Howdy Sportsfans!

With Oil prices going down, there may be a good chance that they could go a lot lower.  Perhaps even below $100 and that  is a good thing…

Which brings me to a bunch of items on the horizon for us as investors.  We have the worst rated congress in History, or in over 230 years which is really saying a lot when you think that we had slavery, scandal, deficits, wars and more to contend with and these boobs still manage to take the cake.

The Democrats got control and promised big changes and they are not doing anything, which is good for us.  By them not doing things, that usually means they won’t be raising taxes or trying to redistribute wealth or scaring businesses into leaving the country, so in actuality that is a good thing.

We have Uncle Al, aka Al Gore, who is still managing quite nicely to ignore that fact that Global Tempartures dropped a full degree last year calling for us to shut down our coal and oil industries here in the US and put several hundred thouasand people out of work and ruin millions of peoples retirement portfolio in order for us to all  go green in ten years.   Yea… sign everyone up for that one Al baby.

But on the good news front, we have Brazil and Czechloslovakia offering up some amazing investment opportunities as well as, and yes I am ringing that bell again, small businesses here right in the good old US of A.

While a lot of the country is hurting, there are many businesses that are flourishing and in desperate need of money to expand profits and grow.   The US still breeds some of the best Entrepreneurs on the planet.  Wall street ignores most, the VC’s won’t play for less than a few Million, the Banks are a joke, which leaves some big holes to fill and some great opportunities for the smart little investors like us.

I know I have promised this before, but I will unwrap the best way to get into this market here shortly.  In the meantime, just start asking around in your community to find out which businesses are doing well and need money.  Approach them, they will be estatic.  Use Virgin Money and some common sense to put together a deal and you are on your way and you will be helping the business, all of the people that work for them, your community, yourself and your portfolio!

Let me know how it goes!

OK, we have to give this months “Big Fat Fibber” award to the Feds for pegging inflation at only 4.7%. Have you been into the grocery store lately? Have you filled up your tank lately? Has it only gone up 4.7% in the past three months?

Have you purchased dryer sheets or clothes softener?

How about the 50 cents or 25% more but you get 10 sheets less or $2.00 more for a bottle that used to cost $4.99 just a month ago that is now $6.99? Is that 4.7%. Not hardly.

In my unscientific but very accurate poll, I would say “REAL” inflation is running in at least 14% or more.

With the Floods in Iowa, you could see food prices double or triple by the Fall. Beef, Pork, and Chicken will hit record highs.

Unfortunately it is a perfect storm. You have no energy plan other than to stop any real plan that makes sense You have subsidies for a made up crisis that pushes Ethanol from corn which is perhaps the most inefficient way to make it, which is already raising food prices by 20-30%, and now you have a natural disaster.

So, when you are thinking about your investments, keep this in mind.

I am looking more and more at the overseas market and at local provider of consumable goods as shipping is going to wipe out a lot of profits from companies that have to ship things in to a market from far away.

Also, I am looking in States that are friendly to businesses. Wyoming, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Nevada. These States are going to be sucking in huge amounts of businesses that are looking for anyway to survive and get out from under the taxes in States that use businesses to fund every scheme they can think up.

Capital always goes where it is welcome. I think it is now time for yours to start looking for a new home.  Oh yea, we can’t leave out the devalued dollar either.

Coming up Dumb And Dumber - The Two presidential Candidates Economic Plans.

Find out why Obama’s plan will push Gas prices above $7.50 a gallon. Find out what McCain is not going to do about oil production in the US.

Then I will give you a few repellents to take the bite out what each one will do to you.

Promise to have good news later…

Cheers!

Ok, here are two more vids.

I doubt that you are going to hear what really happened with the current loan debacle on the boob tube or in too many other places for that matter.

So, I thought I would bring this to you so that you have a better understanding of how the Loan Crisis became a Crisis.

Informative and good for a laugh and there might be a play or two in there.

Do not let the intro or the name fool you. I am going to post two of them today and post the rest of the series over the next few days. Enjoy and let me know what you think.

Movie 2

My goal with this story is to open your eyes to Alternative Investment Arenas. By Arena, I am talking about other countries. However, in order to do that, you need some way to measure and compare major metrics so that we are comparing Apples to Apples and not to Bananas or Cashews.

Talking about Cashews is apropos as some of what I am going to talk about is just plain nuts in more ways than one.

In researching this story, I have discovered a somewhat startling theme here in that almost every bit of the Stupidity that we need to avoid and Smartness we need to go after for your portfolio is Political in nature.

Here are some metrics that are commonly used to look at different countries for investment potential. A good source to help you with them is The Heritage Foundation which has compiled a top 10 List, as well as a list of 160 countries for Economic Freedom.

Click Here to take a look. (more…)

Let me repeat that. Global Temperatures Dropped Around 1 Degree Fahrenheit in the past 12 months On All Four Major Indicators.

What does this mean to your portfolio?

OK, first off I am not enthusiastic about writing this article. Why?

Because it means I have to discuss Politics and Global Warming both of which bore me and piss me off at the same time. Although I have to admit, it does provide a certain Machiavellian sort of humor. You know the kind where you are listening to someone and you know that they everything they say is a lie and you know that they know it too?

This all stems from the fact that I do not like stupid people or people that perpetuate fraud on unsuspecting people who do not know any better.

You get two for one when talking about Politicians and Global Warming….. Yippeeee.

I am not talking about people not knowing the facts out of ignorance or making honest mistakes as we all make those. Well you might not, but I know I sure do.

But on the other hand, think about it. Both Politicians and the Global Warming crowd have to lie or tell half-truths and commit fraud everyday (or be so misinformed they should not be out in public) in order to do what they do. Guess that is the part I can’t stand.

Nevertheless, I need to tell you about this as I would venture that you have not heard about it anywhere else have you? If you have heard that the overall mean temperature dropped by over 1 degree please post a comment.

If you have, you are well informed and go to the top of the class and you can skip to the bottom, for the rest of you, read on.

If you have not heard about this, do not feel bad, it is not your fault.

Most of the news media that has a vested interest in Global Warming is not going to trot this information out until they figure out how to spin this and spin this they will.

Truth be told, I do not like to go political and truly, these days my only interest in what the idiots (politicians) are doing is what affect they will have on economies and markets and our portfolios.

This includes the whole Global Warming debacle, as this is a politically motivated movement with zero basis in fact for anyone that cares to look at the data. Actually, you have to ignore the data in order to be part of the Global Warming Agenda.

Just for those of you that do not have a life and death reason to pay attention to the weather like me, (well technically I guess we all do) I am a pilot so therefore if you want live, you need to have a good understanding of weather and climatology in order to have the chance at being able to get you an your passengers to your destination.

I have been actively flying for about three decades now and got my glider permit back in the early 70‘s. So in order to do this safely, most smart pilots that I know (i.e. ones that are still alive) become very interested in weather and many have as much or more practical knowledge as many of the talking bubble head forecasters that you see reading the Teleprompters on the Telly.

That being said, here is a quick lesson for anyone that actually wants to know hard-core facts on the subject of Global Temperatures.

There are four references that are accepted and used by all climatologists and scientists with any real credentials for global temperatures.

They are the NASA Goddard Institute Number, which puts out the GISS number, The Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature Anomaly or HadCRUT, The University of Alabama, Huntsville Number or UAH, and finally the Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA or RSS number.

Guess what? All four of them show a significant decrease in temperatures over the last 12 months. One of them even shows a decrease of 1.8 degrees! This is a big, big number that blows away what the Global Warming Loons have been saying.

We have seen a a bigger drop Temperatures in the past 12 months than what the Kyoto Treaty was supposed to produce in the next 40 years if fully adopted and implemented at the cost of several Trillion dollars. We just got it for FREE!

What does this mean? Well it means that the theory that temperatures are related to Sun Spots and other factors such as magnetics is probably correct and the Carbon Dioxide has little if anything at all to do with Global Temperatures since it actually rose a bit last year while the temperature went down a degree. It also is the death knell of doom for the whole Global Warming Fraud Group…… Whoops…darn facts….

How Does This Affect Our Portfolios?

Well, the whole Global Warming initiative right now is costing your about 75 cents per gallon at the pump, and about 10% across the board for all of the food and everything else that you buy.

It is also helped contribute to the current 10 -11% real inflation that we are seeing right now this very minute for this year. …Ouch. The most recent Wholesale Pricing Index was up 1.1% in just the last month reported. Let us see that is 1.1 x 12 = 13.2% inflation.

The big question is will the Politicians stop the new Carbon Bills that could add another $1 dollar to the price of gas, and heating oil, and a lot more than that percentage wise to coal for something that has proven to be wrong? Oh and I forgot to add that it will probably raise the cost of everything else that you buy by another 10% within the year.

There is a lot of momentum going into keeping the Global Warming farce alive and hundreds of millions of dollars being pumped into politicians worldwide to continue it, so we will have to see.

I am almost certain you have not heard this good news about the huge temperature drop on the front page of the New York Time or on the Weather Channel, or on any other major news source. But then again that is a guess since I do not partake in them.

The Bad or Good News depending on how you look at it is that the results are from the very same sources that all of the goobers in the Global Warming movement have used in the past for the dire predictions, even if they did pick and choose which years to use to make it look really bad for you.

Therefore, it is only a matter of time before even they cannot ignore it, right? Well, I hope so at least.

What Does This Mean For Us As Intelligent Investors?

The Opportunity And The Conundrum

The kicker is that right now using domestic coal we can make a barrel of Oil for around $55. Less than half of what oil is it going for now.

Right here in the good old US of A in Montana, we can profitably make Oil from coal and sell the gas for around $1.74 per gallon.

Guess what else?

“At the present rate of consumption without finding any new sources of coal or improving the process, we have enough coal to produce synthetic Oil to totally and completely replace all of the Oil we import right now this very minute and it will last for the next 200 years.”

How is that for you?

The only reason I bring this up is to look at how the whole Global Warming phenomenon affects your portfolio.

So, unless they can figure a way to squelch the data, and even then this data cannot be ignored forever, the whole Global Warming apparatus is going to unravel.

It will take awhile as you have some very powerful and entrenched people and institutions with a vested interest in keeping the fraud going as long as possible so it won’t go away for several years in spite of the temperature drops.

Actually, I am waiting for them to jump sides and start telling us now that Carbon Dioxide is going to cause the next ice age. I am only half kidding here. They did exactly that in the 70’s.

The point is that I would be very careful investing in the whole Green phenomenon as the bottom is about ready to fall out of it and start looking at coal and Oil Shale companies or hard core practical present day solutions that can be implemented right now.

Unfortunately, the profitability of both ventures depends not on the economics of the process but on the economics of what both the Republicans and Democrats are going to do with the Carbon Bills in the house.

Both versions of the proposed bill could kill off coal and Oil Shale and cause gas to hit $5 a gallon very soon if they pass. So, we will have to wait and see what they do before we can tell if the Global Warming money that is being pumped into the politicians by the millions will end up kicking us right in the teeth.

Any bets?
Thanks to Anthony Watt for the data! Keep up the good work Anthony! Here is a link to his site for anyone that wants unbiased info on weather. - AA

By Andrew Anderson 4:37 AM CST

I ended up having a very interesting conversation with Mr. Gordon Chang this week on the topics of China, Tibet, The Olympics, North Korea, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, The Dollar, and add to these items the price of pork, gas lines, and Richard Nixon.

Not to leave out you of course, we have last but not least what we Investors might look for when investing in China and China’s impact on America.

This ran a bit longer than I had intended but then again I could have talked for an hour. There is so much going on now. I really enjoyed this interview. As you will see, we start getting into some pretty specific issues towards the end.

I have to apologize about the volume in the beginning, but you should be fine.

If you have any interest in the world around, you will definitely want to listen and hear information you will not find in the normal Media. He has some very interesting things to say about the Dollar, where America Stands with China, and the Trade Deficit. You might just be surprised!

Enjoy! (more…)

I am always looking to improve the quality and relevance of what I put up here and I could really use your help.

If you are like me, I often have at least one concern or question rolling around in my head at any given moment about investing. Actually, it is more like a a half a dozen truth be told. I then do my best to get it answered as quick as I can.

With that in mind, I am looking to do the same for you. I would like to know what question or concern you have about investing and get them answered for you!

It might be answered by me or the best expert that I can dig up and I am very good at digging and finding the best person in the field. Now the best person does not always mean the most noted. I just look for skill and knowledge, not what package it comes in.

So if you have a question, take 30 seconds or so and jot it down below.  I will do my best to answer as many of them as I can. If you don’t want me to use your name, I won’t.

Thanks, AA

OOPS! You forgot to upload swfobject.js ! You must upload this file for your form to work.

= $5

Welcome to prices in the not too distant future here in the US. Get used to it because commodity prices have shot up dramatically recently and that is where prices are heading. I am going to show you why this is a good thing. Well, OK, not for everyone, but at least for you and I. Yes, we are going to make money from this!

All of these items have something to do with coming out of the ground and going up. Wheat has seen prices around $15.75 per bushel when only last year it was around $4 per bushel. Corn in 2006 was around $2.25 a bushel and now it is around $5.80.

Can you see why your prices for the items mentioned are going to go up?

There are actually two major factors at play.

Here are very, very simplistic answers for this and there are more factors, but here is basically what is going on.

Only about five years ago if we say the US Dollar was actually worth a Dollar, it is now worth only 50 cents. (more…)

As predicted by yours truly, Oil prices spiked to a new high (so far) early today. For various reasons as mentioned in previous posts, I think that $110 to $120 could be seen soon.

Thank your Senators, Congressmen, President, and OPEC for this little present.

If you are an early bird like me, perhaps you caught Sir Richard Branson this morning on Squawk Box talking about Virgin Charter?

There were more than a few interesting subjects discussed. First his official launch of Virgin Charter, which is a system to fill empty legs of Private Jets. It is basically a registration system that allows companies to put passengers on an otherwise empty Jet. Some paying customers is better than paying for fuel on and empty plane as it flies back to home base after dropping off people at their destination.

Virgin Charter is finally open for business as of today. If you have never flown by private jet, it is the way to go. With airport delays these days even on a one or two hour trip you can waste the better part of a whole day just getting somewhere.   You can check them out here at www.VirginCharter.com .

Whereas with a charter, you usually fly to a smaller airport that is much closer to your destination, and in many cases you can arrive only five minutes before you take off. This can literally save you a whole day’s worth of work.

Just think about this, if you have a whole day to work on what makes you money can you use that time to come up with an idea that will make you an extra $5,000 to $20,000 this year? If so, you probably just paid for your trip and then some.

If you take four or five people with you, the economics really makes sense when you add up what a whole days worth of lost production.

Branson also discussed the state of the economies around that world and the fact that he fully expects India to top 10% economic growth this year and China not to be far behind. While here in the US, we are going to be lucky to break 1%.

This should cause a great deal of concern. He rightfully points out that much of this can be contributed to governmental interference and protectionism that is going on here in the US.

He brought up the insane sugar subsidy that is causing America to pay nearly double the price for sugar as the world market, which in turn has caused us to use corn for producing ethanol which is 8 times less efficient per acre than sugar. This in turn has caused food prices to skyrocket. Have you seen what has happened to the price of a gallon of milk or a dozen eggs this year?

Talk about what I like to call the Stupidity Multiplier. 99.9% of all market malfunctions can be attributed to Government interference and the Stupidity Multiplier and he spoke about just a few more examples that are going on in the US.

He also spoke about the knee jerk protectionist restriction on foreign investments in US airlines and in other areas.

He rightfully points out that most of the US airlines are Dinosaurs that should have been extinct decades ago but continue to receive government bailouts no matter how badly they are run.

If you have ever flown on a decent foreign airline, you know how bad most of our airlines really are.

One other note, silver has topped $20 per ounce and to think that just a few short years ago it was at about half of that.

I am trying to get an interview with someone from Virgin Charter. We will see how responsive their PR people are.

With all of this in mind, knowing that the government is artificially keeping up grocery prices and oil prices here in the US is there a way that you can take advantage of this? Are they going to blame everyone and everything else and do even more harm trying to “fix” things? Could be some great plays coming up.

Overall, you can look at energy prices continuing to rise at least 10% short term and I predict we might see oil top $110, to even $120 a barrel before the year is out.

What Warren said about the need to raise taxes on the Rich is wrong.

For starters, check out this report from the Treasury from two years ago.

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY
Office of Public Affairs
March 2, 2005
FACT SHEET:
Who Pays the Most Individual Income Taxes?
The individual income tax is highly progressive – a small group of higher-income taxpayers pay most of the individual income taxes each year.

• In 2002 the latest year of available data, the top 5 percent of taxpayers paid more thanone-half (53.8 percent) of all individual income taxes, but reported roughly one-third(30.6 percent) of income.
• The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.7 percent of all individual income taxes in2002. This group of taxpayers has paid more than 30 percent of individual incometaxes since 1995. Moreover, since 1990 this group’s tax share has grown faster than their income share.
• Taxpayers who rank in the top 50 percent of taxpayers by income pay virtually all individual income taxes. In all years since 1990, taxpayers in this group have paid over 94 percent of all individual income taxes. In 2000, 2001, and 2002, this grouppaid over 96 percent of the total.

(more…)

Capitalism

You can be any color, any sex, any religion, any race, any age, have any amount of schooling or education, even be a high school dropout, come from any financial background, and be successful as a Capitalist and own your very own business or be an investor in someone else’s.

Capitalism is totally blind, deaf, and dumb. She rewards you for exactly what you are worth, what you produce, and the quality and quantity of service you offer, and it can be long term and quick. Both ability and stupidity is rewarded without bias and with equal measure. Because of this it is a magnet to some, and abhorred by others.

Capitalism in her purest form has done more good for people than all other institutions combined and yet far too many blame her for problems they themselves and their followers create. This is in part because they truly fear the value placed on them and their ideas by a system that has no bias and only rewards results, not good intentions, and in fact punishes the lazy, the idle, the loons, and those that would force ideas without merit on others.

(more…)

I have mentioned in the past that the Government and specifically politicians should not get involved in Economics but it does give them a huge club in which to garner favors and redistribute wealth which all leads to power. This is always at the expense of the consumer and investors.

As Investors we need to be aware of the back door deals that are done and take advantage of them. The following will give you a reason why not to short Oil at the moment and just how truly crooked many of our Senators are, and points out how big of liars they are as well. They can do more to harm the US economy in two paragraphs than any market changes ever can.

Read on and you will see what I am talking about. Why this is not the largest news story in the media is beyond me. My Dad actually alerted me about this.

This is from Fox News and Steven Malloy who has one of the sharpest scientific and economic minds around. You will have to dig to find this story but it is there. Here is a link to his column and story.

This one is almost beyond belief. But what is done is done. And you think our politicians really care about our economy. It also points out the real anti-technology and capitalism agenda of most environMentalists.

Junk Science: Candidates Fail Energy Independence Test

Thursday, February 28, 2008

By Steven Milloy

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All the presidential candidates say they’re for energy independence. So why didn’t they do something about it when they had the chance?

Hillary Clinton rails on her Web site about Americans sending “billions of dollars to the Middle East for their oil.” Barack Obama warns that Middle East oil is the “lifeline of Al Qaeda.” Republican hopeful John McCain says that, if elected, his energy policy will “amount to a declaration of independence from our reliance on oil sheiks and our vulnerability to their troubled politics.”

But Clinton and Obama recently voted for a bill that can only promote dependency on oil from the Middle East. And John McCain went AWOL, not voting on the bill at all.

A little-noticed provision of the ironically named “Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007″ that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bush last December bars the federal government from purchasing fuels whose life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions are greater than those from fuels produced from conventional petroleum sources.

Before we get into the energy independence implications of this provision, it’s worth appreciating the obscurity of the provision and the fact that the media doesn’t seem to understand its import.

Related

• Column Archive

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  • Junk Science: Mayor Gloomberg
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  Full-page Junk Science Archive

I only learned of the provision while thumbing through the Feb. 15 Financial Times, serendipitously noticing the egregiously mis-titled article, “U.S. risks trade dispute with Canada on fuel.” A bit of research turned up no other media reports relating to this particular section of the bill.

The Financial Times article reported on how section 526 of the energy bill prohibits the federal government from buying oil that was produced from Canadian tar sands, a reserve that holds about two-thirds the amount of recoverable oil as compared to reserves in Saudi Arabia.

Because it takes greenhouse gas-producing energy to extract oil from the tar sands, the article focused on the fact that the law could affect billions of dollars of trade in oil, particularly since the U.S. Department of Defense is the world’s largest single buyer of light refined petroleum.

But while I give the Financial Times credit for reporting this story, it really dropped the ball with respect to understanding it — this is yet another effort by environmentalists and their congressional henchmen to cause chaos in our energy supply.

Sure enough, it turns out that Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., already are pressing the Department of Defense to comply with the provision. In a recent letter to the secretary of defense, Waxman and Davis asked how the DOD will ensure that the fuel it buys doesn’t come from Canadian tar sands or from domestic coal-to-liquid processing.

Waxman and Davis apparently expect the military to expend the Herculean effort of tracing the source of the fuel it purchases and then to refuse North American oil from unconventional sources apparently in favor of oil from OPEC sources such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. How’s that for energy independence and security?

It gets worse if you’re one of those who believe that biofuels are the path to energy independence.

The plain language of section 526 also would seem to ban the federal government from purchasing biofuels like ethanol, since their life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions are greater than that of conventional petroleum.

“Turning native ecosystems into ‘farms’ for biofuel crops causes major carbon emissions that worsen the global warming that biofuels are meant to mitigate,” researchers from the University of Minnesota and the Nature Conservancy reported in Science (Feb. 7). Another study in the same issue of Science projected that the life-cycle greenhouse gas emission from ethanol over 30 years is twice as high as from regular gasoline.

Interestingly, Waxman and Davis specifically excluded biofuels from their letter to the DOD. Not to worry, though, biofuels likely soon will become fuel-non-grata as the environmentalists have already started to demonize them.

Similar to the case of compact fluorescent lightbulbs discussed in this column last week, The New York Times editorial page this week signaled that biofuels soon will become as politically incorrect as the Canadian tar sands and domestic coal-to-liquid fuels.

The Times opined that, “Done right, ethanol could help wean the country from its dependence on foreign oil while reducing the emissions that contribute to climate change. Done wrong, ethanol could wreak havoc on the environment while increasing greenhouse gases.”

“Done right” for the Times is what’s required in the energy bill — a 20 percent reduction in life-cycle greenhouse gases as compared to gasoline. But, of course, this is a next-to-impossible goal since the life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions for ethanol are projected to be 100 percent greater than for gasoline.

It likely will require nothing short of a technological miracle for ethanol to achieve the energy bill’s standards in the near or even distant future.

Now, if the federal government is barred from bio-, tar sand, coal-to-liquid fuels, how long will it be before such a ban spreads to contractors that do business with the federal government, to states and their contractors, and then, by default, to the nation as a whole?

It’s hard to take the presidential candidates, President Bush and Congress too seriously on the energy independence issue when none of them opposed a bill that actually makes us more dependent on OPEC.

Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a junk science expert, advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

**************************

For this, the US Senate and President Bush get this week’s Big Fat Fibber Award.

I thought you might enjoy this as much as I did.

Who’s Afraid of Prosperity?

Opinion Editorial by John Stossel - Jan 31, 2008

According to The New York Times, Americans should be fretting about the fact that China and India are getting richer. Are these scaremongers right — or are they just succumbing to zero-sum economics?

Should we worry that the people of China, India and other undeveloped countries are getting richer? Apparently so, according to the newspapers and the “experts” they quote.
They don’t come right out and say that global prosperity is bad for us. Instead they say, as The New York Times recently said, “As development rolls across once-destitute countries at a breakneck pace, lifting billions out of poverty, demand for food, metals and fuel is red-hot, and suppliers are struggling to meet it.

“Prices are spiraling, and Americans find themselves in what amounts to a bidding war with overseas buyers for products as diverse as milk and gasoline.” (more…)

I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.
- EB White

And I would add to that, make a lot of money. Even in jest, planning is the key. Do you have an investment plan? How about your goal for the year? Hopefully it is at least our 21.5% and more.

With the monetary supply increase of about 14% or so by the Feds in the past year or so, and inflation running at a good 4%, if you did not go up 18% in the past 12 months no matter what your portfolio said, you lost money.

That darn old Fiat currency. The only problem with it, is when they want more they just print it. And that is exactly what has happened… a lot lately. Ok, more than just lately.

Want to see what happened since we (the US) went off the Gold Standard and became a a Fiat Currency? This is from the Grandfather Economic Report. Some great reading there by the way and recommended by Milton Friedman and Andrew Anderson.

Now I am not going to get into a discussion on Fiat Currency here in detail other than to quote Wikipedia and to make you aware of what it can do to your portfolio.

OK, don’t laugh because I am quoting old Wiwk, but they have it about right in that up until the time the US did it. Whenever a currency was taken off a standard, i.e. Gold, Silver, etc. tt was usually down so by totalitarian regimes.

A better way to look at this graph is to turn it upside down and and use it to show the buying power of a dollar since the Feds got involved. Ouch…. We are from the Government and we are here to help you.

What this shows it that a dollar back then was worth about 550% more than what it is now. And no that is not a typo.

From Wikipedia -

“Another aspect of fiat money is its relation to property rights. Many economists argue that since a government that has control over its territory can requisition, confiscate or otherwise ban the use of specie within its boundaries, or suspend promise payments — as has often happened in the past — the presence of fiat manipulation of money is seen as being a signal that a government is intent on abrogating property rights for other purposes. ”

That bottom line is that the Feds have opened the sluice gates on the money supply stream and for all of those folks that think they are treading water and staying in place, they are actually getting swept down stream at a pretty good clip.

So, in order to stay afloat and get ahead, 21.5% returns definitely should be your goal. Otherwise, you might be hearing the sound of those famous roaring falls in Going Broke Gulch .

The Inefficiencies Of Government Economic Intervention

Happened to turn on the boob tube at lunch and see what it was on Cspan. State of the State Address by Ohio State Governor (D) Ted Strickland. He was talking about the State Government’s Initiative to save and create jobs. By those statements alone, I knew that it should be an entertaining show as last time I remember from Economics 101, state involvement by spending taxpayer money is usually the least inefficient method to create jobs known to man.
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Once again we are showing what could be a vastly different number for home sales than what the NAR or National Associate of Realtors just released for December Home Sales according to Bloomberg. My spot number shows that there appears to be as much as a 4.5% increase in homes sales from November to December rather than the stated 1.5% decline in home sales.

If you go back to my other article about how the data is pulled by the NAR, they only use homes that are listed with Real Estate Agents and not those that are sold privately, and as I showed you using data from the Franklin County Ohio Auditor’s own conveyance numbers this number is off by several factors. (more…)

The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.
- John Kenneth Galbraith

You have to love it.

We now have 60 Minutes talking about the Housing Bust, and Newsweek talking about the “Recession”. Historically whenever these two media outlets take note of something involving the Economy, they are always the last ones to the party.

So, this must could mean the bottom of both markets. Don’t quote me on this, but I think that at least Newsweek said the equities would never recover back in 1979. Don’t you wish that you had bought then?

I also think that 60 Minutes is usually about a year or so behind the 8 Ball. In September of 2000, CBS news had a stunning revelation that that Real Estate prices are determined by location.

With scintillating indicators like these, who needs to look at data or charts?