investment

Is Your Portfolio Ready for this Coming Disaster?

"Our economy is under the control of a drunk driver, who is now making decisions based on broken metrics. I’m talking about the Fed. It has announced its newest plan to boost the economy. And the plan is based on two key, terribly flawed numbers. This is likely to end in disaster. The Fed has recently announced it will print $85 billion every single month until inflation rises above 2.5% or unemployment drops to 6.5%. Printing money in itself is a dangerous activity. When you decide how much you print based on two flawed metrics, then it almost ensures disaster. The numbers the Fed uses to measure inflation and unemployment are useless." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingIs Your Portfolio Ready for this Coming Disaster?

City steakhouses suffer as Midwest drought sends meat prices soaring

"Beef was already in short supply — a victim of earlier droughts and rises in the costs of fuel and feed. During this year’s drought, ranchers reluctant to buy expensive grain feed brought young — and thin — cattle to market early, which will spur another shortage and could threaten fatter cuts of beef. At the famed Peter Luger Steakhouse in Brooklyn, the New York strip is already up 11 percent, to $46.95, said owner Amy Rubenstein. But nearly all restaurants are bracing for the worst. Peter Glazier, owner of Michael Jordan’s Steak House, said meat purveyors are warning of increases of up to 20 percent in the coming year." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingCity steakhouses suffer as Midwest drought sends meat prices soaring

Why Buffalo wings will break your budget in 2013

"The Buffalo wing isn’t the only food item projected to jump in price next year, though it is one of the more dramatic upward shifts. Because of a drought that parched the Midwestern part of the country this past summer, nearly every food product tied to corn will see price increases in 2013. And overall, household food prices are expected to rise between 3 and 4 percent, according to projections from the 2012-2013 Food Price Outlook from the US Department of Agriculture. In addition to the corn itself, which had a weak crop as a result of the drought, prices will go up on proteins like beef and chicken, because livestock feed is primarily made of corn." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingWhy Buffalo wings will break your budget in 2013

Fiscal Cliff Deal: $1 in Spending Cuts for Every $41 in Tax Increases

"Matthew Boyle at Breitbart now reports that the according to the Congressional Budget Office, the last-minute fiscal cliff deal reached by congressional leaders and President Barack Obama cuts only $15 billion in spending while increasing tax revenues by $620 billion—a 41:1 ratio of tax increases to spending cuts." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingFiscal Cliff Deal: $1 in Spending Cuts for Every $41 in Tax Increases

The Invisible Hand Strikes Back

"The system proved a good deal more fragile than people have been led to expect. Couple that with the Fed's ongoing money-printing that has literally doubled equity values and you get increasing resistance to the whole idea of stock investing. First people are frightened by the breakdown of the system itself and then they are exposed to ongoing – 'industrial strength' – monetary manipulation. What do those in the industry expect? What do elites that have built up the modern stock market believe people will do with their money? People 'get it' ... and not in a good way." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Invisible Hand Strikes Back

Ordinary Folks Losing Faith In Stocks, Plowing Into Bonds

"Since they started selling in April 2007, eight months before the start of the Great Recession, individual investors have pulled at least $380 billion from U.S. stock funds, a category that includes both mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, according to estimates by the AP. That is the equivalent of all the money they put into the market in the previous five years. Instead of stocks, they're putting money into bonds because those are widely perceived as safer investments. Individuals have put more than $1 trillion into bond mutual funds alone since April 2007." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingOrdinary Folks Losing Faith In Stocks, Plowing Into Bonds

The Fiscal Cliff’s Structural Endgame

"This Grand Bargain is coming apart as the promises made to everyone cannot possibly be met. Claims on welfare and disability programs are skyrocketing at the same time that the demographics of an aging populace are causing 10,000 people a day to enter Social Security and Medicare, the two costliest government programs. Meanwhile, the upper middle class that pays most of the taxes has been slammed with lower income and a devastating drop in their housing-based net worth." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingThe Fiscal Cliff’s Structural Endgame

Kyle Bass at AC2012: The Engtanglement

"Kyle Bass is the managing director and principal of Hayman Advisors LP’s, general partnership which was formed in December 2005. Kyle Bass is also a mortgage credit portfolio advisor to few asset management companies and manages or advises over $4 billion of investments in the residential mortgage-backed securities market. Mr. Bass is also a Director of the Asset Backed Securities at Credit Derivatives Users Association. He is also a member of the Serengeti Asset Management Advisory Board and is a member of the endowment’s board of the University of Texas Investment Management Co which bought $1 billion Gold bars in 2011." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingKyle Bass at AC2012: The Engtanglement

Tiny gold bars latest rage for jittery investors

"Private investors in Switzerland, Austria and Germany are lining up to buy gold bars the size of a credit card that can easily be broken into one gram pieces and used as payment in an emergency. Now Swiss refinery Valcambi, a unit of U.S. mining giant Newmont, wants to bring its 'CombiBar' to market in the United States and build up its sales presence India - the world's largest consumer of gold where the precious metal has long served as a parallel currency. The 'CombiBar' - which has been dubbed a 'chocolate bar' because pieces can be easily broken off by hand into one gram squares." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingTiny gold bars latest rage for jittery investors