So if emerging markets are going to outcompete western companies then... invest in emerging markets?
Quantifying the political risk is almost impossible in many cases.
End of Golden Era for Investors Spells Troubles
111–120 of 164 posts
Re: End of Golden Era for Investors Spells Troubles
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Gen X was standing on the same rug as you guys when it got pulled out. Take a look around next time you're in WalMart or McDonalds. All those 40ish looking people that look weirdly out of place in their uniform shirt? Yeah, that's us since the boomers nuked domestic manufacturing and construction wages made a run for the bottom. Don't even get me started on retirement. sigh
>All those 40ish looking people that look weirdly out of place in their uniform shirt? Yeah, that's us since the boomers nuked domestic manufacturing and construction wages made a run for the bottom. technology and economy do change. The changes can't be stopped. The question is how you adapt to them. When many people suddenly lost their job as soldiers 70 years ago there was in particular GI bill created to help man…
Tech companies are hiring a tiny percentage of applicants. The sciences are extremely difficult for even the best people to break into. Why do you think flooding the market with even more "information economy" workers would do anything other than depress wages?
Re: End of Golden Era for Investors Spells Troubles
#113I think it can get much worse than that. I don't know why people think the current levels of accumulation of debt are sustainable but there is a limit to what even the US can roll in term of debt. All developped nations are at around 100% debt to GDP, more than 200% if you include private debt, and growing at 3-5% per annum. Now does anyone really think that sometime soon any developped country will start making publ…
As someone with a lot of student loans, I welcome the hyperinflation.
Re: End of Golden Era for Investors Spells Troubles
#114What is really going on is that the uberwealthy elite (.01%) have built their empires on exploiting third world countries via central bank douchbaggery and IMF corruption. (to elaborate on that point alone is a thesis paper waiting to happen)
Now that all the third worlds have been exploited into the ground, and the cannibals have no new prey, they are turning inward on their own populations, and are already in the process of extracting wealth from the first world countries.
Where are they extracting it from? The upper-middle-class wannabe wealthy. When all the "rich" people in your neighbourhood are actually upside down in everything because they jumped into the debt based system, they only seem wealthy. When the banks start calling dues, stuff will start collapsing (as can be seen in my area of the Texas oil boom.) When stuff collapses, it's the perfect opportunity for the big players to buy up assets for pennies on the dollar.
As for investing, it's the same thing. You have huge players who have the ability to do things like spike/brown LIBOR and other super-shady backroom stuff that manipulates the market, all the while increases in cyber-security of the trading platforms is going to muscle out all the hungry investor startups trying to do the same thing. The entire stock market system is a huge ponzi scheme, but instead of crashing down, the crashes are created and used as huge pivot points to profit for those in the know.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again:
Bankers are the true terrorists.
Re: End of Golden Era for Investors Spells Troubles
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your assuming US was paying all of the interest on debt. They where rolling over principle and interest which causes things to spiral. Also, US had negative inflation in 1955 and overall low rates from 1950-1969. It only spiked after that. 1974 to 1982 where generally bad. http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-in...
You can get inflation in two ways. One way: people and firms are expending more money that the economy can digest. If a government wanted to compensate this, could raise taxes or, ironically, retiring money from the system emitting debt. The other way: the money that people is expending is the same but the economy, for some reason, shrink. That would be a supply shock. That is what happened in the 70's with the oil c…
That's not really true. At its core Money has value as a means to pay Taxes and Debt. If the economy shrinks people need to pay less in Taxes which lowers the demand for dollars. At the same time it's harder to pay debt which generally causes deflation not inflation. Similarly, if the Government spends more than it takes in by "Printing Money" that also devalues its currency.
For really high rates of inflation the only viable option is for the government to print money. EX: If your inflation rate is 18% the economy would have to be 1/5th the size in 10 years and 2.5% in 20 years which just flat does not happen.
Re: End of Golden Era for Investors Spells Troubles
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
> US still has a significant chunk of WWII debt after one of the greatest sustained economic booms of all time. Let's pretend this is true. (I doubt it.) Let's keep in mind that US debt is owed in bonds, redeemable in US dollars. If I get a 30 year mortgage in 1945 and simply rollover the debt whenever it comes due, but my wealth has increased dramatically, my mortgage does not matter. If I take out a 100k mortgage a…
I think you are discounting the Zimbabwe and Weimar Republic experiences a bit too quickly. The equation I print money = I create inflation does hold. Right now we see a very concentrated inflation in real estate and stocks which are not counted in the CPI indices, because the money printing is done through bank balance sheets and asset managers (by buying treasury and ABS securities) but as soon as the gvt starts pa…
I've always wondered what the reasoning for not including housing in the CPI is.
Re: End of Golden Era for Investors Spells Troubles
#117I don't know if there is reason to be either optimistic or pessimistic, but let's not be simplistic. The long run is incredibly hard to predict, with all the cool tech around the corner and scientific advances that may be available in 30-50 years, the stock market may simply not be a big factor in most people's lives. Maybe that is the worst fear of a company like Bloomberg that exists to be the ESPN of financial ran…
Those cool tech and scientific discoveries won't help you when you get kicked out of your house for not paying your mortgage or property taxes. The biggest problems society faces aren't technological: they're political.
Re: End of Golden Era for Investors Spells Troubles
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can get inflation in two ways. One way: people and firms are expending more money that the economy can digest. If a government wanted to compensate this, could raise taxes or, ironically, retiring money from the system emitting debt. The other way: the money that people is expending is the same but the economy, for some reason, shrink. That would be a supply shock. That is what happened in the 70's with the oil c…
That's not really true. At its core Money has value as a means to pay Taxes and Debt. If the economy shrinks people need to pay less in Taxes which lowers the demand for dollars. At the same time it's harder to pay debt which generally causes deflation not inflation. Similarly, if the Government spends more than it takes in by "Printing Money" that also devalues its currency. For really high rates of inflation the on…
" If the economy shrinks people need to pay less in Taxes which lowers the demand for dollars."
If the demand for dollars is due to taxes, more taxes create more demand and it's not decided by the size of the economy but by the level of demanded taxes.
" Similarly, if the Government spends more than it takes in by "Printing Money" that also devalues its currency."
I suppose you mean, devalues its currency respect another currencies. This is not always the case, but if it is, that would imply that imports are expensive and export cheaper.
At the end of the day, what counts is the real economy. If in order to reduce debt you are downsizing the real economy you are not doing a good business.
I don't understand your last paragraph.
Re: End of Golden Era for Investors Spells Troubles
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Those percentages aren't volumes, they're dollars. The profitability is built in to the numbers.
First, there is a giant spike of exports from ~1944 to 1952 where exports hit ~5% GDP over imports. This brought a lot of money not just to businesses, but also individual households. Imports only really grow past exports in ~1975. Second, %GDP just says how much money exchanged hands. The important number for wealth accumulation is value capture. Aka Profit not Revenue. China has a huge chunk of worldwide manufactur…
Those exports were lend/lease and the Marshall plan. They were funded with US Govt. debt. Which is to say, they were funded with domestic stimulus spending.
Re: End of Golden Era for Investors Spells Troubles
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
also the article says there's two ways it could go, low growth or similar growth compared to the past 30 years. given that these predictions are always wrong i'm going to say some big revolution in technology comes our way and we see higher than previous growth and everythings going to be great. put that in a headline.
Something like skynet?
Yes. Via chatbots. Dead serious.