The point here is that we debased the US dollar in the bubble boom from 1983
to 2007 by allowing debt (which creates dollars out of thin air in the banking
system) to grow at 2.65 times the rate of economic growth for two and a half
decades! Creating more dollars than economic growth makes dollars less valuable. When we destroy such debt and dollars in the downturn and debt
deleveraging cycle ahead, dollars will become more scarce and, hence, more
valuable again.
Even states and local municipalities will have to cut costs and pare down debt to survive, and those actions are deflationary as well. Deflation means that you need entirely different investment and business strategies,・・・
州政府や地方自治体も生き残るためにコスト削減や債務圧縮が避けられない。
デフレとなれば,投資やビジネスにおける戦略も全く異なったものになる。
We say that gold and silver are inflation hedges, not deflation hedges. Silver could fall from the $50 seen recently to as low as $6 to $10 in the years ahead. Gold could fall from $1,900-$2,000 to a wider range of $250-$750.
Oil could fall from a high such as $147 in 2008 to as low as $10-$40.
原油は,08年の147ドルから10ドル~40ドルまで下げるかも。
We advise being in safe assets like very-short-term US Treasuries and T-bills, and, better,the US Dollar Index, to preserve your capital―and even more so if you are overseas, to benefit from the likely rise in the US dollar vs. your currency in the years ahead. We think that the greatest risks among all assets to fall in the next 2 to 3 years during “The Great Crash Ahead” could be in silver and gold!
When someone called the South Carolina GOP offering a half million dollars to help finance the state’s Republican presidential primary, state party officials must have thought the offer was too good to be true, and they were right.
That potential donor was comedian Stephan Colbert who, although reportedly serious about donating the money, demanded the primary’s naming rights in exchange.
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) ― In a warning sign that the outperforming luxury sector may be showing some signs of strain, Tiffany & Co. on Tuesday cut its full-year profit outlook after holiday season sales of fine jewelry slowed “markedly” in the U.S. and Europe.
Tiffany’s worldwide sales in the two months ended Dec. 31 rose 7% to $952 million, led by double-digit growth in Asia and Japan. Excluding the currency impact, comparable sales rose 4%.
In the Americas region, which includes the United States, Canada and Latin America, sales rose 4% to $503 million. On a constant-exchange-rate basis, total sales increased 4% and comparable store sales rose 2%. Comparable Americas’ branch store sales rose 3% and New York flagship store sales, about 8% of the company’s total, declined 1%.
Current Comment: Slowing real-wage growth, detailed in Figure 10-4, indicates that Y/Y growth in real consumer spending will deteriorate over the next 1-2 years. This suggests that corporate-profit (S&P 500) earnings growth will also suffer, and raises a strong possibility that the stock market may be headed for another decline.
Current Comment: The recent downtrend in Y/Y real-hourly-earnings comparisons does not bode well for the consumer spending outlook. This, in turn, is a warning sign that we may be facing a renewed slowdown in the economy in general and in corporate profits, with commensurate difficulties for the stock market.
Let me run some numbers by you. Still think the Dow will fall to around 3,800?
Dent: We've got a range of 3,000 to 5,600. Again, bubbles go to where they started. The stock bubble started in late '94. So 3,300 is where a lot of our projections point from different models.
It'll (hit bottom) somewhere between late 2012 and late 2014. Maybe in 2013 you'll see the bottom. If this government, like Japan, can keep stimulating, keep finding new bullets as they have thus far, it could affect timing. But (the Fed) is really running out of bullets.
Dent: And more like 25 percent when you consider the unofficial number of people who have given up looking for work. That 25 percent is Depression level. Even 15 percent is way more than we saw in the worst of '82.
“The boom, not the slump, is the right time for austerity at the Treasury.” So declared John Maynard Keynes in 1937, even as F.D.R. was about to prove him right by trying to balance the budget too soon, sending the United States economy — which had been steadily recovering up to that point — into a severe recession. Slashing government spending in a depressed economy depresses the economy further; austerity should wait until a strong recovery is well under way.
So the real test of Keynesian economics hasn’t come from the half-hearted efforts of the U.S. federal government to boost the economy, which were largely offset by cuts at the state and local levels. It has, instead, come from European nations like Greece and Ireland that had to impose savage fiscal austerity as a condition for receiving emergency loans — and have suffered Depression-level economic slumps, with real G.D.P. in both countries down by double digits.
We entered 2011 amid dire warnings about a Greek-style debt crisis that would happen as soon as the Federal Reserve stopped buying bonds, or the rating agencies ended our triple-A status, or the superdupercommittee failed to reach a deal, or something. But the Fed ended its bond-purchase program in June; Standard & Poor’s downgraded America in August; the supercommittee deadlocked in November; and U.S. borrowing costs just kept falling. In fact, at this point, inflation-protected U.S. bonds pay negative interest: investors are willing to pay America to hold their money.
The bottom line is that 2011 was a year in which our political elite obsessed over short-term deficits that aren’t actually a problem and, in the process, made the real problem — a depressed economy and mass unemployment — worse.
"We're three tickets out, which is obviously true, and one of two that can actually run a national campaign and raise the money," he said, in an apparent jab at Santorum.
Paul's supporters seemed to agree. Tim Sirianni, Jr., 36, and Joe Corbin, 31, said they wouldn't vote for an alternative Republican candidate should Paul fail to clinch the nomination. Sirianni supported then-Democratic candidate Barack Obama in 2008, but caucused for Paul this year. He said he was "hoping to win" or at least "get in the top two," and was disappointed by Tuesday night's outcome.
But longtime Paul supporter Corbin said he wasn't surprised. "Is it lower than expected really?" he asked of Paul's finish. "All I heard all weekend was how Santorum's surging and that Romney's gonna win anyway, so it really kind of looks like how they said it. So I don't know if it's lower than expected per se, but there's an element of disappointment there."
The minister and I also discussed a number of bilateral and regional issues and reviewed the close and ongoing collaboration between Japan and the United States in the aftermath of last March’s earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis.
津波と原発事故,これは,そうですな。
We discussed Japan’s recent move to pursue consultations on joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations to resolve longstanding trade concerns in order to deepen the economic ties to the benefit of both our countries.
TPP。これもそうでしょう。
で,これは。
I also urged that Japan take decisive steps so that it accedes to The Hague Convention on International Parental Child Abduction and address outstanding cases.