![](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Cp2XFV4Xt0s/SlRuFqNzygI/AAAAAAAABwM/OAUwn1lqLgA/s400/id2.gif)
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Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Where did the funny money go?
Now I come across a graph that makes it plain:
I suppose much the same happened here in the UK. So that's why we got all those posh-cooking and property-in -Provence TV programmes. We were encouraged to dream about the top echelon, not try to join them. As Eva Peron said, "I am taking the jewels from the oligarchs for you"; but somehow we never got to wear them ourselves. Not unless we went into hock for them.
This Wiki entry on the Gini coefficient remarks "Overall, there is a clear negative correlation between Gini coefficient and GDP per capita; although the U.S.A, Hong Kong and Singapore are all rich and have high Gini coefficients." Perhaps there is going to be a reversion to the standard international model: a poorer USA with a high Gini coefficient. Or (same source) a reversion to the social stratification of 1929:
"Gini indices for the United States at various times, according to the US Census Bureau:
1929: 45.0 (estimated)
1947: 37.6 (estimated)
1967: 39.7 (first year reported)
1968: 38.6 (lowest index reported)
1970: 39.4
1980: 40.3
1990: 42.8
2000: 46.2
2007: 46.3"
This blog projects a Gini convergence between the USA and Mexico - perhaps it makes sense, on the reversion-to-mean basis:
Friday, July 03, 2009
The sun also rises
![](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Cp2XFV4Xt0s/Sk2R7TcIG2I/AAAAAAAABv0/h46lH0YKZzQ/s200/mcdonalds-in-japan-from-street.jpg)
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Faber: correction, then inflation
Dow 400?
For the record, EWFF also shows a "grand supercycle," beginning in January 2000 and ending at 400. Yes, that was FOUR HUNDRED.
And I thought I was being Eeyorish at 2,000.
Approaching the three-day week?
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Market support
![](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Cp2XFV4Xt0s/SkuTkfXHoLI/AAAAAAAABvc/92lL_aBxC1c/s400/WINDS2.bmp)
... a handful of banks, most specifically Goldman Sachs, constitute the majority of NYSE trading volume... This "back and forth trade" between a handful of institutions is nothing more than the old "pump and dump" game that has been played in the OTC market forever - and almost always screws the individual investor.
This is no different than you and I selling a house back and forth between us repeatedly, each time at a higher price. We both appear to be geniuses as we're both making a "profit", right?
Well, no. One of us is destined to take a horrifying loss if we do not find a sucker to make the final transaction with.
I wondered what was keeping it all up. And sooner or later...
P.S. Rob Kirby strongly suspects that similar manipulation is going on in oil and gold - one kept up, the other down. (For an update on the latter, click on the goldcam.)