Looks like it's almost time to sell the gold and by the Dow.
Posted on 08/03/2008 5:07:56 PM PDT by shrinkermd
When measured in ounces of Gold, the DOW has been in a secular bear market since peaking in late 1999.
Back in 1999, it took 45 ounces of gold to buy the DJIA. Today it only takes 12.33 ounces of gold to buy the DOW! Cutting the Fed Funds target rate from 6.50% in January 2001 to 1.0% in June 2003 may have inflated the US stock market out of its bear market when priced in dollars but it had consequences that we are feeling today.
Some day it will take 1 oz of gold to buy the dow.
So in other words, it’s.....Bush’s fault.
No, Greenspan’s.
We were digging around the safe for whatever, and came across 20 ounces of silver "rounds" that wifey had bought before Y2K....went to the coin store and much better than doubled her money from late 1999.
Looks like it's almost time to sell the gold and by the Dow.
It's now feasible to begin work to develop a perfect and much less expensive substitute for gold and other precious metals.
I’m sorry, a “secular” bear market? That’s the first time I’ve heard that particular adjective used in that particular way, could you explain what you mean?
It's now feasible to begin work to develop a perfect and much less expensive substitute for gold and other precious metals.
The hell, man? The purpose precious metals serve is as a medium of exchange. There is no "substitute" that wouldn't be equally rare and expensive; the fact that they are rare and expensive is what makes them useful media of exchange.
Secular=long term as contrasted to short term and intermediate term. Usually, a secular bull or bear market lasts for years.
I think he means .... God is in the tabernacle ... and when God is sold, He's become secular.
(An old thought process I had when I was saved .... no one talks loud in a bank ... Shhhhhhh ... God is in the tabernacle)
Greenspan did screw up by keeping rates too high in 1999/2000, but W did reappoint him, plus W is one of the worst economic presidents to ever hold the office.
Actually it IS bush’s fault. Keynesian Bush initiated an inflation as soon as he was in office and has accelerated the rate twice since. He is doing what governments normally do when they spend too much, he inflates the currency so that the government is paying back borrowed money denominated in Dollars with the agreed upon number of dollars but those dollars are smaller than those borrowed. At the same time his FED is manipulating the interest rate so that for a long time it has been negative in terms of constant dollars so that the rate doesn’t rise to offset inflation. The government is thus welshing on a large portion of the National Debt. That is actually a large increase in effective taxation because that money comes straight out of the Economy.
WHY?
What in the world would prompt someone to even look at that metric?
He hired Greenspan knowing what Greenspan is.
Rare and expensive are synonyms. Gold doesn’t corrode either. That is its main quality as a store of value and the secret to its continuing status.
Unfortunately successful politicians in the main do not understand economics at all. In the last century only Coolidge and Reagan actually understood it. Reagan’s college degree was in Economics. Politicians get sucked in by Keynesians whose schtick is to convince politicians that the secret to monetary stability and to raising government income without raising taxes is in manipulating money. They tell pols that nothing really works unless the experts, themselves, are turning knobs and pulling levers. This sounds wonderful to pols who do not know how money and markets work. Bush said he is a “conservative Keynesian” which means he wants outcomes that conservatives want but the Keynesian methods cannot produce such outcomes. Even if they make the “right adjustments” their reading of signals is so slow and partial that the situation has reversed before they get their “fix” instituted and they just wind up with wild swings.
Gold, also measured in dollars (at least for those of us here in the USA) is merely an investment vehicle that competes with stocks for investment dollars.
Comparing the DOW to the value of gold at any given time simply compares the relative attractiveness of the two investment vehicles — and in a rather inexact way considering the probable mismatch of investment horizons (that is to say, people buying gold on any given date are probably not thinking of holding it the same length of time as those who are buying stocks on that same day.)
What's more, it isn't really possible to make sense of the two investment vehicles by comparing this particular window of time. You'd have to go a lot further back to get an accurate picture.
Just my opinion of course — I'm certainly no expert.
Yeah. 6 years of phenomenal growth after inheriting a recession is really bad.
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