Could shares protect against inflation?

It is well-known that German money became worthless in 1923, thanks to hyperinflation. The value of cash savings was wiped out; fixed rents also became worthless, which benefitted the ordinary person; but practically all one's income was spent on food, instead (see Table 6 at the bottom of this page).

What is less well known is how investors who didn't have to sell their shares actually gained, after a market pullback.

UPDATE: As Michael Panzer points out, what I called a "pullback" should more properly be termed a horrendous crash! Unless you have the titanium nerve to hold on through such an event, there is a grave danger that you could buy in now and sell in a panic later and lose most of your wealth.

CLARIFICATION / CORRECTION:(I should have made it clearer that the graph above is not mine - it comes from the site I linked to in the text, i.e. Now and Futures. Apologies for any misunderstanding, which I didn't intend.)

DISCLAIMER: Nothing here should be taken as personal advice, financial or otherwise. No liability is accepted for third-party content, whether incorporated in or linked to this blog.

Parliament exploded

At last, a journalist tells it like it is, about something important.

"A liar and a cheat"

ONE

Black Dog, in the Mail on Sunday:

A new twist in the resignation from London’s Garrick Club of Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger after he unsuccessfully proposed ex-Labour City Minister Lord Myners as a member.

Now Dog hears of a contretemps over an unpaid dinner bill. When chased by the club some months later, Rusbridger sent a photocopy of the cheque he paid with.

The Garrick could still find no record of receiving the original cheque, so he sent a second one bearing a serial number consecutive to the first. Times are hard at The Guardian.

TWO

Mr Rusbridger himself (editor of The Guardian newspaper) about the collapse of Jeffrey Archer's libel case against that newspaper, in an article titled "A liar and a cheat" (highlights mine):

"The Guardian has never doubted the truth of its original story. We would have produced damning evidence of Mr Hamilton and Mr Greer's lack of integrity if the case had proceeded. No doubt that is why they dropped the action."

This ultimately led to a trial of Lord Archer for perjury. He was found guilty and sentenced to four years in jail.

THREE

Wikipedia, on the philosopher and media personage C.E.M. Joad:

In April 1948, Joad was convicted of travelling on a Waterloo-Exeter train without a valid ticket. Although he was a frequent fare dodger, he failed to give a satisfactory excuse. This made front-page headlines in the national newspapers, and the fine of £2 (£54 as of 2010) destroyed all hopes of a peerage and resulted in his dismissal from the BBC. The humiliation of this had a severe effect on his health, and he soon became bed-confined at his home in Hampstead.

Joad died a few years later, a broken man.
_________________________________________

Why were Mr Rusbridger's two cheques to the Garrick Club sequentially numbered? Is it really the case that he wrote no cheques at all on that account for the intervening months? This could easily be proved by revealing the dates of cheques written immediately before the first cheque to the Garrick.

One would think that the implications of Black Dog's article are potentially quite damaging for the editor of a national newspaper that, whatever its political inclinations, has built a reputation for truthfulness and integrity, qualities it seems to have found lacking in Mr Hamilton and Mr Greer.

I wonder what Mr Rusbridger may be prepared to do to combat the seeming innuendo of Black Dog's article?

In praise of "First Life"

How wonderful, to learn of creatures with rock bodies and crystal eyes, roaming shallow seas in endless variety, an infinite case of intricate, animated jewels.

Prospering during the collapse

Some of the websites I visit seem to be aimed at investors who want to make a killing out of the turmoil. There's even books about it, notably Peter Schiff''s. The mindset is, devil take the hindmost and aren't we the smart ones.

So where are all the wise guys from the Mayans, Toltecs, Aztecs, Inca?

Perhaps their descendants are quartered on some as yet undiscovered Caribbean island, living off the interest on their interest and drunk on Inca Pisco every night. Maybe Dan Brown is working on another thriller about the secret inheritance of the ancients.

Or maybe not. I think we should be told.

Can the elite really control the outcome, as Charles Hugh Smith thinks?

Tea time

Bewildered

Why do they call it "waterboarding"? I've always known it as surfing. So what is "snowboarding"?