A relations manager for Ted Thomas reached out last week and asked: “What is your most valuable advice to people who are beginner investors so that they can get great results in the long term?”
The answer form had no formatting options. Here is a detailed response, with links.
Have Patience, Avoid Bubbles
The TINA theory (there is no alternative other than stocks and bonds) is a path to poor returns.
Cash and gold are indeed options. I discussed TINA in Median Price-to-Revenue Ratio Higher in All Deciles vs 2007, 90% vs Dot-Com Bubble: THE Choice
I recently discussed gold in How Much Gold Should the Common Man Own?
The latest prolonged rally proves that one cannot time when bubbles burst, but as with the dot-com bubble on 2000 and the housing bubble in 2007, all the excess gains of this bubble will eventually be given back.
Those investing in bubbles eventually become believers in them and will likely ride the bubble all the way down.
Those with adequate patience will eventually get an opportunity to buy shares near bear market lows.
My 38-slide Powerpoint Venture Alliance Presentation on I gave in June of 2017, covers sentiment, valuations, bubbles, and gold.
It’s painful to listen to others brag about paper gains but those gains will eventually be given back. Better buying opportunities are around the corner for those with patience.
Humility and Patience
What I wrote above was my actual full reply. I suppose it can be condensed to four words, but four words hardly do the topic justice.
I forgot all about my reply until yesterday when Vitaliy Katsenelson emailed an article he wrote in June of 2016: Searching for Yield? Better Look for Humility.
His conclusion fits write in with what I stated.
This is a time for humility and patience. Humility, because saying the words “I don’t know” is difficult for us testosterone-laden alpha male money manager types.
Patience, because most assets today are priced for perfection. They are priced for a confluence of two outcomes: low (or negative) interest rates continue to stay where they are (or decline further) and above-average global economic growth. Both happening at once in the future is extremely unlikely. Take one of them away (only one!) and stock market indices are overvalued somewhere between a lot and humongous (we don’t even try to quantify superlatives). Take both away and…
Beyond Perfection
If stocks were priced for perfection then, what are they priced for now? Beyond perfection?
I don’t know, he doesn’t know, and no one else does either, although philosophically it’s impossible for something to be better than perfect.
Meanwhile, as others chase seemingly everything, have patience that better buying opportunities are somewhere down the road, even if no one knows when.
Forever Bubble
Sentiment is now such that Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Leuthold says ‘The bull market could continue forever‘.
Missing the Obvious Bubbles
Greenspan does not even see a bubble in equities. Instead, Greenspan Says “Bond Bubble About to Break”, No Stock Market Bubble
“There is no irrational exuberance that I can see. In fact, it is just the opposite at this stage.”
There is a bond bubble but it isn’t where Greenspan sees one: Tracking the Amazing Junk Bond Bubbles in the US and Europe
No one knows when the bubbles will burst, but they will.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
It’s almost easier to list what is not in a bubble as the lust is short:
Cash
Gold
Uranium
Coal
Tobacco
Oil pipelines
The pound
Turkish equities
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Why Turkish equities?
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Because an islamic dictator has taken over the country.
The reaction has been their stock market and currency have plunged.
So NOT a bubble.
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“….rheir stock market and currency have plunged.”
Yeah…..but……therefore it’s a ‘buy’?!?
Maybe Turkey is the pariah of Europe? Maybe his dictatorship portends really, really bad things? Would anyone want to invest long-term in 1936 Germany?
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1. I never said invest. Just that it is one of the few non bubble areas in the world.
2. If Germany had won the war, that would have been a great investment in 1936….😊
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Add wheat. Down 75%.
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Easier said than done.
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Agree. Diversified asset allocation and periodic re-balancing has helped me mitigate bubble risk a bit. I try to make the process more automatic by letting the math tell me when/what to re-balance, but it can still be difficult to sell some of your winners and buy some losers.
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Pay off debt
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+100.
Do all you can to get out of debt and avoid the temptation when they try to ram it down your throat.
Being able to supply demand when others can’t = bargains.
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I remember watching a TV show discussing how credit cards were being introduced into China. The Chinese were not fans of using credit cards and preferred using cash. They also preferred saving to spending. This resulted in low credit card usage. The show announcer boldly predicted that credit card usage (and the related debt) would increase significantly over time. I hope the Chinese people hold onto to savings and cash mentality. I also hope more Americans do the same. Yea, I am an optimist.
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Younger people in China are using mobile payments such as Ali pay instead of credit cards. They are quickly moving to a smartphone based economy. China is embracing the technological future, while many in North America are trying to fight it.
In addition many adults use their smartphones to rent bicycles like Mobike. They walk up to any of the thousands of bikes that line the roadways, tap on their phone to unlock it, pedal where they want to go, and tap their phone again to lock it. They pay only a few cents each time for this Uber for bicycles.
Like in North America, the elderly Chinese tend to resist change, so they want to use cash.
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The path to hell is always well paved, if not well lit.
Is it really that surprising that a COMMUNIST country would lack resistance to this technology? Do Chinese people HAVE any secrets or privacy?
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I’m from India and Chinese resistance to cards surprising, because they are very convenient. I was in the UK for a couple of years and I had a card from NatWest (which was free) which I used almost everywhere. I did not have to record my expenses because I got it from the card statement at the end of the month, which I duly paid off in full. I’m surprised the Chinese don’t do the same.
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Hey Mad. It’s been my experience that “people are people”. It doesn’t matter too much what country they live in or what label you give their government. People just want to live their lives as best they can. When they see the chance to have running water, or an indoor toilet, they go for it because they can see the benefit. When they see the benefit of any technology, they will likely adopt it, including the use of smartphones.
Of course, it is often the younger generation that is more open to these changes as they are not as set in their ways as their parents or grandparents. Age is more of a dividing line for adapting to technology than what country you live in.
Older Chinese are still somewhat resistant to change, just like older Americans. They won’t shower for a week to hold on to their chi (energy); they will still take traditional medicines by placing herbs in water and drinking the horrible tasting brew, rather than taking a pill; and they will still want to use cash instead of plastic.
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A lot of hysteresis this time round is my call.
Down hard on the canvass and for an extended period whilst the shell shocked register it. No quick bounce back.
No easy way to shock and awe markets back to life when they’ve seen it all before in Japan and the EU. NIRP response encourages the scared to be extra careful and try to save whilst weakening the financial sector. QE will be laughed at. Debt everywhere.
Still think it will not be this year though.
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It could be years, Fish.
The pullback in Jan-Feb 2016 was about 15%. Straightforward, clean and orderly. The robots work like that. There are fewer and fewer active investors to spur any volatility. Fundamentals? I’ve heard that word, could you tell me again, what is it?
We don’t know what’s going on behind the curtain.
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We can assume that between technology and government policies designed to prevent market failures, and the general perception that government will NEVER allow the markets to fail, there is every chance they never will….but besides the gamblers, who cares? Venezuela’s markets are at all time highs too. This notion that markets in any way define the health or prosperity of our economy is just stupid. It’s a lie that those working the markets use to perpetuate market inflation and the government uses to manipulate the public to create the illusion of wealth, or the “wealth effect”, right?
Meanwhile, the poor working shlub, who simply works for a living and is at least smart enough to realize that he knows nothing about markets, is the first to get crushed by market failures. We are forced to watch the gambling class wailing publicly of their tremendous losses that will have wiped them out to nothing (less than ten million) while millions lose their jobs, their homes, their lives in some cases, from no fault of their own beyond simple trust. Our benevolent government seeks to protect us from the monster THEY have created and enabled, so rather than the population suffering from our typical collapse, we will likely see a slow grind downward as our jobs disappear and our alternatives diminish, all while markets continue to make regular all time highs.
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It is a travesty that someone that has saved all their lives must time his/hers investments per the Fed induced boom/bust cycles . It is what it is. MY 401k was spared the last crash because I had invested in a financial product that left the principal intact . Interest was paid quarterly . Over a 15 year period the results due to compounding and contributions was substantial . I did lose my job, house and other real estate however. Right now i will be selling
my house ; a foreclosure i rehabbed and lived in for 3 years. NO capital gains tax.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me
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“It is a travesty that someone that has saved all their lives must time his/hers investments per the Fed induced boom/bust cycles”
Yup! Galling indeed!
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The cycles are no more timetable than a roulette table. If they were, the “timing system” would leak, and be known to everyone.
The volatility, just as it is at the tables of a casino, is there solely to fool uncritical suckers into believing 1) They have a system. Or when that doesn’t work 2) they could have a system, if only they were “smarter.” Just like the guys who time their winning streaks at the tables.or “on Wall Street”….. And 3) There exist some guys who have a system. That guy whose slot machine keeps spitting out coins, must really be smart…… Or Soros. Or Buffet. And “the guys on Wall Street…..” Blah, blah…
Reality is, noone has a “system.” Statistically everyone gets robbed, as otherwise, the Fed would have no loot to distribute to it’s constituency. And the casinos would have none to distribute to theirs. All the volatility, is just there in order to cover up this constant, consistent, never ending, relentless theft. And to make people with little in the way of capacity for probabilistic reasoning, heck little in the way of critical thought in general, believe that it is somehow “their fault” that they haven’t “invested well.” Nor bet on the right number. And that the trumped up “heroes” that is dragged out on TV to maintain the illusion that “if only I ‘knew more about investment…’ I could “make money” like that too…..’
Just like in the casino business, those who make money, are those who get a share of the house’s rake. Which, wrt The Fed are banks and the rest of the financial industry, those who take a cut of ever more pumped up asset prices, those who are already wealthy hence benefit disproportionally from the pumping, government….. IOW, exactly those who have preferential access to the new money being created to keep the rackets going. Timing cycles, “diversifying assets,” “Elliot waves”, reading annual reports, blah, blah, has exactly nothing to do with anything. Other than contributing to the illusion that there is something, however small, in the whole bloody racket that is anything at all besides just pure, consistent and persistent theft; from the productive, to the connected; with no redeeming feature to any of it, in any way whatsoever.
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There is a lot of truth in what you say. The investment industry provides a service and takes its “cut”. The little guy will pay a higher percentage than the big guys and is definitely at a disadvantage. However, short of starting their own business and generating profits, the little guy is unable to get a reasonable rate of return on his savings (after inflation) and would like to participate in the 10-20% returns that many corporations earn each year. This forces them into the “market”. As discussed eloquently by many here, try to diversify your investments and don’t trade frequently as this will only lead to higher fees and more mistakes. Ignore the volatility, and ignore those who scream to get in or get out on a daily basis. And only keep a small percentage of your assets in the stock market. There are many other investment vehicles.
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Two things I’ve come to find humorous. Peoples belief that the financial industry is the only industry that should function without being allowed to make a profit. And the belief, that unlike every other profession, there are no people in the industry more talented/capable than the dumbest of laymen.
I also answered your comment to me about time on the site, but apparently it was moderated out of existence.
Now off to the gym and lunch… have a good day.
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I agree. Thanks. In fact I will be getting together with friends and family today to celebrate a couple of birthdays, and it’s a beautiful day. You have a good day too.
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Most definitely we should NEVER allow moralistic judgement interfere with making money. we should be a piece with the notion that by far the greatest amount of “wealth” is derived from taking advantage of the weak and simple minded. The financial”industry” is driven by one simple principle, making money from the least amount of effort…ideally NO effort, and given money, aside from purely inflationary mechanisms, is only created from actual production….making things, growing things, DOING THINGS, then all is leeft is the OPPORTUNITY to sell something for nothing. Invest, or place a bet that simply generates wealth while standing idly by watching your “genius” at work.
It is one thing for our genius to create labor saving and life saving technology, but when our “genius” is turned toward simply speculating, which inevitably relies on more losers than winners if you are going to see significant transfer and concentration of wealth, its success depends upon other’s loss…something aside from being immoral in my view, is simply unsustainable.
Commerce, capitalism, is not dependent upon transactions where there are winners and losers, it is DEPENDENT upon all sides winning…the consumer and producer. Those components introduced that while not directly involved in production, facilitate a more efficient market constitute overhead…something that every business person understands is a necessity, but is also the feature that often times consumes and ultimately destroys their business. But it is this middleman, overhead position that is all the rage now. Not owning anything, not responsible for anything, simply wetting their beak at each transaction. In some cases just a tiny peck, but when compounded with an endless supply or parasites, all seeking that easy meal, the host DIES.
Our financial Titans have convinced themselves that they are not only an important component in our “system” but that they are an absolute necessity, and we have Dodd Frank to prove it. Be it the banks, the traders, the HFTs skimming their tiny incremental share or any small part of this parasitical mass, all see themselves as doing God’s work, while they make fun of the “muppets”, the weak and simple minded rubes buying in to another get rich quick scheme.
We know what this is. We can rationalize it all we please. It’s easy to do because many see their path to riches here.
There has NEVER been a better time to buy.
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“Peoples belief that the financial industry is the only industry that should function without being allowed to make a profit.”
The trouble is with the financialization of EVERYTHING thereby causing the growth of the financial sector which actually PRODUCES nothing going from 10% to 30% of US corporate profits in 30 years. It’s a leach.
What was – sums for large purchases which would have taken too long to save up for were borrowed, most everything else was saved for.
What is – virtually everything is bought on credit which then requires interest to be paid on virtually everything.
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I doubt many believe the financial industry should not be allowed to make profits just as much as any other industry. But they should also be just as much allowed to take losses. Not get bailed out, whether directly nor by way of debasement and easier money when they struggle. When the latter happens, people stop doing productive things. Focusing instead on simply being among those who just gets bailed out whenever they look set to take a loss.
Also, it’s not that there aren’t some people with more “talent” than others in the financial industry. But rather that talent has nothing to do with some unusual ability to pick stocks, bonds, cycle timings nor roulette spins. Even the most talented of Fields Medal winning professors of probability, isn’t going to consistently beat the average layman at roulette. Anymore than a Nobel price winning quantum physicist are going to consistently beat a gang of cave dwellers at picking the exact timing of atomic decay events. Nor will Nobel price winning financial economists, beat the average “poor dad” at picking and timing suitable investments for LTCM.
But the latter does illustrate what “talent” in the financial industry really comes down to: Playing con games. You can make a killing, as long as enough others believe you are somehow unusually good at picking roulette numbers. And when those others include the Fed and government as well, they’ll even offer to underwrite your bankroll. With money they promise to steal from everyone else, to protect you from “collapse.”
Since if you, and along with you all the privilegeds and well connecteds that are exposed to you, did “collapse”, that may open the eyes of the vast majority, who in progressive dystopias are intended to function as nothing more than well indoctrinated stooges admiring and cheering on their “overlords,” to the fact that the emperor not only has no clothes. But in fact is doing nothing more whatsoever, than preening around in other people’s clothes, that the government and Fed keep stealing ever more of for him.
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We could invest in ourselves, but unfortunately we are all smart enough to KNOW that this would involve actual effort, or what some might refer to as WORK. No, it is much more attractive a notion to invest in someone ELSE doing the work, riding THEIR coattails. That’s what SMART people do.
The truly smart people though know that the real money is in getting people to pay for something at a far higher price than its actual worth. It’s probably just a coincidence that most corporations spend as much (or more) on marketing that they do in product or service development or production.
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moralistic judgement? This coming from a tree murderer? Someone who makes useless chairs? People make fun of me for how many bathrooms I have when there are only two people in my home. That number pales in comparison to the amount of chairs I have. Last thing I need in this world that I need is another chair. Actually I like to sit on the damn floor. Now about those poor trees. Sad to think of how many ancient forests have been destroyed so that people without morals can make chairs for profit. Thinking about all those little orphan saplings. Dad would have been next to them for hundreds of years if not for people like you. It makes me want to cry.
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Sorry, but I don’t do chairs, just executive desks and boardroom tables for our corporate masters. They really need to feel good about themselves. Special. Like you.
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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…And don’t be greedy.
Be right, sit tight, sleep well at night.
I do, with my zero-coupon Treasuries (5/15/2028 maturity), Gold and Silver.
And if you sell the rips and then buy back on the dips, those zeros will provide a nice income stream for you.
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Own and live in a house you can afford. Always need a place to live so even if RE prices go up or down there is a place for you to stay warm and dry. Avoid leverage so if you need to move even selling at low price will allow you to purchase new housing at a low price as well. Take care to find a place with local govt. spending under control.
Overall the best investment for me over the last 20 years RE bubble or not just due to the rent not necessary to be spent.
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“Take care to find a place with local govt. spending under control.”
Our town has three fire districts and recently erected two new state-of-the-art fire stations, equipped and staffed to the gills. The old high school where I graduated from was torn down and replaced in I think 2010. They said the foundation was cracking so the entire thing needed replacing. It sits atop an elevation (okay, a hill) and a stream runs along in front of it into a wetland, which has environmental protections.
I asked some folks if the stream isn’t causing some erosion, as it looks like it. Even a little will result in the shifting of soils on the hill, likely the cause of the aforementioned cracking. Who cares? They will issue another $100M bond if they need anything in our town of 37K people. They sold an old elementary school as it sat on a valuable location and the money went to whatever.
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Lots of good advice by many. No one can predict the future with any certainty, so diversify your investments, and don’t believe in your ability to “time” any type of investment. Even if you are certain that a crash in something is coming (stocks, bonds, housing, etc) you can’t know when it will actually happen. Almost every day that I have a chance to read this blog, I see someone say “here comes the crash”. Yet it could be many, many years away.
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“Almost every day that I have a chance to read this blog, I see someone say “here comes the crash””
You are on a site run by a permabear, what do you expect? I was happy that he stopped the “priced for perfection” thing for a few years…
6/29/09 SPX 920ish – “In light of the above, the stock market is priced for perfection.”
11/29/10 SPX 1180ish – “Equity prices in the US are priced for perfection if not far beyond
perfection”
8/1/12 SPX 1290ish – “and with equities priced beyond perfection”
2/8/11 SPX 1370ish – “…and equities priced well beyond perfection.”
“Yet it could be many, many years away.”
..or tomorrow – (well tomorrow is Saturday – so not tomorrow)
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Wow. Have you been following this site for that long! I stumbled onto this site around 2 years ago from a link on Chris Martenson’s site (which I still occasionally check out).
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Check out greedometer.com/blog to see how often Jeff has been wrong and also how much and for how long the central banksters have been intervening in the markets. Every time the market looks like dropping you have the central banksters riding in like a knight in shining armor. Brexit, now worry, here is the money. Bomb somewhere, no worry, here is a interest rate cut, Stocks falling , no worry, here is change in asset rules, Stock still falling, no worry, ban selling, Stock still falling, blame capitalism and close exchanges.
The intervention by the central banksters is the ONLY REASON why this market is where it is.
The only question that remains is can they do it for ever.
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And no one cares.
It seems that many financial types have now formally abandoned fundamentals (if not the weegee board and tea leaves) and simply BUY from greed and fear of missing out and sell when scared (which never lasts long).
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Fear and greed are what have always moved markets. I learned (painfully) to ignore fundamentals when I was 13.
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Gee, I always thought it was supply and demand.
Well, that WAS the past, as now we have speculators anticipating supply and demand who set prices, placing their bets and basically creating markets. Prices are not currently set by supply and demand, but what people (and algos) THINK supply and demand WILL BE. We can look at oil, which has record surplus reserves around the world, yet the hint of any change in supply or demand creates knee jerk reactions in an attempt to outrun everyone else’s knee jerk reactions setting prices that have no real connection to reality beyond a bet.
Let not pretend that the casino represents our economy or any reality beyond the animal spirits of those sitting around the table. Don’t get me wrong, there are lots of people acquiring wealth from this casino, but just don’t say that it IS our economy, or that the players are in any way creating wealth. They are simply attempting to redistribute the profits of production into their own pockets.
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Realist,
Probably a good ten years now. I don’t read or listen to any financial news which makes that even more odd, but around ’07 the housing market began bothering me, and Mish was one of the early bloggers to catch onto that. I always kept reading for the wide diversity of posts he made (Europe, political,etc) short, concise – light reading, yet interesting. I only began commenting recently because i wanted to ask questions, for personal reasons, of other posters here.
He does strike me as a rather pleasant and likable guy as well, but his philosophy can be boiled down to simply – Love gold at any price, and hate all other assets.
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“…his philosophy can be boiled down to simply – Love gold at any price, and hate all other assets.”
If we ask why would the answer be that he feels everything else can be manipulated by the central banksters.
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Not my philosophy at all.
Right now I like gold, I also like US treasuries.
I am in some bio plays quite heavily, one I got in a private placement. I am also in one lithium play and one potash play.
I do not typically discuss individual stocks, especially thinly traded ones.
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6/29/09 SPX 920ish – “In light of the above, the stock market is priced for perfection.”
11/29/10 SPX 1180ish – “Equity prices in the US are priced for perfection if not far beyond perfection”
That’s what happens when the FED doesn’t allow price discovery. In March 2009, FASB allowed banks to LIE about the value of their assets, after congress forced them to. The 8+ year rally began immediately after.
The FED resisted an audit, which would have exposed their secret actions. The Swiss National Bank now owns some 84 billion in stocks.
The BOJ allegedly owns half the Nikkei. Corporations have borrowed billions and billions to buy back stock.
The whole thing is really a record financial fraud. Tulip bulbs had nothing on what is happening now.
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So you are saying that you see this happening in 2008 and refuse to take the variable change into account and modify your perspective based on that. That’s rather moronic.
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I have done a lot of reading on the period from 1918 through 1950. I do remember reading about the number of financial experts that said the market could go up forever. They were written in the fall of 1929. I am by no means a stock market expert, but common sense about actual business operations of highly capitalized companies whose rate of incomes do not justify their value seems to be missing. Maybe the algos have taken over and we are just pawns in the game…
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Predicting specific economic events for a specific date is pure nonsense. It is certain trends that r worrisome.Population growth,mass pollution of the oceans and of the earth,rivalry in between nations all these put together make for a cloudy future.After 92 years of existence I have learned that humans are incapable to get along and do the right thing. Things ride humanity when it should be the other way around.
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You’re very lucky that you’re as old as you are.
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Suicide is in our nature and society is simply the exercise of manic depression, highs and lows, suicide residing at both extremes.
We’re nuts. It’s the only explanation.
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When you see this headline again, it will be time to go all in equities. Likely be 20 years from now.
http://ritholtz.com/1979/08/the-death-of-equities/
Bear markets can last a long, long time.
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Nobody knows where the bottom is going to be when these markets finally get flushed out. Another DOW 6000 is not out of the question. The markets are so distorted it’s impossible to even guess how much your home, your stocks or your metals will be worth 2 years down the road.
I hear people saying the same stupid things that they told me right before the dot-com bust and 2008: “These times are different. We’ve entered a brand new investment paradigm. The sky’s the limit”. lol.
The problem is next time we won’t bounce back and millions are going to get wiped out.
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Every year the world lost cropland as has the USA. There is not sufficient food for all today or clean water. What will reality be like in 30 years ? I will not be here in 30 years, at nearly 70 today.
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Soylent Corporation. “It’s PEOPLE!”
A world full of unemployed useless eaters will have relatively few uses. The character of Edward G Robinson understood and ultimately went for the easy way out, which I imagine with our modern methods of indoctrination will not be too hard to incentivize in our future.
But we will be able to order online from Amazon with drone delivery. It’s all good.
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Back in my college days they told me the same thing. That the Rain Forests were being destroyed and the Ozone holes in the atmosphere were going to destroy the ecology. 40 years have come and gone. We’re still here. I’m not worried about the food or water supply unless there’s a world war w/ nuclear fallout.
But the global economy is teetering on disaster. If one major player goes belly-up major shockwaves will be felt across the planet. The domino effect is likely. Nobody is safe. Economic chaos turns into social chaos. This is my primary concern.
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“What will reality be like in 30 years?
Sorry, my crystal ball is fuzzy, but I’ll take a shot at this one.
There will be 10 billion people on the planet and plenty of food thanks to continuing tech advances in agriculture. Perhaps 20% of food will be grown hydroponically indoors.
Economies will have suffered a couple of minor recessions and one or two major recessions but no long lasting depression. Economic growth will have averaged 1.5% over 30 years with zero inflation, so gdp will have gone up 50% in the US, while doubling in the developing world.
Tremendous productivity advances will have occurred thanks to driverless transportation and many other tech developments. These productivity advances will result in fewer hours worked per person, though I can only guess at how the hours will be distributed. Productivity advances will help keep inflation at zero. People will commonly live to over age 100 thanks to tech advances in health care.
Rising seas levels will cause a few hundred million people to be displaced from many islands and coastal regions. Extreme weather events will become more common resulting in more droughts and floods. Many inland bridges will have to be raised due to the higher flood levels (this is already happening in states such as Texas).
Cash will be gone. All currencies will be digital. The most popular smartphone, and smart watch are from Huawei. Bank branches will be few and far between.
One of the world’s biggest problems that is causing tensions between nations and regions is availability of fresh water.
Odds that I’m correct on most of this: somewhere between 0 and 100%.
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So in your future we will have all this technology to make our lives so…special, and yet still not have technology or cheap renewable energy to clean water?
If your global warming fantasy holds true, the least you could do is capture all of the melting ice at the polar caps for drinking water. The seas would only then rise if we all flushed at the same time.
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Yep. That’s my guess. Some positives and some negatives regarding the next 30 years. I admit I could be completely wrong, and I hope I am about rising sea levels and extreme weather. However, I’m just expecting current trends to continue. People are already being displaced by rising sea levels and infrastructure is already being modified to account for more extreme weather.
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“Rising seas levels will cause a few hundred million people to be displaced from many islands and coastal regions. Extreme weather events will become more common resulting in more droughts and floods.”
That is wishful thinking. I haven’t noticed any appreciable change at Santa Monica Beach, since i first saw it in 1971.
In 1861, California had a record 45 days of rain in a row. That was followed by a two year drought. There was no global warming alarmism back then. Our recent forever drought, suddenly ended and it wasn’t even in an El Nino year. The previous year’s Super El Nino turned out to be a dud.
We are currently still setting a record long period without a CAT 3 hurricane or above, hitting the U.S., now in its 12th year. Tornado activity also had dropped off. Nothing has panned out the way the climate alarmists said it would.
The Roman Warming period was warmer than it is now. The history books don’t make mention of a rash of extreme weather.
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Hey Ron. You might be right, and I hope you are, but I doubt it. I am not an alarmist and I certainly don’t wish harm on anyone. I’m just looking at current trends and expecting them to continue.
Rising sea levels are already displacing people all over the planet. Many states in the US are beginning to raise bridges because of extreme flooding caused by extreme weather. The trends are there to see for those who care to look.
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“The problem is next time we won’t bounce back ”
You do realize, with that comment, you just said that next time it will be different 🙂
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The same thing but different.
With each cycle of madness we see similar motivations and reactions…this stays the same, but you would have to be blind to not realize that the stakes are changing. Our cycles started with sticks and stones, largely not an apocalyptic scale of action, that has now CHANGED to one of nuclear, genetic and generally high tech conflicts which could effectively end us all, as well as much of the life on this planet.
I see the economic system in similar terms where we have had irrational bubbles in the past but they had limitations in their effect. In ’29 approximately 85% of the planet’s population was agrarian based…people who were accustomed to hardship and still had some basic notion on how to survive. Today, if there is not a APP to download to tell us how to program our alarm clock or thermostat, we are helpless. Simply, our dependency on a system that is premised almost completely upon “confidence” that is supported by NOTHING but marketing and indoctrination is FRAGILE, and provides no backup.
So if you think this will be simply another dip in the cycle that is necessary to create “opportunity”, I believe you are mistaken. We have so much further to fall. We are better armed and more dependent AND entitled than ever in history. Rather than simply building a better bomb, we are assembling a critical mass that could unleash uncontrollable reactions well beyond anything experienced before. There are lots of people hoping for some collapse that will drive a “reset” in the notion that this will create some new alternative to humanities greatest weaknesses, but instead, I believe it will unleash a hell that, as Bernanke told us, “no one will have seen coming”.
This time WILL be different in some of the most important ways…like human survival. Don’t let normalcy bias blind you.
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I wonder what the demographics of the readers of this blog are?
What light might that throw on things, posts, attitudes.
Many of the kids don’t seem to care or worry much so probably wouldn’t end up here.
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Most of the protesters (on both sides) I saw on video in Charlottesville were millennials. So there might be more on their minds than you think. The smart ones should be very concerned about what’s up ahead and plan their lives around it. I think many of the safety nets are going bye-bye.
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They have a lack of;
Kids of their own to worry about
Assets to shepherd/protect
Respect for institutions that help hold off chaos
FEAR
Meanwhile the Gov-Bank system sees no way forward outside of pumping credit to keep > 2% credit expansion to hold off breakdown. The unaware fall for it and become victims, trading their future expenditure capability for baubles today and loading themselves with debt, secured or otherwise.
The problems are fundamentally moral and infect all layers of our societies.
Only self awareness and increased consciousness can help avoid being a victim.
Help your neighbour. Pray for guidance. Keep grounded.
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They have little life experience.
It can take years to wake-up by which time you carry scars of past mistakes.
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Dumb mistakes most often self-inflicted through ignorance, naeivity, stupidity, gullibility.
If the state wants to change things for the better it needs to start in early years education and put values and meaning as core ideas. Good for the mental, physical and spiritual well being of our kids & countries.
The alternative is spreading breakdown mad max style.
Where’s the leadership explaining anything? Hiding because they know the change could itself lead to a collapse they so desperately want to avoid so they just keep the bandwagon rolling and let the plebs keeping making the same mistakes again and again.
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Medex Man with regard to your comments this morning I think I’m right in my assumption that Mish placed me into the anonymous category because of my tendency to hyperbolize issues from time to time. Now it seems like I’ve done something even worse by dragging you into my comments for which I am very sorry and apologize.It won’t happen again. Strangely enough it seems I tend to somehow offend those with whom I have the most respect!
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You are commenting as “anonymous”
I did not put you there – you put you there
Mish
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Don’t mess with the man behind the blog curtain. What you don’t see in his pleasant profile photo is that he is holding a deadly “anonymizer” gun.
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Hi , Trust but verify / I trade my own money as a private investor / swing trading stoxx holding positions a few days or even several months depending on the overall market and
stock price move evolution /
You guys gotta look at market s breadth and be fully invested in good times ie trending bullish directional markets and being out waiting in cash on the sidelines in bad times ie ranging markets / got it ?
Attention for simple is not easy but kiss ie keep; it simple and stupid ie plan your trade and trade your plan / by the way i just made a chiasm got it ?/
I know what u think this guy has something special … I m french and since january 2017 made 30 % gain on my portfolio so proud of my job ah ah lol I know how to increase how to grow my trading account exponentially got it ?
see ya guys … and gals
Have a nice day businees as usual and stay tuned
Good trades are not in august due to seasonality effect
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All balloons deflate, I just wonder if the extreme and prolonged quantitative easing, worldwide, actually lends some veracity to ‘this time it’s different’?
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No, in time it will be clear it is not different.
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Never let greed or people throwing their past returns into your face make you feel bad about being cautious, the fact you still have your money should not be discounted. The first goal of achieving financial security is to take steps that insure capital preservation. It is far easier than you might think to lose your wealth or have it ripped away by crooks because you invest in a scheme that turns sour or a slew of other “bad luck” scenarios.
Many of the “modern monetary theories” in use today have not been proven over time, but reflect an attitude that we can control economic cycles better than in the past. The basis of the economy we have today is unsustainable and because it has been able to exist for so long does not mean it can continue. The fact the system muddles through does not guarantee that we will not suffer financial harm as individuals.The article below delves into some of the pitfalls ready to do us harm, be careful out there!
http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2014/11/capital-preservation-is-job-one.html
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Many of the “modern monetary theories” in use today have not been proven over time.
A stopped clock is right twice a day. A modern monetary theory is right until it runs into the laws of math and human nature.
On the up phase of boom, Greenspan was hailed as The Maestro. Then came the down phase- oops.
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The best signal that the market is about to crash is the TTTTW signal. (Time to tell the wife.)
It always seems that as soon as you tell your spouse how well your portfolio is doing, everything goes to shell. My secret: Sell before you tell.
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