Global Economy, recession, depression, or...

[admin]

I always go with what the system HAS TO HAVE, not what they want.

facebook, in spite of what most people have been brainwashed in to thinking, is not something people HAVE TO HAVE.

[Jamers41]

I always go with what the system HAS TO HAVE, not what they want.

facebook, in spite of what most people have been brainwashed in to thinking, is not something people HAVE TO HAVE.

True story.........."Generation Z" notwithstanding, we could return to life without social media and still being breathing, functioning humans (in fact we would be a bit more human without it).

[nikotromus]

I always go with what the system HAS TO HAVE, not what they want.

facebook, in spite of what most people have been brainwashed in to thinking, is not something people HAVE TO HAVE.

DARPA's 'Lifelog' project which was collecting personal information from Americans ended on the exact same day that Facebook launched. Facebook is DEFINITELY a tool the system wants to promote. I should've thrown the family jewels at this public offering.

This is common knowledge. People understand that it's a government spying tool at it's base, but everyone I know still has an account there. Pathetic.

[fraggle092]

Don't have Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook WhatsApp or any of that timewasting, addictive stuff. Somehow I survive.
You unfortunate Chile forumites are almost the only recipients of my Wit and Wisdom, or whatever it is.

Oh, and I keep my phone on Airplane mode.
But I put "Location" back on for Google Home.
Going down the slippery slope there.

[admin]

even if passed now, the unemployment benefit extension could take weeks or months. the potential impact of delays on the proposed GOP unemployment benefits is already showing in the current stimulus package delays.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeikleb ... onths/amp/

so, if passed, and delayed, we would at best see about 2 month gap, and the last one took around 6 months to implement, and some people are still waiting. that was without the complexity of 70% of wage calculations for millions of people. That all depends too on when something gets through Congress.

yep, that is all going to end well.

[eeuunikkeiexpat]

Quick question: how much of your portfolio is currently allocated to gold and other previous metals?

I like to think of it as more of a collection. Like baseball cards. An investment is synonymous with some level of excitement. PM's are like watching paint dry year after year. Except of course these last couple of months. I don't think what we're seeing is PM's rising, but rather the fiat around it dying.

All perspective. Still holding on to my fixed PM position since 1999 and despite the lackluster (in comparison) performance in the years after 2009, buying in at 350-400 was a good deal and I don't mind watching that kind of paint drying. Also the charts (which I post from time to time) show even through the lackluster years, gold has beaten the value of even the reserve currency in wealth preservation.

[mem]

Quick question: how much of your portfolio is currently allocated to gold and other previous metals?

I like to think of it as more of a collection. Like baseball cards. An investment is synonymous with some level of excitement. PM's are like watching paint dry year after year. Except of course these last couple of months. I don't think what we're seeing is PM's rising, but rather the fiat around it dying.

All perspective. Still holding on to my fixed PM position since 1999 and despite the lackluster (in comparison) performance in the years after 2009, buying in at 350-400 was a good deal and I don't mind watching that kind of paint drying. Also the charts (which I post from time to time) show even through the lackluster years, gold has beaten the value of even the reserve currency in wealth preservation.

EE-Liked your "black swans kill all" comment and couldn't agree more with this one. People keep confusing "investments" with multi-generational wealth preservation.
The near zero counterparty risk has no equal imo.

[admin]

Quick question: how much of your portfolio is currently allocated to gold and other previous metals?

I like to think of it as more of a collection. Like baseball cards. An investment is synonymous with some level of excitement. PM's are like watching paint dry year after year. Except of course these last couple of months. I don't think what we're seeing is PM's rising, but rather the fiat around it dying.

All perspective. Still holding on to my fixed PM position since 1999 and despite the lackluster (in comparison) performance in the years after 2009, buying in at 350-400 was a good deal and I don't mind watching that kind of paint drying. Also the charts (which I post from time to time) show even through the lackluster years, gold has beaten the value of even the reserve currency in wealth preservation.

EE-Liked your "black swans kill all" comment and couldn't agree more with this one. People keep confusing "investments" with multi-generational wealth preservation.
The near zero counterparty risk has no equal imo.

multi-generational wealth preservation is a totally different sort of goal.

We have handled 10's of millions of dollars in estate probates, involving assets in Chile and countries around the World.

Guess what survives?

real estate, and in particular land.

we have seen almost every other sort of asset go puff in the process of probate. Other assets may or may not survive the process, often eaten up in the costs of probate, taxes, fighting between inheritors, stranded assets that are too expensive to access, etc, etc.

Real estate tends to get passed on from generation to generation, and typically with the least amount of cost to the inheritors.

[admin]

historical 32.9% drop in GDP in the united states.

jobless claims also up.

brace for a wild wild ride today, everywhere.

[admin]

looking out over the next 12 to 24 months, there is one thing, and one thing only, the markets will care about: a vaccine.

Not a pipe dream. A real, working vaccine, in full production and in the process of deployment to major key populations around the World.

Does not matter if you believe in it, the markets believes in it.

Everything else politicians, central banks, the talking heads say or do from now on are red herring bullshit. Ignore it all.

Watch the science (not trump and idiots) on how the vaccine development progresses, and most importantly the production. A good vaccine, that is not produced and deployed, is not a vaccine.

[admin]

kind of an old school measure, but still fun at times.

the gold to oil ratio:

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/07/14/oil ... ratio.html

it takes currency out of the middle.

oil would need to rally 160% to reach the historic mean gold/ oil ratio, if gold was to hold steady at these levels; or, gold would need to retreat dramatically.

I also watch the copper / gold and copper / oil ratio.

a new one I realized might be interesting: demand for paper to print cash.

I mean literally printing cash with a printing press.

Argentina did an emergency import of both printed bills and the paper to print bills:

https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/economy ... cash.phtml

It is Argentina, so not that suprising. but It got me thinking. could you monitor demand for materials to print money, as an indicator of real inflation?

my thinking was, even though the "big money" is hypothetical electronic, on the fringe demand for physical bills should still act as a canaries in the coal mine of increasing real street level inflation.

[admin]

here we go.

first day of school, for just one school in the united states, and they got covid cases. suprise, suprise.

great article. why the push to open schools will fail

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... il/614869/

the most fascinating one, was the YMCA camp that was open for just 4 days, and over half the campers contracted covid and they had to shutdown.

we seem to know why now this will fail. Because kids under 10 seem to produce up to 100x the virus load, and yet not get sick or as sick as adults. They are perfect bio-weapons.

Trump is going to own this one come November; but, the markets are going to be owning this one long before that.