Financial Sense Blog

The following is commentary that originally appeared at treasurechests.info for the benefit of subscribers on Tuesday, June 8st, 2010.

With gold reaching new highs, many more people from investors to journalists are paying more attention to gold these days, but is that a good thing?

Consumer deleveraging continues to be a hot topic in the mainstream press. This fear-laden focus could be a red-herring, however, a possibility we'll discuss in this commentary. Plus, an update on the latest action in the gold ETF.

The following is commentary that originally appeared at Treasure Chests for the benefit of subscribers on Tuesday, June 1st, 2010.

I'm an avid camper. I won't pitch my tent in the Deflationist Camp. I do like to visit them though and sit around the fire, drink coffee or a bit of red wine and listen to what they have to say. But...

It isn't a "Financial Crisis" - we are suffering from a "Stupidity Crisis". Our financial hardships, the economy, the Second "Great" Depression which we are about to embark on is a consequence of stupidity.

The March 2004 issue of The Elliott Wave Theorist postulated a 7-year crisis cycle going back to 1973 and used it to predict another crisis in 2008. Here are the table and the forecast from that issue.

RHODIUM TRADING THOUGHTS is about timely and profitable trading of precious metals. We do not believe every turn in the market can be called. Our goal is that our recommendations should be profitable. Profits are the goals, not trades. Do not expect all recommendations to be profitable. No system can achieve that lofty goal. Our goal is simply to state whether conditions for a metal are favorable or not. Buy signals are issued when appropriate.

Suppose you were tasked with bringing down a civilization, and your only weapon was language. Could you accomplish your goal? Quite clearly, the answer is yes. To defeat a civilization language suffices if it can be used to divide man from women, parent from child, the owners of businesses from the employees, the state from the citizens, and God from the Church.

Time for a little check in on anecdotal data concerning commercial property prices. Important why? Important for a much bigger reason than the asset class that is commercial property specifically. Before getting a peek at some current data, and what recent trends may be "telling us", a few 30,000 foot preemptory comments, okay? Yes, I know I keep harping on this one like there is no tomorrow, so apologies in advance, but I just cannot shake what is the very important issue of the “tale of two economies” theme.