Economy

My old friend, Bob Prechter, is talking about Dow 400. I used to think this was an absurd joke. I no longer think it’s a joke. The ultimate result will be a primary bear market shocking in duration and extent. Words: 524

What happens when the stimulus is over and the Fed begins to tighten again? Where will demand come from to get Main Street back, create jobs, raise middle class wages? Not from big businesses. Certainly not from Wall Street. Not from exports. Not from government. So, where? That question is the big unknown hanging over the U.S. economy. Until there’s an answer, an economic “recovery” for anyone other than big corporations, Wall Street, and the wealthy is a mirage. Words: 1279

My first reaction when I read an article* on this site by Arnold Bock - articulating why gold would go to $10,000 – by 2012 no less - was amazement. Who in their right mind would suggest that gold would eventually reach $2,500, let alone $5,000 or even $10,000? Words: 2097

There is an ongoing debate among global policymakers about when and how fast to exit from the strong monetary and fiscal stimulus that prevented the Great Recession of 2008-2009 from turning into a new Great Depression. Germany and the European Central Bank are pushing aggressively for early fiscal austerity; the United States is worried about the risks of excessively early fiscal consolidation. Words: 957

Don't be waylaid by the clueless conformists. Talk of a gold bubble is coming from those who made the same assertions when gold broke $400 an ounce. Except for its justifiable 4X price rise over the previous decade, there is no evidence of the typical bubble characteristics attached to gold yet. Words: 846

I am worried about the possibility of a second dip - of a new recession beginning sometime in the next year or so - before the current recovery has had a chance to produce much improvement. Verbally-intuitively, the case for a second dip still seems pretty overwhelming to me. I take comfort in the knowledge that I tend to have a pessimistic bias, and in the fact that sophisticated quantitative models are generally putting the odds of a second dip quite low. On the other hand, successfully forecasting recessions has not been a strong point of quantitative models. Words: 1433

The market basically doesn't want a recovery right now. It loves high unemployment and a bad economy because it allows the Fed to keep rates at zero which is highly profitable for Wall St via the games that I described above. Of course our crippled economy is an absolute nightmare for the rest of us as we lose our jobs and our homes as Rome continues to burn. Words: 1248

Absolutely every currency in the world is going to reach its intrinsic value in the next few years. Basically all the governments are going to wind up destroying their national currencies. That won't be just an academic thing; it will have the consequence of destroying a lot of the middle classes around the world. That will likely create ugly political and sociological fallout. Words: 3299

Just as 2007 and 2008 were the years of subprime woes, 2010 will go down as the year of Option Adjustable rate Mortgage (ARM) resets. This crisis is about to unleash a fury no one's prepared for. It won't be as bad as subprime, of course — it'll be worse. Words: 557

It remains to be seen if we will experience a deflationary period, but if we do, obviously cash will be king. Always remember: the best have cash at tops and bottoms of markets. [Are you one of 'the best'?] Words: 453