Posted on 08/27/2015 3:15:14 PM PDT by blam
Bill Bonner, Bonner and Partners
August 27, 2015
BALTIMORE, Maryland Is Donald Trump broke yet?
We dont know. But at the end of the first quarter, investors held about $24 trillion in stocks. Stock prices are down about 10% since then leaving the rich $2.4 trillion less rich.
Government bonds have generally gone up. Junk-grade corporate bonds have gone down.
And real estate?
It takes longer to react. Real estate is not marked to market immediately. Buyers and sellers discover prices slowly.
Phony Wealth
The wealth created in Stage III of the U.S. credit boom was largely phony. It came as the Fed dropped the price of money to zero.
Underpriced credit gave the gamblers, schemers, and cronies the wherewithal to manipulate markets and bid up their own assets.
But now
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
But Stephens warning is not supposed to pinpoint the moment when stocks sell off. As he put it, the 50%-plus decline in U.S. stocks he sees coming appears likely to start within the next three months.
If hes right, we are just at the beginning of that decline, not the end. What youve seen so far was just the cats first pounce.
On paper. Unless the companies go belly up, or they were planning on selling the stocks, it hasn't really changed their wealth. If you owned 5% of a profitable company a week ago, you still own 5% of a profitable company.
It’s called “Deflation” and it’s a Bitch.
Central banks around the world know it and are using the only mechanism they have to fight it.
That mechanism is to create “Inflation” by printing money via QE* in order to boost “asset prices” that “may/should/could” be used to secure capital for investment.
Risk has its rewards, and there is no “trickle down” risk occurring.
“On paper. Unless the companies go belly up, or they were planning on selling the stocks, it hasn’t really changed their wealth. If you owned 5% of a profitable company a week ago, you still own 5% of a profitable company.”
Unless of course you want to sell. Then you’re SOL.
Right?
I am an appraiser (and an investor--not in RE but in biotech and tech--mostly IBB and QQQ) so I watch RE prices daily. And demand and supply.
If When Trump wins the general election, this market will take off.
That's not how things work.
It's called "Mark to Market".
Look it up.
Dr Copper knows.
That's what I said. But "the rich" don't have to sell them for their retirement. The billionaires can afford to hold them, and buy more at the bottom.
I’m going under the assumption that they’ll just keep the global printing presses going until it all comes down and the single currency and world government can be ushered in without any resistance.
But long before then the elites will be well positioned to profit from the collapse, or at least out of harm’s way, and ready to take their seats at the NWO table.
That day may be tomorrow or a decade from now. It’s safest to assume it’s tomorrow.
That’s why Warren Buffet was wiped out in 2008, right?
Copper Knows.
No doubt.
Any money needed in the next 5-7 yrs should not be invested in equities.
This sort of common sense advice has been around for yrs. Also no one should ever invest money they cannot afford to lose. The stock market is a gamble and there are no guarantees.
Buffet is a tool for the “retail mind”.
His hedging activities are legend.
The y-axis needs to be grounded at Zer0.
I haven’t done the study myself, but I suspect that there is a MASSIVE disconnect between the CRB index and the yield curve since the advent of QE*.
The CRB has been saying slow down while the FEDS have been creating an artificial market.
I suspect that if you looked at the CRB vs. the Yield curve prior to QE you would see the CRB leading long rates lower, historically.
Not anymore.
Disconnected.
“Its called Deflation and its a Bitch.
Central banks around the world know it and are using the only mechanism they have to fight it.
That mechanism is to create Inflation by printing money via QE* in order to boost asset prices that may/should/could be used to secure capital for investment.
I am not sure that is the only way to fight it. I could be wrong here, but...
We have extreme regulations and taxes that are a huge boat anchor on businesses and people. It seems to me that if the governments were to remove these boat anchor regulations and taxes that are weighing down businesses and people, then the economy would really start to take off and the businesses, people, and the economies would really grow.
With QE*, we have just exacerbated the tax problem, making the boat anchor much worse on businesses and people.
If the removing of the regulations and taxes had started in 2008, I believe we would be having a robust economy now, and not still mired in a depression that is much worse than that one started in 1929.
My point is billionaires do just fine in market crashes. Not the house of cards shysters (though they usually just lose other people’s money), but the real super rich. The Buffets, Gates and Waltons of the world don’t really “lose” that money, because they weren’t going to sell anyway.
I agree.
And I also agree that the Fed’s QE* was the right thing to do.
They were/are buying time for innovation to take hold but without the tax and regulatory reforms their efforts have only created a different asset bubble.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.