Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Money vs The People

(Picture source)
Money can improve happiness, below a certain income level; but above that point, the relationship is not so clear. And maybe there are distinctions between money, investments and wealth...

In Financial Sense yesterday, Robert McHugh comments:

When the Master Planners devalued the dollar over the past five years, they raised the cost of living for everyone. The Middle Class is getting annihilated from this silent event. Incomes are not keeping up. This was done because this administration “equates stock market success with economic success and has directed their efforts to drive up equities at literally any cost,” to quote one of our subscribers.

...but Tony Allison looks forward to a more energy-efficient future:

Change is seldom welcomed by most humans, but it can often bring about positive results. It is impossible to know what year the effects of peak oil production will barge into our living rooms, but change is on the way. The adjustment period to a permanent supply crunch will likely be very difficult, but some effects may be beneficial. For example, we could see a re-birth in local farming and manufacturing, as food and industrial products become exceedingly expensive to transport. We would see more public transit, more freight train transportation, more bicycles, more energy efficiencies of all kinds working their way into society.

Buffett goes South and East

MoneyNews.com (Friday) reports on Warren Buffett's investments in Brazil and South Korea. Apparently the great man has made a pile in Brazilian currency but is now looking to switch to their bonds.

Abroad elsewhere, he's looking for high-dividend companies - a combination of the standard value investing formula and hedging against the dollar.

Every Picture Tells A Story

Dow Jones Industrial Average, 1960 - 2007 (source: StockCharts.com)
My brother sent me this. Just imagine what it would look like if the chart wasn't using a logarithmic scale. Which way from here?

Monday, October 29, 2007

Vote early, vote often

... as the Irish used to say. One more day to go on the Wall of Worry poll and the optimists are winning. Can this be so? If you have votes to cast, prepare to cast them now.

Volume - shares and gold


David Yu (Safe Haven, yesterday) comments on the unusually high volume of trade on the NASDAQ recently, and so expects a fallback sometime.

Peter Degraaf (GoldSeek, Friday) thinks gold can't be shorted or held down forever. He reminds us of the extraordinary volumes of bullion traded in 1967-68, and the explosive rise in the price when the containment attempt finally failed. Degraaf believes Frank Veneroso's theory that central banks are surreptitiously dumping gold again today, playing the same game - and expects the same result.

Faber: why the dollar may bounce back

The International Herald Tribune ( October 24) reports a mechanism by which the dollar may recover some lost ground:

Faber said if bubbles in emerging markets deflated, the dollar may rebound from all-time lows against the euro as fund managers who have invested in emerging markets shift investments to the United States.

China: a positive view - and a challenge to India

An old (Jan 2006) interview on Financial Sense with George Gu gives some more hopeful signs: progress towards the rule of law (as we in the West slide into bureaucratic authoritarianism); opening up the economy to outsiders; a reducing role for the military.

Like James Kynge, Gu makes the point that the big profits are made by the multinationals - the cheap labour input from China is only a small factor. (Surely this shows that there is a very strong incentive for China to develop its own marketing and management class.)

Gu explains that although India's labour costs are even lower than China's, India hasn't yet developed its supply chain and infrastructure to the same degree:

... China, over the last 26 years has gotten all of them in one place. For example, in consumer electronics you can set up your shop in Guangdong, then you get more than 10,000 component makers.

So, the gauntlet is thrown at India's feet.