Lyth0s' Economic Troubles Thread

[GingerAle]

popcorn

[OROBTC]

...

"War on Cash"

I almost hate to chip in with a remark here, but an idea occurred to me recently.  It happened at casino not real far from me.  I went to an ATM to withdraw a decent chunk of cash.

Damn!  A gambling habit can be expensive!  Burns up a lot of cash.  And, of course, all ATMs are monitored to some degree (and all casinos have cameras monitoring their areas, so play a few hands of "21", err, DON'T play!).

It's so easy to lose a bunch of cash at casinos!  I highly recommend STAYING AWAY from them if you have ANY WORRIES about losing your cash.  Almost as bad as the notorious boating accidents are re PMs.  GAMBLING ADDICTIONS are serious business, don't get caught up!

[lyth0s]

News 4/5/15



If Anyone Doubts We Are In A Stock Market Bubble, Show Them This

--It's a well written article and has all the important points that I talk about when looking at graphs to show just how huge the bubble we are in.

I highly suggest reading the article for yourself.

[tabnloz]

Greek PM meets with Russia tomorrow

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-04-07/russia-offer-greece-new-loans-gas-price-discount

Apparently the 'worry' is that Russia will offer the Greeks billions in loans in return for a trade deal that effectively bypasses current sanctions.

I bet there is some real House of Cards shit going on right about now.

[lyth0s]

I juxtaposed and edited these images today. Talk about a classic contrarian indicator....

[OROBTC]

...

Rgr that, 10-4 re Chinese bubble indicator.

*  *  *

There is so much going on re economic troubles (and more worrying for me: "Economic Totalitarianism") that I am actively fishing for even MOAR practical ideas on financial self-preservation. And I have done a fair amount of "preparing" over the years...

I really hate that our .gov and the ultra-wealthy & ultra-powerful have so corrupted our system.

Have we REALLY gotten to the point where it is now (or will be soon):

-- Gold
-- Bearings (our small business run by my in-laws in Peru, our "Plan B" country)
-- Bitcoin (mix them and hide them well)
-- Bullets

that will preserve us as individuals?

Ugh.  As they write at Zero Hedge, the guillotines are getting hungry.......

[lyth0s]

...

Rgr that, 10-4 re Chinese bubble indicator.

*  *  *

There is so much going on re economic troubles (and more worrying for me: "Economic Totalitarianism") that I am actively fishing for even MOAR practical ideas on financial self-preservation. And I have done a fair amount of "preparing" over the years...

I really hate that our .gov and the ultra-wealthy & ultra-powerful have so corrupted our system.

Have we REALLY gotten to the point where it is now (or will be soon):

-- Gold
-- Bearings (our small business run by my in-laws in Peru, our "Plan B" country)
-- Bitcoin (mix them and hide them well)
-- Bullets

that will preserve us as individuals?

Ugh.  As they write at Zero Hedge, the guillotines are getting hungry.......

Keep me updated on what other financial self-preservation ideas you have in the future, it's also something I'm interested in.


News for today 5/10/15

Denmark to stop printing cash next year? http://fusion.net/story/131568/the-government-of-denmark-wants-people-to-stop-using-cash/

Sales to price ratio hasn't been this bad since the dot com bubble: http://www.multpl.com/s-p-500-price-to-sales

S&P 500 P/E ratio now past 20 suggesting overpricing of stocks compared to the ideal "15" *: http://www.multpl.com/


*not sure about the 2009 spike

[lyth0s]

Here are some interesting graphs.

Shanhai index looks like completely normal growth to me



Nasdaq growth looks slightly more legit than the 2000 tech bubble (not completely vertical)


S&P 500 growth shows how strong the economy is right now


This is basically the roaring 20's all over again, let the good times roll.

Also to note GDP growth has been adjusted to -0.7% from its earlier 0.2%.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/30/business/economy/us-economy-gdp-q1-revision.html?_r=0

[OROBTC]

...

lyth0s

Nice charts showing exuberance (perhaps even irrational?) in the financial markets today.  Especially Shanghai, although it looks pretty normal to me  .

To me the markets look high, esp. S&P 500 and China.  But, I do read conflicting opinions from writers I trust (that is, whose analyses make sense, not that their predictions are very good), and some say that we could be in for MOAR BULL (markets could still go up for a while) until we get a crash...

For those who have been in the S&P 500 (or otherwise have nice long term gains -- paper gains), it would not hurt at all to sell some, take some profits...  I plan to sell some ETFs soon (tickers VB and VO, these track small cap stocks and mid caps) soon.

[lyth0s]

Usually a very good association between Dow Transports and US stock market:



But the Dow Transports has been decreasing and we are now back to August 2014 levels, downhill since the start of 2015:



Graphs in terms of % changes.

[lyth0s]

No fed rate hike today (not surprising). Maybe NIRP or QE4 incoming soon. FOMC had one person state possible NIRP, which is a new thought circulating in the FOMC that Yellen is currently downplaying. What is really most interesting though is that US stock markets actually went down a little today (S&P 500 down 0.26%) whereas they normally would have seen a nice gain after investors worries about a rate hike are diminished. Very interesting.

[OROBTC]

...

Negative interest rates are very worrisome, for various reasons (including the obvious ones).  THE most obvious one is that the economy must be pretty damned weak if we are even talking about it at all...

CNBC's Rick Santelli mentioned about noon (US ET) that "things get very weird" when interest rates are very close to zero.  A related thought is that raising Fed funds rate 0.25% is a HUGE rate hike, percentage-wise (from 0.12%, say, about where it is now (midpoint of 0.00% - 0.25%, that would be a 200% hike!)

In various branches of math, we see unusual phenomena when ZERO gets plugged into equations.

Interest rates are a fascinating study of their own.  Lots of unusual things can and do happen.  This guy wrote the book:

The History of Interest Rates, Sidney Homer

*   *   *

Negative interest rates also create perverse incentives (pay bills fast, delay receiving payments).  ZH had an article (where I imagine you got the graph, lyth0s) here:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-18/fed-opens-negative-interest-rate-pandoras-box-what-happens-next

Banning CA$H.  Forcing us into electronic money...