Internet chat boards are anonymous. I’ll wager though that there are several dozen people who post here who have met me at the two meet’n’greets. Civility is a matter of perspective.
Telling your girlfriend she looks fine when she is overweight is considered civil by some, but not by me its dishonest. Perhaps my tone was harsh; I felt it needed to be to accurately get across the message that what blackbox was saying wasn’t just wrong it was dangerous.
We live in unprecedented times, but thats true of almost every age. Whats different now is that the generation that understands debt deflation is now almost completely gone. All we are left with are the spendiest generation ever and the next two as adults. We don’t have a complete roadmap for the turmoil set in motion but certain things have become very obvious (if you chose to ignore them don’t expect me to be civil about it.)
Most important is that we are entering a period of global instability. In its first phase globalization was a force for stability, but it allowed the US and Europe to export instability and unsustainable practices. Now those practices in the form of inflation through credit creation are coming back to haunt us. Whether or not you are an inflationist like Rich, or a deflationist like myself, both can safely agree that instability is on the rise sharply. a qoute I read today somes it up nicely, “Every day there are 3 or 4 events that would have made front page of the WSJ 7 months ago.”
For most people, who have jobs away from the internet, this instability means huge losses coming in formerly stable investments. Dollar cost averaging and investing in mutual funds has worked and may work again once we are done with this period of instability. Currently however it should be consigned to the same rubbish heap as, “real estate only goes up.” I say this because its part and parcel of a mindset that somehow things will turn out ok in the end. The huge dislocations in our public equity markets are saying that just ain’t so.
Its only an asset as long as someone else will pay you for it, otherwise its a liability.
