Economy

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

Given that governments are reluctant to take their lumps now, what are the odds that they will do the right thing — outright default and debt restructuring — three years hence when the debt bubble is that much larger, the economy is in worse shape, and the pain of default and austerity is much higher than today's? The words "slim" and "none" come to mind. The world is firmly ensconced on the path to an inflationary depression. Words: 1119

It is clearly evident that America's debt picture is truly astronomical and, like the situation with Greece, the debt cannot, and never will, be repaid. Indeed, any way you look at it, the consequences for the United States, let alone the many other haunted economies, are grim, dismal - even disastrous. Words: 1166