstream economics through the neoliberal era has retarded growth. It caused the Global Financial Crisis and thereby spread hardship and stress through much of the world, except for the very rich. It exacerbated extremes of wealth and poverty, actually further impoverishing many people in both rich and poor countries [26-28]. It is rapidly degrading the planetary environment. It must therefore bear a heavy ethical and moral responsibility, which must be shared by all those who have contributed to or partaken of its dominance.
So investment in the Kalecki eqn is net of depreciation?
"It also means far, far less cash for CapEx spending. Which ultimately means a plunging profit margin due to decrepit assets no longer performing at their peak levels, and in many cases far worse"
UNLESS the entire capital base is becoming more information intensive, requiring less physical capital for each unit of production.