With the stock market collapsing more today, this is a great day for me with respect to my investments. As I have written previously, I have been aggressively taking out short positions for over a year in anticipating a severe economic depression. I am absolutely sure all financial assets are going to plummet. While my investing approach may seem extreme, I feel completely safe with it. I am already ahead almost 50% for the year.
So, where do I get my confidence? I know for a fact that human beings do not just behave like herd animals. Human beings actually are herd animals. From birth we are all trained to be members of herds and sub herds. All through school, children are encouraged to establish all sorts of arbitrary loyalties. By the time kids are grown, individual thought is all but extinguished. None of this is done consciously. It is all instinctive behavior. Humans both deny acting on instinct and are unaware they are doing so. Only a handful of others and I have enough awareness to see that society is governed by herd dynamics and not individuals reasoning individually. Am I happy knowing that I am a herd animal? No, but I am not going to let that stand in the way of my making a profit.
Other analysts believe policy decisions are made using reason and intellect. I correctly study human behavior in terms if herd dynamics. For example, I know when the Federal Reserve makes a decision; it is always based on compulsions that are dictated by herd instinct.
Lonestar Card Lonestar Card is a song I wrote and recorded as Curbside Jimmy a number of years back with the Curbside Jug Band. If you listen very carefully to the bass, you will discover that it is a Jug. The jug was played by the late Gator Ron Ramey, who was the probably best jug player who ever lived. The the jug is prominent at the very end of the song. Lonestar Card celebrates the welfare system in Texas of which so many Texans are very proud.
Tag Archives: financial crisis
Economic Forecasts, What To Expect
My forecasts are not infallible but they are highly dependable. Forecasts made by mainstream economists are more likely to be completely backwards with respect to what actually happens. Usually the higher the I.Q of forecaster; the more inaccurate will be the projection. In economics, raw intelligence dazzles students and impresses politicians and constituents. For making forecasts and coming up with economic policies, high raw intelligence is more of a detrirment than an asset.
My I.Q. is only high enough to allow me to do basic things that a minor league academic needs to do. An economist like Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke surely has an I.Q. somewhere in the high genius area. Yet, I am consistently right and he is consistently wrong. What accounts for the difference in results?
For a human being my level of awareness is extremely high and for explaining economic issues and making forecasts this gives me an unfair advantage over my much smarter counterparts. Awareness is a gift nature seems to gives to various creatures and this enables them to figure out what the truly brilliant among the earth’s inhabitants are going to do next.
Do you have a dog? Dogs have a much higher level of awareness than their masters. Your dog has what seems like an uncanny knowledge of what you are about to do next. The dog studies your every movement. Children are highly adept at gaming their parent’s moods and behaviors. Kids reason, “Dad is in a good mood, I’ll ask for some money.” Children lose their awareness when they get older. Awareness is a survival tool. Really smart people don’t need it so they either lose it or don’t have it.
Academic economists make poor forecasts because they do not consider any criteria that make a difference. In their minds one number causes another but numbers cause nothing at all. Human behavior is what causes numbers to change, so a good forecast is focused on human behavior and changes in incentives.
Keynesian theory is based on the notion that one number causes another. All fiscal and monetary theory is quite complex and out of reach for ordinary people. It is also completely useless for anything other than tracking what is going on with numbers.
When fiscal and monetary theories are used to formulate government policy any decision is a political decision and constitutes central economic planning. Resources are inevitabily allocated inefficiently. When government guides economic activity over a long period of time the result is an economic depression. Over time resources become so inefficiently allocated that the economy can no longer grow.
This is all one needs to know in order to conclude the world economy is about to collapse. The magnitude of the calamity will be much greater than can easily be fathomed at this point. All of the major economies around the globe have been severely handicapped by central economic planning. Economies cannot perform well enough to generate enough tax revenue to cover their debts. Every country in the world is facing a crisis at the same time.
For the most part the unsuspecting public has an unshakable faith in experts and government solutions. The writing is on the wall here. No asset class is safe to invest in. I am even reluctant to keep money in the bank. The time period we are entering is going to be nothing but every man for himself. The best I can come up with is is to compile a portfolio of short positions in stocks. This is the opposite of holding assets. I will benefit when assets lose value. So far, I am up 35% for the year.
The K.C. Moan A fine traditional tune from the depression era.
Sorry But You Are Not Free
Let me remind you today that you are not free. You have no representation in congress. Laws are constantly being passed over your objections. Laws are constantly being passed without the consent of the governed.
You think you can remove members of congress by voting against them. That will work as long as you don’t try to remove most of them all at once and assuming there is not a big crisis going on at the time.
Suppose election 2012 is held during an unimaginable financial crisis and I believe it will be.
You will vote perhaps 80% of your representatives out of office but they won’t leave. But the constitution protects against such things, you say. It is a common practice to disregard the constitution during a time of crisis.
Student Loan Moan
I can’t stand it. I mean when college students can’t get jobs because their degrees have no market value. Watch this video. You’ll love it.
Economics Is Actually Simple
One of the best kept secrets in economics it that everything is simple. Sophisticated models evolve as a means of rejecting the truth because it is distasteful. Economic depressions occur after governments replace economic decisions with political decisions. This is done in an attempt to hurry economic growth at a faster rate than the natural market can provide.
There is no way to enhance economic activity by substituting political decisions for economic decisions. For the same reason, government cannot hurry the economy out of a recession.
Student Loan Moan
I can’t stand it. I mean when college students can’t get jobs because their degrees have no market value.
Federal Reserve Decisions Guarantee Failure
Have you ever wondered why the Federal Reserve board does such a miserable job of guiding the economy? Governments do not make economic decisions. Governments make political decisions which guarantee an inefficient allocation of resources. Simply putting an economist in charge as Federal Reserve Chairman does not change the fact that his decisions are political.
The reason free market economies generate such high standards of living is the absence political decisions being used to allocate resources. From the get go any policy the Federal Reserve comes up with is doomed to make economic matters worse.