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  • Gold Poised to Move Higher
    Let us get this straight. Gold is not an investment. It does not return any income after purchase. It has no intrinsic value since it has no utilitarian value. It costs money to store. One can talk about fundamentals in that it is costing more to produce over time, but since owning it produces no income it truly has the same fundamental value as any other non-productive asset, i.e. zero.

    Gold is a hedge against currency value fluctuations. The only reason people buy and sell it because of its historical use as money. There is no other reason that it has any value.

    There is a reason that the value of gold drops in a famine. You can't eat it and you can't use it to produce food.

    Sooner or later people are going to realize that value of gold is psychological only, and our past obsession with this metal will be regarded as a historical curiosity.
    Dec 28 10:09 am |Rating: +12 -30 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Soaring Silver, Stalling Gold
    Middle East tensions are a non-story when there is an oil glut.
    Dec 28 09:56 am |Rating: 0 -2 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Bernanke's Great Lie: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression
    I think that it is a mistake to focus to much on just the Great Depression. One also needs to consider economic cycles prior - the Long Depression and so on.

    Conventional thinking is that these cycles were also triggered by deflations and money supply shortages.

    I am also leery of the idea of any arbitrary physical object, be it paper or material as a store of wealth. True wealth comes from the utilitarian value of the things that you own.

    So aitvaras, you say you are a gold investor. But then you advise to buy gold and not trade it. How do you reconcile these statements? At least superficially they appear to be mutually exclusive.
    Dec 27 18:56 pm |Rating: 0 -1 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Silver and Gold: More Than Just A Christmas Carol
    GLD has resisted the commodity depreciation of the past several months very well. As a result oil, copper silver, nat gas, wheat and many other fundamental building blocks of modern civilization are at very low prices relative to gold based on a historical basis. The real long term valuation of gold is pinned to real goods like how many bushels of wheat it can buy.

    So long as dollars are buying commodities cheaply it is difficult to see how gold is going to be above $900.

    It is all well and good to talk about gold relative to money supply, But so long as banks are deleveraging, that money supply might as well be buried in a giant mattress. When the BoJ cut interest rates in the 80's in their real estate crash, there was no follow on inflation because they soaked the money right back up on the back end. Velocity of money is the issue here. Money right now has the velocity of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

    Peter Schiff likes to make the statement that investors should be buying outside the US - Europe, Asian rim etc. because he thinks the US economy will collapse soon. Nah. If the US economy goes down the drain no place is safe. The US trade deficit has been financing the rest of the world's economic and capital needs for decades. Take it away and foop the whole house of cards ex-US comes tumbling down.

    People like to talk about the advantages of being the world's reserve currency. Well that isn't a one way street. There is a dark side to it also.
    Dec 26 22:48 pm |Rating: +2 -1 |Link to Comment |View article
  • When Will the Housing Market Bottom?
    We are looking at 5% mortgages right now. That's $14,000 carrying cost, which is equivalent to $1200 rent, and you get tax deductions and build equity if price is flat. Assuming you have the 20% down.

    We are not far off.
    Dec 25 11:54 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Bubbly Treasuries Will Disappoint
    The Fed stated "low interest rates for some time".
    Dec 25 11:48 am |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Compensation Watch: Credit Suisse's PAF Program
    Lawyers and Doctors aren't getting a 5 trillion dollar bailout at taxpayer expense.
    Dec 24 12:44 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Ultra Short Treasury ETF: Have Patience, Money Will Eventually Flow Again
    TBT is a vehicle for short term trading. Pick something else if you plan to short treasuries for a significant length of time or any gains will be consumed by the overheads of creating a double short.
    Dec 23 20:34 pm |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Tech: And You Think Q4's Going to Be Bad? - Barron's
    Tech will always rise again because Moore's law is still in effect. Hard drive, network and CPU power are still doubling every 18 mos. With each doubling a new set of killer apps becomes possible. That triggers a new wave of IPOs.

    As far as the car with diagnostics anyone can read, that is already here. The readers are on the shelf at AutoZone.

    Cars with no frills? Get a Toyota Corolla.

    And BTW I am a baby-boomer. I helped invent this stuff starting with the PDP-11 and heat shield tile glue.

    Yale Engineering PhD 1978.
    Dec 22 23:20 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Compensation Watch: Credit Suisse's PAF Program
    Cry me a river.

    Lots of hardworking people in this world are taking it in the shorts because of the financial industry screwed up. I bet none of these senior bankers are losing their health insurance or pensions or are wondering how they are going to pay for heat this winter.

    Not to mention the long term effects on Joe Taxpayer who has had to pony up 5 trillion to cover this mess and has seen his 401K get a 50% haircut.
    Dec 20 21:26 pm |Rating: +2 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Gold Marks Two Important Milestones
    Gold has had a declining 100 day MA since May and has a chart pattern clearly pointing to 700-720 in February.

    Not exactly when I would be a buyer.
    Dec 19 23:09 pm |Rating: 0 -1 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Considering a Dollar Decline
    20 years from now production costs in the rest of the world will have equalized with the US and shipping costs due to increased energy prices will bias manufacturing towards local production.
    Dec 19 13:15 pm |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • New Limits on Credit Card Companies: Is Hell Freezing Over?
    Grand Moff Tarkin was told that the more you squeeze the more will slip through your fingers.
    Dec 18 23:05 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • 20 Comments on the Current Economic Scene
    > In inflation, you invest today because tomorrow the dollar is worth less.

    In inflation the future return on that investment is discounted by the rate of inflation, making the return on the investment worth less compared to current dollars. Finance 101, under net present value in chapter 3.
    Dec 18 23:00 pm |Rating: +1 0 |Link to Comment |View article
  • Forbes vs. Peter Schiff: Petty Smackdown
    Peter Schiff has predicted 20 of the last 2 recessions. He has made up his mind what will happen, and no facts will change his position. He admits being an Austrian School economist, which is equivalent to admitting being a village witch doctor.
    Dec 16 20:02 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment |View article

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