Economic Crisis Avoidance Deus ex Machina - Part I: Active Asset Price Inflation - Eric Janszen

[dcarrigg]

Re: Economic Crisis Avoidance Deus ex Machina - Part I: Active Asset Price Inflation - Eric Janszen

I'm not that old, but my experience is that every presidential election is claimed to be some battle for the soul of America. Everyone seems to believe that the opposition candidate is an evil person who is hellbent on radically transforming America into a different and objectively worse country.

I don't think you're wrong, but that's rhetoric. I'm not listening to the rhetoric. I'm looking at the data. Midterm voter turnout was highest in over 100 years. Strike levels could easily hit 50+ year highs this year, they're exceeding the 30 year high set last year. Or the fact that 4 of the 5 largest mass protests in American history happened within the past couple years. Homeownership under 45 down to lowest levels in 50 years. And life expectancy is down, dropping year over year. Inequality back to Hoover levels, and climbing. Political polarization is the highest it has been since the Civil War. Historically, this is what things look like before a pivotal shift in political time precipitated by a wave election, party realignment, war, or some other seismic shift.

There's a chance I could be wrong, but I think it's getting smaller every day, and I'm betting there's too much political pressure for the status quo to continue unabated. I'm truly not making the assessment on what I wish would happen. And I'm not 100% certain exactly which way it will go. I'm just more and more certain every day that the equilibrium is going to break down and be punctuated by a 4-8 year period of serious, rapid change in American politics, institutions, and laws, the likes of which maybe only people born in the 1940s or earlier have any remotely comparable living adult memory of. More than that, often times in US history a presidential candidate makes the politics that allow for such an eventuality. I don't know who that will be, or if it will happen in 2020 or 2024. But I think we're soon due for one who ends up on the money.

Another odd thing that popped to mind the other day, almost all of them on the money packed the court, or tried to. Washington got the first 6 by default. There's the $1 and the 25$. Lincoln packed it. There's the $5 and the 1¢. Grant added members. There's the $50. Jackson too in 1837. There's the $20. Hamilton and Franklin were never presidents. That only leaves Jefferson, who actually shrunk the court down to 5 on the nickel, and FDR on the dime, who famously was the last to try it, but didn't have to thanks to the switch in time that saved 9. I take the fact that multiple presidential candidates are talking about packing the courts again to be yet another piece of evidence for the pile that big, sweeping change is coming. Ideas that would get a candidate in any party laughed out of the room a decade or two ago are now on the table.

There was perhaps a brief opportunity to take another path in the first year or so of Obama's administration, at least before Ted Kennedy died and they lost the possibility of a cloture-proof majority. We were talking about it here. But the Obama admin squandered it. Obama never had a chance again. Wasted it on Obamacare. Trump maybe had one shot too. Wasted it on another regressive tax cut. If either of them actually did something populist, something that would benefit a majority of citizens obviously and directly, instead of things that benefit a select few companies and inside players and narrow populations and do relatively little for the majority, they might have risen to the occasion. But they both did what the lobbyists wanted and blew all the energy and unified government they came in on, and suffered particularly brutal losses in their first midterms partly as a result.

Eventually somebody will get in there, on a big enough wave, and actually do the thing the lobbyists don't want that benefit a majority of the public in real, tangible ways that people like. And that will be the rare president who actually gains seats after their first midterm. In history, they don't all disappoint.

[DSpencer]

Re: Economic Crisis Avoidance Deus ex Machina - Part I: Active Asset Price Inflation - Eric Janszen

i agree that that is the overarching political situation, and that that is the most important thing in a grand socio-economic-political sense. i read a somewhat disturbing take down of buttegieg this morning, but i'll quote him in saying that we are not fighting about the next presidential cycle, we are struggling to define the next ERA of american, and world history.

I'm not that old, but my experience is that every presidential election is claimed to be some battle for the soul of America. Everyone seems to believe that the opposition candidate is an evil person who is hellbent on radically transforming America into a different and objectively worse country.

[jk]

Re: Economic Crisis Avoidance Deus ex Machina - Part I: Active Asset Price Inflation - Eric Janszen

I honestly think we're beyond the point of economic arguments meaning anything. The next crisis will not be number driven any more than Grant gave a shit about Sherman burning down infrastructure. It's a moral battle now. Either Americans deserve some basic rights of citizenship or they do not. Cries for civil unions or Missouri compromises are irrelevant. Only one vision can win. John Brown's body lies moulding in its grave. But his soul keeps marching on.

i agree that that is the overarching political situation, and that that is the most important thing in a grand socio-economic-political sense. i read a somewhat disturbing take down of buttegieg this morning, but i'll quote him in saying that we are not fighting about the next presidential cycle, we are struggling to define the next ERA of american, and world history.

nonetheless, i'm personally at a stage of life in which i need to think about asset protection - i'm too old to think primarily about growth, though a bit of the latter is part of the former. so i spend time thinking about how the evolving global geopolitical disorganization will affect the financial markets. [i also spend time thinking about how the political situation might evolve, but that's both out of pure intellectual interest as well as a related background analysis to set probabilities for the financial scenarios.]

this thread is titled "economic crisis avoidance ...." i'm not at all sure we'll avoid an economic crisis. but whatever happens in this transition, the kind that happens only every 80-100 years, i'm trying to figure out the optimal defensive stance.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Economic Crisis Avoidance Deus ex Machina - Part I: Active Asset Price Inflation - Eric Janszen

here's a different plausible disaster scenario

https://deep-throat-ipo.blogspot.com...eport.html?m=1

I honestly think we're beyond the point of economic arguments meaning anything. The next crisis will not be number driven any more than Grant gave a shit about Sherman burning down infrastructure. It's a moral battle now. Either Americans deserve some basic rights of citizenship or they do not. Cries for civil unions or Missouri compromises are irrelevant. Only one vision can win. John Brown's body lies moulding in its grave. But his soul keeps marching on.

[jk]

Re: Economic Crisis Avoidance Deus ex Machina - Part I: Active Asset Price Inflation - Eric Janszen

here's a different plausible disaster scenario

https://deep-throat-ipo.blogspot.com...eport.html?m=1

[vt]

Re: Economic Crisis Avoidance Deus ex Machina - Part I: Active Asset Price Inflation - Eric Janszen

Regret you are not getting the value you expected. Your reasons are respected.

I feel there is excellent value here, including the long term view of the global economy and how to interpret the Fed and interest rates, oil, and gold.

Finster's intermediate work also adds great value.

[LargoWinch]

Re: Economic Crisis Avoidance Deus ex Machina - Part I: Active Asset Price Inflation - Eric Janszen

So this post didn't age well.

Maybe Chris, but that doesn't make it untrue isn't?

In any case, I resubscribed to iTulip because of the value I found here originally. It was disappointing that nothing happened here for the last two year of my previous membership. I paid up again on the basis that the site was going to be re-vamped though so far it seems like a graveyard has more life.

I think nothing much has been happening since 2013 when the markets reached their previous 2007 highs and it became overwhelmingly clear that the main market forecast failed.

In addition, now that EJ is CEO of VirZoom, how much effort can you realistically expect him to put into iTulip? This leads a critical mind to draw further conclusions, which I will refrain to express here.

[seobook]

Re: EJ’s Secret Message

Anyways, you ever recall anything like this now? When's the last time the Fed talked about NOT doing rate hikes and got more dovish and the market response was to nosedive?

I think some of the recent move over the past couple days was combo of...

• people who were riding the recovery from some point early in the year wanting to take some chips off the table in case the Fed lays an egg
• the China trade war breakdown motif. this always seems to pop up a day before the Fed announces their decisions, though I am not sure if the rumor leaks come from
  • China: which is trying to either hold down the value of the Dollar or make the Fed look politically captured or add volatility to the US stock market to make any tightening have an outsized impact by swinging momentum
  • Trump administration: which wants all the glory for up days, but wants to constrain the Fed by ensuring the Fed is wearing egg on their face & owning any sharp down moves driven by their policy changes

Today the US stock market is once again on fire. Growth up, value up, large cap up, small cap up, etc.

Financials is the only category not up on the day (and that makes sense since so many banks still offer about 0.09% on their "high interest" savings accounts while the rates on home loans fell about that much on the dovish fed announcement yesterday.

[dcarrigg]

Re: EJ’s Secret Message

I find that the hardest part about trading.
Someone told me poor traders kill their winners too soon and let their losers run too long. That's me in a nutshell, so I would take my chips off the table.

While it's undeniable that Pd is at the best price in several years, one wonders how far it might still rise.
Chatter says Russia is in fact clamping down on exports to manipulate prices higher, so there could be another leg up about to unfold.
A better trader than me might just let the winner run and see how far it goes.

It really is more family feud than jeopardy, isn't it? Only family feud where the survey count is dollars instead of people...

Anyways, you ever recall anything like this now? When's the last time the Fed talked about NOT doing rate hikes and got more dovish and the market response was to nosedive?

[touchring]

Re: Economic Crisis Avoidance Deus ex Machina - Part I: Active Asset Price Inflation - Eric Janszen

Could explain some of the recent rise in Pd.

But it doesn't quite make sense if you look at the plunging sales of cars in China.

Sounds more like hoarding by speculators not quite unlike what the Hunt brothers did to silver many years ago.

[Chris]

Re: Economic Crisis Avoidance Deus ex Machina - Part I: Active Asset Price Inflation - Eric Janszen

No, i meant the post by LargoWinch showing the decline into December 18.

if by "this post" you mean ej's post that started this thread, i disagree. the thread is less than 4 months old. since that time the fed has halted its rate increases and i expect qt to change back to qe in short order. qe = the fed buying a lot of bonds = a large scale asset purchase, which is what ej predicted.

we are all becoming japanese, economically speaking. the u.s is just 10 years behind japan. the boj began buying equities, not just bonds, in 2013. draw your own conclusions.

[LargoWinch]

Re: EJ’s Secret Message

I find that the hardest part about trading.
Someone told me poor traders kill their winners too soon and let their losers run too long. That's me in a nutshell, so I would take my chips off the table.

While it's undeniable that Pd is at the best price in several years, one wonders how far it might still rise.
Chatter says Russia is in fact clamping down on exports to manipulate prices higher, so there could be another leg up about to unfold.
A better trader than me might just let the winner run and see how far it goes.

The Platinum group of metal is so thinly traded/supplied, that offer and demand dictactes prices. This is unlike iTulip's view that somehow Platinum is linked to the US dollar or other such nonsense.

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: Economic Crisis Avoidance Deus ex Machina - Part I: Active Asset Price Inflation - Eric Janszen

Stumbled upon a possible new increased demand for palladium. No surprise, it's China.

China has been hard at work to find some good use for all their coal other than just burning it to make electricity. Any answer that also reduces their need to import petroleum is best.
Coal-to-methanol and coal-to-olefins appear to be the winners. Use the methanol for motor fuel, and build a petrochemical industry that doesn't need petroleum.

Both require lots of great catalysts, which in turn require palladium. Pd/Cu is mentioned as an especially good catalyst for some important processes.
So just when Russia chokes off supply China needs lots more.
Could explain some of the recent rise in Pd.

[DSpencer]

Re: Economic Crisis Avoidance Deus ex Machina - Part I: Active Asset Price Inflation - Eric Janszen

if by "this post" you mean ej's post that started this thread, i disagree. the thread is less than 4 months old. since that time the fed has halted its rate increases and i expect qt to change back to qe in short order. qe = the fed buying a lot of bonds = a large scale asset purchase, which is what ej predicted.

we are all becoming japanese, economically speaking. the u.s is just 10 years behind japan. the boj began buying equities, not just bonds, in 2013. draw your own conclusions.

I assume he was talking about LargoWinch's post showing that after EJ said there would not be a crash, stocks had a sharp downturn for a few months. I think your point is the same as what Chis is saying: now that more time has passed this event might prove EJ more right than wrong.

The problem I have is, without specific time frames or what constitutes a big enough drop, how can anything be objectively determined?

[thriftyandboringinohio]

Re: EJ’s Secret Message

It might be time to sell Pd and buy Pt. Pt is very cheap now relative to Au, and by historic standards. It may be auto catalyst driven.
An "insider" from RS-resources recommended Pt to me and I bought 20 oz. I have poor knowlege of his track record though. First time working
with him. Pd is not rising because of inflation. Inflation drives gold, not so much Pd.

I find that the hardest part about trading.
Someone told me poor traders kill their winners too soon and let their losers run too long. That's me in a nutshell, so I would take my chips off the table.

While it's undeniable that Pd is at the best price in several years, one wonders how far it might still rise.
Chatter says Russia is in fact clamping down on exports to manipulate prices higher, so there could be another leg up about to unfold.
A better trader than me might just let the winner run and see how far it goes.