Ghost Economy by Betty Crocker

Hey dough boy, what's cooking?

Well, the Fed have avoided several market crashes to this point.  Is that a good thing or bad?  0 percent interest rates are crazy, it’s lunacy.  David Stockman,"Okay, so no one sees it coming until suddenly there is an event, a black swan, something unexpected or unpredicted that tells everybody that the emperor is naked.  You know who is naked?  The Fed.  They’re running a con game." (end Stockman)  

There is a lot to unravel: the Fed’s $4.5-trillion balance sheet holds $1.8 trillion in mortgage-backed securities and $2.4 trillion in Treasuries.  As they mature, the Fed replaces them by buying more.  The question, then, is how would the Fed respond.  The answer, according to a Deutsche Bank analysis of the future shape of the Fed's balance sheet, is with another $1 trillion liquidity injection.

I guess at this point we could close down all manufacturing, service and still have a stock market.  Railroad carload delivery is at the same as the end of 2015 in Nov.  New orders for manufactured goods in the United States increased 0.4% percent in March 2017.  The Baltic Exchange’s main sea freight index, tracking rates for ships carrying dry bulk commodities, fell for the tenth straight session on Tuesday, March 28, hurt by weaker rates across all vessel segments.

The housing bubble in Canada, Toronto, where last month average selling prices surged by 33%.  Home Capital Group, over 70% of the company's deposit base had been withdrawn, a $2 billion emergency line of credit keeps the company afloat.  Canada's Equitable Group, another alternative mortgage lender, said Monday (May 1) it had started seeing a decrease in deposit balances, traditionally a bank contagion (run) is taking place.  The same is taking place in London, foreign investors particularly China, are sweeping up real-estate at records highs.  In this QE lifted market (all countries are doing it) tangible value is a reality, because gold and silver are manipulated and it cost a premium to store your gold, ah I would not use a bank.

Wall Street -- Update Monday 5/8/17 The CBOE Volatility Index VIX, -6.15%  slides to 9.72 intraday, hitting its lowest level since 1993.  Based on options contracts on the S&P 500 index (SPX, -0.08%) 30 days in the future, has only finished in the single digits on 10 occasions.  The VIX is called the fear factor, fear to settle  into the market. 

How about foreign bonds and treasuries?  Japan has dumped $66 billion the largest since 2002. , China’s holdings of US Treasuries have plunged by $215.2 billion, or 17%, over the most recent 12 reporting months through November, to just above $1 trillion.  So who is buying all these Treasuries – the Fed, China, and Japan – have stepped away, and when in fact China, Japan, and other countries have become net sellers, and when the Fed is thinking of shedding some of the Treasuries on its balance sheet, as nearly $900 billion in net new supply (to fund the US government) flooded the market over the past 12 months? So who's buying them?  If there was ever a ghost ship, this is the one.

You know all around the world much of the population class does not seem to matter anymore along with human rights and the mother Earth.  I would wager the world is tired of war -- with that, let this ghost burn out gentleman!!!

 

World Monopoly let's have a Look

A real game player Mr. Buffett

 If you really run some recon on the financial markets by what is offered from large investment groups like Goldman Sachs, (you need to read that) well your best interest is not at hand. This is the world of the Monopoly game and we're all on the board, oh the creatures of this legal gambling own the board and run the game.  The tools created are made up by man, just like anything else that comes knocking.  What you don't get to see in this game is the time of inception (until it hits the market) and when the plug will be pulled, a bubble if you will.  The Banks and investment institutions create all this crap and from their web of business and influence have weaved their way into the US Treasury (Federal Reserve) and governments around the globe.  Now with that in mind, you only want to work with a business you can stomach no need to be nerve racked by an institution who is only going to rip your guts out.

Education is expensive of any end play but what's important here you can certainly participate in the game.  Market timing is not so much of when to get in or out but what you are buying, this is most important for the long run.  Just look at a stock like McDonald's (I'm loving this)  had nothing to do with the Subprime, Swaps, Derivative and all the other crap that will come down the pike.  Move away from what you don't really understand and certainly, don't let some investment group steer you.

We all see today what the games interest really is and has always been, profit for the board of directors, hell we all need profit from our efforts but not at a point where you screw your customer to get ahead.  Now if you look at some of this those who cause such crap are paying for it.  The Feds and SEC are using JP Morgan Chase as a punching bag to a point the board of directors is asking "when is this going to end", oh the poor dears!

So let's move into a better light of financial strength and growth and what better role model than the man himself, Warren Buffett who is chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is widely considered the most successful investor of the 20th century.  Even as a child, Buffett displayed an interest in making and saving money.  He went door to door selling chewing gum, Coca-Cola, or weekly magazines.  For a while, he worked in his grandfather's grocery store.  While still in high school he was successful in making money by delivering newspapers, selling golfballs and stamps, and detailing cars, among other means.  Filing his first income tax return in 1944, Buffett took a $35 deduction for the use of his bicycle and watch on his paper route.  In 1945, in his sophomore year of high school, Buffett and a friend spent $25 to purchase a used pinball machine, which they placed in the local barber shop. Within months, they owned several machines in different barber shops.  

Wow, a true businessman from the core and today his stock trades @ $173,530 BRK-A the most expensive on the exchange.  You can also get into the BRK-B @ $115.80, by the way, Berkshire Hathaway owns 200,000,000 shares of Coca-Cola just his idea of investing in what makes you feel good instead of what grinds your gut Pod.

Some advice from Buffett, "The basic ideas of investing are to look at stocks as business, use the market's fluctuations to your advantage and seek a margin of safety.  That's what Ben Graham taught me.  A hundred years from now they will still be the cornerstones of investing". 

Berkshire Hathaway  (a no thrills kind of a guy)

Warren Buffett News

Bill George 


A fine dynasty, investing with Goldman Sachs

US Senator Carl Levin, questioning Daniel Sparks - Former Goldman Sachs Mortgages Department Head. 

 Attention101