Current Economic News & Discussion

[DeepInThoughtParticipant 2710]

Worth a listen. Jim Rogers and Kyle Bass are both smart guys.

[DeepInThoughtParticipant 2710]

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/10/kyle-bass-china-banks-may-lose-5-times-us-banks-subprime-losses-in-credit-crisis.html

[Anonymous 42]

@deepinthought, The only entity going into “austerity” are those unfortunately in the private sector, austerity is for the people, not the government, they’ll drive society to ruins before they give up one dime, or one day of power! They’ll load the ovens with our corpses first, before they see the the wisdom of truth!
It’s become Monoblobica, not America! Lets see the central bankers profit on my wood burning heat, or my home grown crops, the econ’no’money is about to collapse with these falling prices on the back a devalued dollar! All we can expect from the elites; “OOPS, sorry you’re dead”….

[TaoTheMgtowWandererParticipant 263]

Found a couple stashes of juicy information, and a youtube series perfect for this thread.

its worse then you could have ever imagined

and

negative interest rates, banks trying to steal depositers money and ban cash

My peace of mind is worth more then your vagina...cunt.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

The alternative is to encourage all Americans to learn real living skills,agriculture, building things etc. And to abandon the false reality created with fiat currency and over specialization.

What’s wrong with your logic is that you want to double down on delusion.

Right…I’m going to give up a six figure job to go buy a farm and live a subsistent farmer lifestyle. Oh s~~~…wait…you need said job to buy said farm…so much for that idea.

I’m not doubling down on delusion…I’m fully aware that if things don’t change radically in the next few years I’ll live to see a day when our country is crushed by debt like Greece and s~~~ gets worse here…its the reason why I have an exit plan. If you want to stay behind and be a broke poor farmer good for you, I’ll let my investments fund an early retirement in Thailand or Ecuador rather than be stuck on a sinking ship.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

There’s a difference between an exit plan for you individually, and trying to fix things in general.

Precisely…and I don’t care about trying to fix things in general. The direction this country is moving in disgusts me…if/when the s~~~ hits the fan I’d rather be watching it while I’m relaxing on a foreign beach in a country where the cost of living is a fraction of what it is here rather than stuck here working a farm just to survive praying a broke government doesn’t raise taxes on property owners any more.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

Well if you really think the s~~~ hitting the fan won’t affect your portfolio of bubble crafted value, then you’re fine. No worries for you.

The United States is about 22% of the GWP right now, and we are gradually losing share. I’m not thinking I could craft a portfolio completely immune to problems in the United States, but there is certainly enough economic activity across the globe that I’m not worried about getting completely wiped out.

Realistically if I lose 50% of my dividend income in a massive crash here and move to a country in South America or Asia where the cost of living is 1/3 of what it is here and I can still live an upper middle class life style…I lost some on paper but in terms of quality of life nothing will change.

[MattNYCParticipant 2329]

Beer wrote:

cost of living is 1/3 of what it is here

A conservative estimate – there are smaller towns in latin america where the cost of living approaches 10% of living in a small-to-mid-sized US city.

The big difference comes in for certain imported goods – if you want a laptop or a car. Buying them locally in just about any latin country, well, the import taxes are insane (think ~$50,000 USD for a car that in the US would cost ~$20,000).

Beer wrote:

my investments fund an early retirement in Thailand or Ecuador rather than be stuck on a sinking ship.

Ecuador’s the next best place what what i’ve been reading, yeah (in LatAm anyway; not familiar with APAC as a retirement destination). Although i’m really hoping Venezuela gets a semi-competent government soon. If they can bring down the murder rate, it’ll be almost green fields for anyone with hard dollars.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

MattNYC wrote:

Ecuador’s the next best place what what i’ve been reading, yeah (in LatAm anyway; not familiar with APAC as a retirement destination). Although i’m really hoping Venezuela gets a semi-competent government soon. If they can bring down the murder rate, it’ll be almost green fields for anyone with hard dollars.

Oh yeah…there are quite a few places I’d consider as well…but I think the key for now is just to build up my liquid assets so I have options that include buying property somewhere in the states or moving abroad.

If I buy a chunk of land and try to build it up to be self sufficient and off the grid like some people recommend, I’d just end up trapped with a large chunk of my net worth invested in that property which would effectively reduce my options…the exact opposite of what I want to do.

[JosephParticipant 125]

Beer wrote:

Oh yeah…there are quite a few places I’d consider as well…but I think the key for now is just to build up my liquid assets so I have options that include buying property somewhere in the states or moving abroad.

I know it sounds cliché, and I AM NOT IN REAL ESTATE OR BANKING OR STOCKS, but now is the time to buy property, not stocks.

Right now interest interest rates are very low and banks are interested in lending to the right people in order to build the AAA part of their future crap bonds.

This also means the returns on deposits are really low as well. About 10-15 years ago I was getting 6% on my deposits, and now I get 1% if I am lucky, so I place my money on a piece of property. Got a 100% fixed mortgage for under 2% and with a yearly up to 10% of non-penalized, interest-free, payments.

What I wouldn´t do is buying stocks (unless you want to short sell them). In early January my “trusty banker” (note the irony) called me to invest in the german DAX. At that point it was at 11.5k points or so. I told him (because I know) that we are in a downward spiral until more or less June. He laughed. Today the DAX is clocking 9.5k. In other words, if I listened to my “trusty banker” I would be 10% in one single month.

The stock I will buy, but not yet, is VW. Yes, the scandal one. Remember BT and the oil spill? The stock went to the bottom (30 bucks if I remember) and 4 years later it was 50. I know it is not a good example due to the current oil prices, but my point is the following:

There are companies with public investors that represent governments. British Petroleum is Britain and it will never fail as long as the humanity uses oil. VW is Germany, and it will never fail either. And yes, I know there has been big companies that did fall, but because either were not big enough or were not tied up to governments or countries. This is particularly true in the old Europe.

So this takes me to VW. VW had stock that was worth 250 euros per share. Today it is about 100. The scandal has not been yet quantified and not a lot of money has been paid, so I believe the stock still has to go down. I believe VW will report massive loses in Q3 2016, or end quarter, depending on how long the impact reaches the books. It will be then when it will be the best time to buy VW. If the stock reaches 50 bucks I will buy like my life depend on it, KNOWING FULL WELL THAT I WILL NOT CASH OUT UNTIL YEARS LATER.

Again, this is just my appreciation of the situation, and I repeat I am not a broker nor I have any financial interests in any of the things I have mentioned nor I currently hold any shares of VW or BT.

[BeerParticipant 11832]

Joseph wrote:

I know it sounds cliché, and I AM NOT IN REAL ESTATE OR BANKING OR STOCKS, but now is the time to buy property, not stocks.

Real estates only an investment if you rent it or flip it. Problem is I have no interest in being a landlord or fixing houses up to flip…I’d rather just put my money in dividend paying stock and with the time I would have put into landlording/flipping just pick up an extra few overtime shifts per year.

Joseph wrote:

Again, this is just my appreciation of the situation, and I repeat I am not a broker nor I have any financial interests in any of the things I have mentioned nor I currently hold any shares of VW or BT.

I usually just buy in to down sectors…like right now energy is a great example. The whole sector is down due to oil prices…including companies that have very little to do with the price of oil.

You can buy into some rather large utilities right now with dividend yields around 4% so even if they go down a bit more who cares, you are collecting a nice dividend on them, and long term we aren’t going to stop using electricity so the chance of losing big is rather slim.

Overall I focus on buying long term holds and I’m quite content consistently hitting singles vs hitting a few home runs but leading the league in strike outs.

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