Depends on scale. The universe is still inhaling


It definitely is time for a decline. Cycles can be disrupted, but not indefinitely. QE never stopped: where do you think the IMF funds came from? Announcing QE3 now would just make it official.

At the moment, there's a game of chicken going on between the EU and the US to see which will ramp up easing efforts first. EU heads have essentially been daring the Fed to let them fall and drag the US along. Deflation in Europe points to America having to kick up another gear which is exceptionally bad, considering the Fed has been digging itself deeper by supplying just enough liquidity to keep Europe's financial structure from violently imploding.

Meanwhile, sharks around the world smell America's blood. China, Russia, Iran...


That's a nice amount of Bitcoins


Exactly. Favor debtors while destroying creditors and crippling the economy, or save creditors while murdering savers and obliterating society.

Martin Armstrong's Anatomy of a Debt Crisis does an excellent job of explaining the dilemma and how Julius Caesar was in the process of realizing a solution before his assassination. On this topic, I am in full agreement with Armstrong and Caesar - neither side can be satisfied fully in order for the structure to survive.

Not "all knowing" and certainly not able to control the economy. The system is done. Over. Finished. The USD is a smoldering husk, as are all other fiat currencies. There is no way to stop or reverse this.

What is being done is misdirection; a parlor trick. The wool can be pulled over peoples' eyes enough that they either believe it, or don't know what to believe. At best, most citizens willingly comply, at worst they're shocked enough to do the same.

It's a massive illusion. Ask random people what they know about HFT. If they're even aware of it, it's almost guaranteed they don't know that it can toss prices in any direction desired - that it is being used to create a false representation, destroying genuine price discovery. The markets would scarcely exist without the banks & bots, not to mention gov't meddling. Those are virtually all that's left.

Look at today's jobs numbers. It's among the most blatantly fraudulent of statistical charades. Who understands this? Very few. In a world of constant over-stimulation, the voices of these few are not enough to rouse majority awareness in the short term.

If gold were to collapse, it would've fallen below production cost last year - below $1,000/oz. Instead we have greater global turmoil, secret presidential rendezvous in the Middle East, reports of detention camps across America, more nations in Europe fracturing, and perpetual histrionics from every corner of "authority".

With uncertainty about a nation, there comes uncertainty over its issued currency. Wouldn't you worry about your deposits if your bank's stock were to become volatile? I won't even get into the matter of gold avoiding the rat-race of yield-chasing.

Nothing is real.


Thanks to illusion and misdirection, the marketplace has temporarily been usurped by central efforts. Instead of guns, we have charts.

Missed again...

BT is not officially Ars - he is among the Ars community, but he was operating independently. The pool name was its only association.

As regrettable as it is (I still think BT should've accepted assistance), the pool has been functioning without direct management for a long time and the persistently negative buffer was a bad sign. It probably would've been best to shut the pool down well before now, but what's done is done.

Keep things in perspective - any loss here is peanuts by comparison and certainly not malicious as other events were, like the 2011 Mt Gox or recent Linode hack.

Yep, even had some queued work finally go through. Mighty fine.

Well enough

But, I'm not. Last year, I stated that I would probably not be in traditional markets at all after that cycle's conclusion. We're now past the apogee of that cycle, yet there has been a tremendous effort to prevent it from oscillating back naturally. I'd taken a small loss because the time-frame was stretched. Even if I were to make a fully realized paper profit, there is too much potential for it to become inaccessible because of other circumstances, a la MF Global. That's in addition to the devaluation risk, which could heavily negate any profits if I'm prevented from moving funds effectively.

In light of the above, I decided in February that any and all assets exposed to western finance would be at too great a risk. Only a token amount is in play now, and just in extremely liquid currency markets. The long AUD/USD, long EUR/AUD trade was a very nice 12-hour payday, not to mention the interest spread before AUD/USD was stopped out. I now have a short EUR/USD, short USD/CHF trade in play and am expecting the former to approach 1.25 before I close that out and increase the latter.

As for gold and silver, physical is still everything. Gold below $1,000 was left behind a long time ago, and the same is happening with $1,650. If you don't have physical metal, this is the last chance at these prices before they're never seen again in present-day fiat terms.

The rules are being changed. TF Metals outlines the situation nicely, in particular: "I think this is all a big setup. However, this time, it's an opposite setup to what we're used to."

Other than gold & silver (for the foreseeable future) - Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin.


Dead-on with all three, the first especially so. It's why owning physical metal is so important. For shares, Mr. Sinclair has warned multiple times that owners should register their holdings as book entries with the respective company's transfer agent so that your ownership is recorded in more than one place (i.e. the broker). Rehypothecation would at least be mitigated to an extent because proof of ownership is not dependent just on your word against the street name holding. Anyone who might have done this would either be a priority concern over all other claimants in the MF Global fiasco, or have already had 100% asset return.

For #2, there's no need to even hide anymore. Awareness of how the markets work today is so far beyond most investors' ken that the only thing that matters is the price chart. Unlike the savvy individuals in this thread and the professional investment/trading community, most have no clue how volume or psychology relate to markets. Many engage in wilful ignorance of the underlying dynamics, remaining limited only to what they've been trained in. On top of that, the velocity that you point out makes it hard for even pros to keep up with events.

The way I look at #3, case law was related but had less to do with MFG than the response of capital; a vast majority of investment wealth likely didn't respond at all, meaning owners have been reasonably conditioned into complacency regarding such events.

Imagine finding some of your money missing from your wallet every morning. Some thief in the night came along and took it. Fast forward a bit and the thief walks into your home and lifts the cash right in front of you, but you're so used to it you think it's normal, or are so busy you can't make the effort to stop it. A conditioned response, no-win for the rightful owner and win-win for the thief.

Are Intel's "Execution Units" directly comparable to AMD's "Stream Processors"? I'd be more curious to see what the power consumption will be for the respective hash rate.

Things may be muted internally, but broader markets will influence Bitcoin simply because of their magnitude. Dollars or Euros flowing into Bitcoin would cause a launch no matter what derivative mechanisms are in place for Bitcoin.

Manufactured volatility. Need I say more?

As for the miners, they've been perpetually weighed on by algos in the same manner that Apple, et al. have been propped up. Why would a snap back from highs be any different than a snap back from lows?

It's misdirection - look over here at Apple and buy that while I go over here and scoop up quality real assets and miners. A typical wealth accumulation game.

Interest payment received.

What the... this makes twice that I'm agreeing with you. Did hell freeze over, or even more shocking - did Jamie Dimon resign?

Thanks

A corollary is that complexity arises from simplicity. My issue is that the level of analysis provided by S3052 pertains to the trading environment but was being applied to areas in which it is not appropriate. Trading is a major part of a dynamic system, but it is not the entire system.


Certainly. Now for some debate


Even when a market is no longer a market? Social mood can't change the fact that food is necessary for survival.

It doesn't help that I'm not fond of Prechter, to be euphemistic. Adherence to one side without flexibility to account for variable conditions has resulted in his incessant calls for gold topping and being wrong every time.

2009: Prechter Says Gold & Silver Due for a Major Fall
2010: Gold could fall 40 percent from peak: Prechter
2011: Gold's Short-Term Move: Evidence of a Longer Trend?
2012: Robert Prechter of Elliot Wave Intl. on how Social Mood Drives Markets

For a while now, fundamental reality has been the dominant force - not the whim of hopes and dreams. The "social mood" is being led around by the nose, and conditions are nowhere near right for "socionomics" to be valid. Maybe another decade or two from now, in China.

Absolutely.

Is it wrong to have an irrationally positive response to that?

+10^∞

 

(Too bad there are no pom-pom icons...)

Yup, the login site is indeed under the weather. Payments went out earlier, though.

Seems like there might be some heavy back-end overhauling. Would be nice to get an update from pirate.

QE3, election, war.

QE3 in late 2nd or early 3rd quarter will support re-election. Once elections are over, there will be no real barriers to oligarchic dictatorship (similar to China) - everything is in place. Then war over a diminishing supply of cheap resources. The war will be both external and internal.


Where are gold & silver down? Or Apple? Or Bitcoin up? After all the intra-day gyrations, nothing has shifted much - only marginal changes; statistically insignificant.

Only the AUD experienced a truly major change, with most of the outflows seemingly going into the Euro & Swiss Franc - Long AUD/USD, Long EUR/AUD paid off well.

Confirmed.

This assumes either everyone involved with Bitcoin is trading, or the chart pattern is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Either way, the over-simplification is preposterous.

Remember: there really is a world outside of squiggly lines on a screen. Fundamentals trump technicals.