Posted on 03/11/2003 5:05:30 PM PST by sourcery
Yippee! How exciting! I'm so very happy for you.
What great news. Thanks for sharing. ; - )
Wait a sec, I thought depressions were caused by a lack of consumer confidence. Now you're telling me that they're caused by too much consumer confidence?
The truth is, I've been hearing about how the sky is falling ever since high school back in the 1970s. There was no hyperinflation then, the commies didn't take over America. There was no Great Depression despite Time Magazine tracking the 1987 stock market crash against the 1929 crash. There was no Great Depression of 1991, despite the bestseller by that name. Then the trade deficit was to have made us forever subordinate to Japan. We're still waiting for Ross Perot's predictions of federal deficits out of control (made back in 1996, no less) leading to economic collapse. And of course, that Giant Sucking Sound you hear is Ross Perot backpedaling about his prediction that NAFTA would send all our jobs to Mexico (then why are all the Mexicans coming here???).
It's only to be expected that once the unemployment rate rose by two ticks above full employment, the Chicken Littles would start screaming.
Yes, I'm in denial. I have thirty years of experience telling me that denial works, whereas listening to these Bonapartes is a good way to flush all your money down the drain.
If only I had bought T-bills at 13% in the early 1980s! But the doom-and-gloomers told me that the economy was about to go into hyperinflation, so bonds were a waste of time.
Kudlow should not be relied upon for particular market predictions; however, his insight into the impact of the Clinton tax hike was ahead of the curve. In spotting macro trends, he's worth a listen.
Yes. And slap me if I ever do that again. : - )
I agree that value investing is generally a good strategy. It worked for Warren Buffet, obviously. However, the time horizon for success can be long, and there are times when it would be better to stay in cash, or to go short/buy put options. Now is such a time, in my opinion. Note that Buffet's net worth has gone down the last few years. His situation makes it highly inconvenient for him to go totally to cash. Such are the problems of being a billionaire, I suppose.
As for gold, my position (which I've repeated here many times) is that gold and gold stocks are still in a secular down market. The action over the past two years has been a bear market rally, which is now over. Nevertheless, I'm expecting a short term gold rally starting tomorrow. But the rally should fail to exceed February's highs.
Yep. If the thread had collected a large number of "I agree" type posts, I'd probably be selling all my bearish positions tomorrow morning, and then looking to open some bullish long positions! But the VIX is only at 38.08, and the put/call ratio is only at 0.81--which are phenomenal numbers, given the recent price action of the indices.
Agreed! Over a sufficiently long time scale, the market trend will always be up, barring an unthinkable catastrophe such as a major nuclear war or a large asteroid strike. But market history shows that downtrends can last decades, even centuries--just like uptrends--although a downtrend usually takes less time than the preceding uptrend. The question is, is the current downtrend a correction of the 90s, a correction of the last half of the 20th century, a correction of the advance from 1789, or a correction of the advance from the Dark Ages?
The bubble burst on the Clinton economy (if there ever was one) and the Pubbies must be the bad guys. That's the most wrong headed thinking since FDR. Government can't make a free market better, it can lower the tax imposed on people and businesses, but that's all it can do. It can release business from rules and regulations which cost business money, but that's about it. In a free market economy it's up to business to produce and make a profit.
Clinton made it easy for business to be dishonest, much like the example he set for the rest of the country. A stock market that climbed to 11K on speculative earnings? Sure, I got into that market, and I made a huge amount of doe, but I knew it was bogus, and I knew it couldn't last. So, out I got with a bundle of cash. I'm back into the market now, on a bargin basement buying spree. It's good that "blue chips" are down, now I can afford to buy them. We bought a cabin on the lake with our "windfall" from the stocks we invested in. Converted from one investment to another, stock to property. If you know how to do this, and it doesn't take a Wall Street Broker to do it, you can make dreams come true.
Gordon Gecko said it best, "Greed is a good thing". But, you must know when to get out or you will get burned. I have a profit sharing plan, I also have a 401K plan. Of the two, the profit sharing has added 20K this year to my retirement fund. The 401 is sucking hind tit at 8K. The profit sharing makes you work harder and be more involved in the company's business, it also makes you more frugal with the company's funds. Your profit sharing is also the shining light of your work. It's a bonus that keeps on giving. Pure capitalism at it's best. A bonus here, a bonus there and before you know it you are making more money than you ever did in a hospital environment.
Private practice is really a boon to the good professional. A big private practice is even better. Money is not the goal, security is the goal. When I was 34 I thought that I was indestructable, now I'm 55 and I just want to retire to my cabin on my lake. I'm tired and discouraged. My patients treat me like I'm their enemy, when all I want to do is help them. Malpractice insurance is through the roof, but if you don't have it, you are SCREWED. Group policies are much lower if you establish guidelines and stick to them.
As much as I dearly love what I do, I'm tired, and I'm disenchanted. I educated myself, I disiplined myself for a life in medicine, a life that was selfless to help others. Now, I can get sued for touching a patient. I have to touch the patient to help them. A part of the physical exam is touching the patient, for Chist sakes.
I don't want to do this anymore, I want to retire to our cabin on the lake and just fish, maybe play some golf on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
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