Everyone is expecting the stock market to correct or outright crash. Which means it just cant happen if everyone is expecting it. Its been this way since a correction started last year, then we had a surprise run up into - well now basically. Everything I hear, read etc seems to be hyperbolic. That's saying something, coming from me when I am typing on the Acaeum. Many of us have lived through the tech bubble, mortgage bubble and now the fed-free-money bubble. But most crashes are these prolonged months of heavy swings, largely lower. This was an orderly 20% down then orderly 15% recovery. Does anyone see a really-really stretched rubber band here?

China currency is becoming a mess and Japan is in its own universe. Idk wtf they are doing. Yen is going to hell, rates are low and inflation is baking-in and they are just whistling. Which appears to mean they dont know wtf to do either. China also has super high youth unemployment and they are apparently setting up what appears to be field hospitals and the like. This could all just be for show to get concessions on high end silicon by threatening Taiwan, but it dont look good if they need a distraction that large. UK and Canada are going into another mortgage crisis. In the UK, because adjustable rate mortgages are too attractive at 2%? W T F. Was the whole nation born after 2009? Several other nations are also beginning another mortgage crisis, Chain too, with no ability to lower rates because of current global inflation levels. And our Fed isnt going to step in again, loaning Trillions to other feds, because we are still looking at 4%+ inflation with a possible boost to inflation imported from everywhere else.

I am not saying its a good idea to buy a brick of gold, make a sandwich and get to the basement. I am only asking if you think I can get a nice copy of those Australian monochromes for a good price in the coming year?

Tszii wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:Does anyone see a really-really stretched rubber band here?

Things have gone way better this year than I anticipated.  The stock market is triple what I expected.  Unemployment is historically low.  Wages are up, but this is because of inflation and the employment rate.  I fully expected a recession by now, but experts are saying we might not even see one.  I doubt that, but I do think a soft landing is possible.  China is messed up, but some that had/has to do with their COVID Policy, and it also has to do with their government taking a more hands on approach.  India, on the other hand, has really improved from what it once was.  Inflation is a problem, but it has come way down from what it once was.  Too many people think that as inflation goes down, prices will go down thus affecting their negative their perceptions.

I suspect inflation is going to remain stubborn where it is as long as the employment levels remain what they are.  The Fed can only do so much.  I'm not a fan of lots of people losing their jobs or of deflation.  I know this sounds strange, but people smarter than me are saying that if we make it easier for those seeking asylum to take low paying jobs while their status is being reviewed, it would help ease inflation because they'll work for less.  Anyway, good news has momentum just like bad news has momentum, and so far, this year has mostly been good news, and I think the mostly good news will continue.  One can cherry pick this or that data point to make their case, but the United States is in a way better position than most countries around the world.  I am grateful for much.  

sauromatian wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:The historians are always saying that WWII pulled us out of the Great Depression.

Because a dead guy cant flip a hamburger. - Sam Kinison

sauromatian wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:
matter what the abuse or how low the pay. Never, ever, ever.

I dont get the low pay part. Wages at McDs $15 per hour. Two sixteen year olds in my in-laws small town can afford the 80k house and a life. People immigrate here, some in my area, because its head-and-shoulders better than the place they left.

Maybe instead of bring in millions of migrants we should stop paying people to sit around and do nothing. People tend to do what they need to do to eat, and those who are going to rob and steal are already doing that, so driving the rest back into work rather that bring in foreign labour seems stupid. Maybe raising a generation to work hard could be an option.

I don’t just mean some families raising their kids to work hard. Most educated people who don’t carry the entitlement gene raise their children to work hard. I mean remove the financial incentives to be bone idle and give people the choice to work hard or eat less food.

China has no safety net. If you are lazy your family provides or you live in the gutter. We really capitalise on this because that way we can get our trainers and iPhones made for pennies on the dollar and our pensions and stock portfolios can make money on the cost difference. But this is going away. We picked a war we cannot win because our chosen enemy produces all our medications, computer technology, safety equipment, etc. etc.

Going to war with China (economic war or hot war) is almost as stupid as living in a neighbourhood with only one major food retailer, and deciding as a society you’re going to go to war with that retailer, steal all their stuff and drive them out of town, when you have no other food source... But then a lot of people really are that stupid.

It’s certainly gonna be fun watching how all these little games we play with one another are going to play out. In the UK we don’t have the levels of hatred between left and right that you seem to have over there. We also don’t attend riots with firearms. So on the whole it’s probably a safer place to watch societal collapse from.

Isn’t the term for this ‘de-complexification’?

Unless of course Putin drops a nuke on this little island of course.

As an aside... Would it not be better to spend billions of dollars helping Americans in Hawaii than promoting war with Russia?

Tszii wrote in Random Thoughts or OT Chit-Chat Thread:Everyone is expecting the stock market to correct or outright crash. Which means it just cant happen if everyone is expecting it. Its been this way since a correction started last year, then we had a surprise run up into - well now basically. Everything I hear, read etc seems to be hyperbolic. That's saying something, coming from me when I am typing on the Acaeum. Many of us have lived through the tech bubble, mortgage bubble and now the fed-free-money bubble. But most crashes are these prolonged months of heavy swings, largely lower. This was an orderly 20% down then orderly 15% recovery. Does anyone see a really-really stretched rubber band here?

China currency is becoming a mess and Japan is in its own universe. Idk wtf they are doing. Yen is going to hell, rates are low and inflation is baking-in and they are just whistling. Which appears to mean they dont know wtf to do either. China also has super high youth unemployment and they are apparently setting up what appears to be field hospitals and the like. This could all just be for show to get concessions on high end silicon by threatening Taiwan, but it dont look good if they need a distraction that large. UK and Canada are going into another mortgage crisis. In the UK, because adjustable rate mortgages are too attractive at 2%? W T F. Was the whole nation born after 2009? Several other nations are also beginning another mortgage crisis, Chain too, with no ability to lower rates because of current global inflation levels. And our Fed isnt going to step in again, loaning Trillions to other feds, because we are still looking at 4%+ inflation with a possible boost to inflation imported from everywhere else.

I am not saying its a good idea to buy a brick of gold, make a sandwich and get to the basement. I am only asking if you think I can get a nice copy of those Australian monochromes for a good price in the coming year?

The inflation has already happened. We already printed all the money and spent it into the economy. What we are seeing now, in the cost of everything going up, is the effects of the inflation that has already occurred. We have lived for 15 years at near zero interest rates. That is to say, we have pretended for 15 years that lending/borrowing money has no value attached to it, and as a result we have printed trillions of currency units, and used all that spare currency to increase the amount needed to buy company stocks and homes etc.

That 15 years of inflating the money supply has to be paid for one way or another. Prices are not going down because the inflation has already happened. This has many years still to play out. But most of the general muppetry don’t own any assets and will be suitably distracted by war, scare stories on their teleboxes and crime in nearby neighbourhoods.

For the rest of us it’s time to buy popcorn, hold on to the assets we own, and watch the rebalancing of our respective economies.

Or increase the cost of food and shelter. That solves the economic problem. And if you restrict access to energy, you increase the burden people have to carry. That can all be done through state and local legislation. The problem is people then turn to crime. If you stop prosecuting crimes, they will kill each other off with various substances and/or diseases, and violence. Furthermore, the shocking reality of how most societies operate in the world will terrify the pampered prima-donna classes, and people in fear are more compliant and less inclined to think.

If life becomes very real very quickly, maybe having all those guns is a good thing. An old guy with a gun is far more likely to survive the zombie masses than an old guy with steak knife.

That sounded so much wiser & more enlightened when Ben Kenobi said it.

I genuinely dont understand the economics of batteries, weight and space for drone delivery.