Public

I have been slow to throw my hat into the ring with organizations dedicated to bringing intelligent responses to our predicament. The reason is that I have a list of requirements that have to be met:

• The proposed actions have to address the real challenges that we face.
• The organization has to be strictly non-partisan and neutral or silent on a wide range of belief-centered positions.

I know that doesn’t seem like a very long list of requirements, but it turns out that it eliminates an enormous number of organizations and individuals from consideration as affiliate partners.

On the first requirement, there are a lot of efforts out there that are either in denial about the actual predicament in which we find ourselves or are approaching solutions in a socially-cautious, status-quo fashion.  Their incremental efforts run a very high risk of being in the category of ‘too little, too late,‘ and are therefore largely ineffective, even if energetic and well-meaning.  Even if I am glad they exist and wish them well, I simply have a hard time getting excited by efforts that, in my opinion, are badly overmatched by the pace and scope of the changes that are coming.

I give really, really boring advice. For years it has not changed a whit, and that’s just not the way to run a newsletter business.  There should be some movement, some pizazz, new things to ponder.  Instead I just keep saying the same thing over and over again.

Buy gold (and silver, too).

This is what I’ve been saying for the past seven years, ever since gold was in the $300’s and silver was under $5, so you might be tempted to think I am simply another gold bug.  While I confess to finding a certain allure in heavy bullion coins – they sound great tossed on a counter and feel good in my hand – I am not really a gold bug.

Instead, what I am is a gigantic, unrelenting, anti-fiat-currency bug.  Well, at least I am anti-mismanaged fiat currencies, but that pretty much encompasses them all to varying degrees.

As with all investment,s I have an exit strategy in my mind that will dictate when I sell my gold and silver to place those funds in other productive investments.  Unfortunately, that day seems further away than ever.

Let me explain why.

I may have to get a divorce from the news, as nothing adds up anymore.

For example, even as the stock market surges along, as one might expect at the tail end of trillions in stimulus and bailouts, and retail sales apparently roared ahead in March according to the Commerce Department, small businesses are as gloomy as they’ve ever been.

I really do have a difficult time trying to understand the source of the disconnect between these entirely divergent reports:

I was asked to write a once-a-month Market Observation for Financial Sense.  Here’s the first one (posted today, Feb 10): 

From time to time, I think it’s a good idea to stop squinting at the short-term market wiggles and pull our heads back for a wide-angle view.  Now would be a good time, so that’s what we’re going to do.  For the record, I also happen to believe that close-up market analysis loses some of its potency during times of immense official intervention.  As with any subsidy program, prices become distorted and often fail to tell the real story, which is absolutely true with respect to interest rates and, by extension, the risk premium for stocks.

Back to the story.  Where the current crisis has been described using millions of words in thousands of articles packed with arcane acronyms (such as TALF, CDO, and CMBS), perplexing regulatory lapses and with a degree of complexity that dwarfs the Apollo moon mission, I can explain why the whole thing happened using just three words.

Too.  Much.  Debt.