Its time to state the obvious. Cryptocurrencies are here. They aren’t going away. Its time to dedicate the majority of this blog to crypto. I find it is the least understood of any investment class, simply because its so new. The world needs an impartial voice on this issue. It seems the majority of people either think its a ‘scam’ or that bitcoin is going to be worth $1 million dollars this time tomorrow. Neither of those statements are true.
Cryptocurrencies are here. Let’s play ball
Once we have accepted that economic cycles happen, and will always happen, viewing and judging markets is an exercise in guessing where we are in that cycle. After the worst week in equities in a couple of years – the question becomes: are we at the top of the cycle.
To determine that, we weigh some of the evidence available to us:
Evidence indicating the market has topped:
1. Housing appears to have peaked. While not revealed in the numbers yet, the number of houses sitting on the market in my neighborhood has gone up dramatically, homes are not selling as fast as they were, and prices appear to be declining.
2. John Hampson at solarcycles.net makes a very strong case that markets can be attributed to sunspot activity. While inconclusive to date, it appears sunspot activity has peaked
3. The Russell 2000, which represents small cap and more peripheral companies to the global financial system peaked in July and is down around 14% since then. The periphery always break down first
4. Many international indexes topped in July including Germany and other european markets.
5. The federal reserve is ending its QE program
Evidence indicating this is a temporary market correction:
1. The ECB is just now ramping up a massive QE program
2. Ray Dalio has currently indicated that he believes the market will continue strong for the next 18 months. Given his success and knowledge, this means a lot.
Traditional economic indicators like unemployment rates, hours worked, etc. are lagging indicators and do nothing to help us decide where we are in equity cycle. For this reason, none of these indicators are used. Given the evidence I am seeing now, its 5 -2 in favor of this being the market top of the cycle. This puts the odds around 70%, and thus its a 30% chance that its a temporary correction.
I’ve played and excelled at many sports in my life. From soccer to basketball to volleyball, I enjoy all of them. However, I would say that the ultimate sport in existence is one that I have just recently taken up: surfing. If you too want to take in this challenge we recommend to read here about the many Benefits of changing robes.
Surfing combines the need for all aspects of the physical realm including power and endurance, as well as the aspects of the mental realm. It is by far the most difficult sport to learn, and if you are attempting to get better, you simply never know about the dangers that you might face that day. In addition, surfing involves a lot more luck than many of the other sports because it depends on weather conditions, wave heights, and minute human errors can make a large difference in outcomes.
I have never felt quite as alive as I do when I surf. There is something about the sand on your feet, the sun on your back, and the roar of the ocean that makes you feel at peace with the world. This, despite the fact that on a good day, you really can only get a couple of good waves, especially when you are learning. 95% of your time is spent waiting for the right wave, swimming back out to the ocean, or falling off your board face first into a pile of crashing water. But with all the beautiful elements surrounding you, even those failures feel so pleasant. For more on sports and sporting events, check this posts about Sport, football, sport news, football news and more.
And then, when you finally get on, and ride the rolling tide of water, balancing on a small piece of wood out there in the middle of the ocean with nothing around but God given beauty, you then understand why people give up their careers and their lives in search of the perfect wave. There is no better adrenaline rush.
I don’t always surf, but when I do, I smile all the way to the edge of world.
A few generations ago, people and governments in Europe decided that they wanted to take care of the poor, the old, the sick, and the unfortunate. These are all beautiful, lofty goals, and certainly humanitarian in intention. The idea was to take money from those that can afford it, and give it to those who can’t. In other words, take it from the productive, and give it to the unproductive. If those receiving the benefits are a small segment of the population, and those donating to them are a large population, then each giver must allocate a small amount of their winnings towards this ideal. Many would agree that this is an excellent use of their money received thanks to their employer check stubs generator, and thus it was mandated that the productive people make these donations.
If we look at this structure as a pyramid – the old, sick, and poor – are at the top of the pyramid, and everyone else is at the bottom. The money flows upwards in this scenario, just as it would if you were one of the first ‘investors’ into Amway. The people at the bottom, however, look at the people at the top who receive all this money, and they want to be like them. The decide they would like to join the ranks of the poor, the sick, and the old, and suddenly people start moving from the bottom of the pyramid to the top so that they may receive those gifts. For each 1 person moving to the top of the pyramid, the bottom loses 1 person, and thus each person at the bottom must donate more of their winnings for the comfort of those at the top. As the people at the bottom start having to pay more and more they feel their lives might improve with much less effort if they were at the top of the pyramid, and thus the top swells, and the bottom shrinks.
Eventually the people at the bottom say there is no more money to give, so they have 2 choices. They must either borrow to continue on this path, or they must find more people who are willing to be at the bottom with them. To create more people at the bottom means having more babies or allowing people from other countries to come in. If they are unwilling to do this, they can borrow money until their creditors say enough is enough, and start to lose faith that they will ever get their money back. At this point, their creditors will cut of the flow of money, and the money going upwards start to die. This is when the pyramid collapses, and it is the point that we have reached today in these club med countries in Europe.
Providing for the old and the sick is certainly a humanitarian mission that we should respect as an ideal. But let us not kid ourselves into believing that the system is anything more than a pyramid scheme that requires an ever increasing number of people at the bottom. If this system were being run by a private company, it would certainly be shut down by the authorities. It was always doomed to fail from the beginning, but pyramid schemes always work beautifully for the people who benefit at first. Once the funding is cut, the game is over. The amazing thing about this, is that Japan and countries in Europe have the option of always increasing immigration to get more people at the bottom, yet they refuse to do so.
Without more babies, more immigrants or some generous donation of a trillion bucks, the club med countries have seen their pyramids crack.
I don’t always call social security programs a pyramid scheme, but when I do, Charles Ponzi smiles
The phrase ‘the liberal media’ is something we’ve heard for years. The bias of reporters and journalists to lean towards the liberal side certainly exists to some extent or another. But for those wanting a different perspectives, outlets such as fox news often provide another perspective. Personally, to be a well informed citizen, I believe it is necessary to read from both points of views, and then draw your own conclusions. Humans have a tendency to come up with an opinion and then justify their feelings with whatever news articles they choose to use. So instead of news being used to inform, it is often being used as evidence to prove a persons already existing ideas.
The irony of internet, which brings information to people’s fingertips at light speeds, is that it should be educating people. Instead, it is dis-educating people. Americans have developed such strong and often unjustified feelings regarding certain subjects, that they refuse to allow truth to to be shown. They simply want evidence to justify the ‘I am right’ feeling, and you can always find someone willing to write an article justifying a commonly held belief.
The one constant that is more prevalent in the US today, more so than even the media being liberal, is the media being negative. It is an unending story of death, tragedy, lies, scandals, wars, and incarceration. It is enough to make a generally happy person feel like the world is ending. It is pervasive and inescapable. This makes it nearly impossible today to stay well informed, without plunging yourself into depression. The pursuit of knowledge and intellect is something I have always had a strong desire for, and have thus tried to read as much as possible. However, there have been times in my life where I have purposely avoided the news because I’ve felt it was better to be happy than to be intelligent. I think I may take a news break for the next few days, and maybe a happy pill.
I don’t always watch the news, but when I do, I make sure not to keep any sharp knives around
The study of ‘history’ can be very different depending on who is looking at the situation and when. This is something that separates it from science in mathematics. In the hard sciences, 2+2=4 no matter where in the world you are, or what century you are in. The social sciences, however, inject ideas and feelings into ‘facts’ to determine who was right and who was wrong.
In the field of economics, because the US won the cold war against the USSR, they can make a legitimate claim that their model of economics was superior. 20+ years later, many people in the new generation can not even fathom the idea that there was a mode of thought that says the government gets to tell you what job to do, what to eat, and where to go. Even the young, idealistic american neo-communists really only support the idea of equality. If you told them that the government was going to give them the job that had to do and the amount of food they would be allowed to eat, and they had no choice – these same people would revolt. However, these ideas are so foreign to them, they don’t understand that this is what comes along with communism.
The same can be said for the study of history. Because the US won the revolutionary war, Paul Revere and George Washington are patriots. Because they won, they can claim how great they are, and a whole throng of people will write books about them, and put their pictures on paper currency. Had they lost, however, we would never have known their name. They would have been relegated to a page in the British book showing their heads decapitated for being just another tyrant against the almighty British crown.
It is important to understand that our perceptions then of past historical events are fluid, because it helps us keep perspective on today’s events. The great debate of this current moment, is if Ed Snowden is a hero or a traitor. Conventional history on him will be different depending on who wins. Since the US is currently the world’s only superpower, it is likely the US will win (as they have won everything for the past 200+ years), and history will judge him as a tyrant. Had this happened 10 years ago, I would say for certainty that history will judge him as a tyrant
But the US is facing, for the first time in a generation, the rise of a supreme threat to its global dominance – China. Unlike the USSR, the Chinese economy is growing, it has a larger population, and its economic model is far superior to that of the USSR. Within 10-20 years, its global power will challenge that of the US. Which also means that it gets to justify anything it does as correct, because it will be a big winner in the future both economically and militarily. Snowden, being in China, is just igniting fuel to that fire. Depending on if the Chinese extradite him without much of a fuss or if they harbor him or even allow him passage to another country permitting him asylum, the course of history will change. If the Chinese extradite him, they world will essentially submit that the US still reigns supreme and no one can mess with what their demands. If Snowden were from the Congo the world would laugh at the idea that he should be extradited since the Congo has no power and everyone knows they are corrupt anyways. The difference, of course, is that he is from the US – the same people who have been writing the history for 200 years, so he should be brought to justice, since the US is a fair, just nation. While not making judgements on this statement, the truth is just that the US is a whole lot more powerful than the Congo.
However, if the Chinese harbor him or refuse to extradite him, it will be the first political pushback to US supremacy in 20 years. China will be announcing they they have arrived, and that the world is tired of getting pushed around by the US. No longer will the US get whatever it wants, whenever it wants. World decisions will now also have to have Chinese approval.
If China grows the way that is expected and becomes an economic, military, and political power in the world, the Ed Snowden situation may well be looked at as a turning point. The line in the sand could be drawn, indicating that much of history, will from now on, be written by the Chinese.
There comes a point when debt becomes so great, that the government has to do the unthinkable. Japan has reached that point. With their version of Quantitative Easing announced just recently, their goal now, is to press the reset button on the economy. All those debts measured in trillions of Yen are easily paid back if quadrillions of yen somehow magically appeared out of thin air. And that is essentially what they have committed themselves to doing. And if there were no side effects from it and it worked according to plan, it might have a chance of succeeding. Naturally, however, there are always consequences, unintended consequences, and then Murphy’s law.
The easily predictable consequence, is that not only do debts get wiped out, but savings get wiped out as well. Everybody who was prudent and worked and saved money their whole lives, will then have very little to show for it. This is especially true in Japanese society today, where few savers have been investing the nikkei market, an online brokerage, which has dropped 70%+ over the past 20 years. The majority of savers have been in Japanese bonds, which are likely to tank even further as more and more Yen get pumped into the system. So these savers get a double whammy. Loss of capital on their JGBs, and loss of purchasing power on whatever they have left.
The unintended consequences are much more difficult to predict, but guesses can be made. If the older generation’s savings are going to be wiped out, the government is likely to front more of the bill for their version of social security and Medicare. This, of course, defeats the entire purpose of the whole experiment, as the debt doesn’t go away. You simply just have more people you have to take care of. Hence, the only way out of that – is to then dump another 2 quadrillion on the market. Hence, a self perpetuating cycle of inflation creating more inflation. Just ask Zimbabwe, Venezuela, or Argentina if dumping more money actually got them out of their debt problem. For more on modern finances, wee recommend to this check this new paystub creator review.
Murphy’s law, which is the 3rd thing that will happen with this experiment, is the most difficult thing to predict. Mostly these are not possibilities, but questions we must ask. What if inflation doesn’t take? What if the banks hoard all the Yen just like the banks in the US are doing? What if people lose confidence in the Yen? What happens if the JGB doesn’t fall steadily, but instead, drops like a rock? Many of these scenarios are not just likely, but probable, and carry their own set of consequences, unintended consequences, and Murphy’s law issues with them.
And I ask myself, as a young, ambitions entrepreneur at the age of 34, would I want to live in Japan. The answer here is both terrifying and certain. I feel really bad for the Japanese equivalent of me. I don’t know that there is much chance for him.
I don’t always look at Japan with sorrow, but when I do, I feel really sad
The future of a country depends highly on the young people within that country. The young are the consumers of goods, the purchasers of homes, the starters of families, the buyers of stocks, and everything else that supports all these industries. The economic health of these young people then determines what the future looks like. To learn more about how to excel in todays finance, visit Skrumble inc website.
The so called ‘Generation X’ in the US, is better aptly named ‘Generation bankrupt.’ They have suffered massive losses in their stock investments, their housing investments, their US dollars, and their education investments. When they don’t how to handle finance-related concerns, they can simply ask the Top Insolvency firms.
While stocks, housing, and currency losses are certainly tragedies, the biggest travesty in their loss is their education investment. This is supposed to produce the greatest return on investment. But rather, it has produced low incomes, and massive debts that are not dis-chargeable. It has created in an entire generation of indentured servants, that are unable to participate in the American economy. They are not starting families, they are not buying homes, and they are certainly not purchasing stocks – mainly because all of their income is going into debt repayment as they cant get a bigger pay stub. Even those who have found good jobs with good salaries have paid so much for their education, that the debts seems insurmountable. A country can not grow and prosper if they have an entire generation of people drowned in this type of debt. We currently view these people as young, and thus assume they will recover with time. That may not be something we can count on in the near future.
I don’t always regret my student loan debt, but when I do, I think there could have been a better use for my money
I will admit to being a big fan of people like Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, Peter Schiff, and John Mauldin. Compared to most investment gurus I believe they have a much firmer grasp of history as well as economics. For more on business management, we recommend you to check out https://www.promo-advertising.co.uk/media-types/radio-station.
They pride themselves on real world outcomes, as opposed to the theoretical. Businesses and hence investing in those business are not something that can be learned in a book. Its all about the real world. Just ask Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Richard Branson how much of their business acuity they learned in college where they also got explained about this paystubs maker free software.
The problem I see with the macroeconomic predictors I previously mentioned – is their age. While I have never met Jim Rogers personally, he has had more of an impact on my life and my knowledge of the world than almost anyone outside my parents. But just as he has said many times, the old has to make way for the new. That is how society grows and progresses. This is not to take anything away from him, and what he can still do with his life. I fully expect him to be alive and kicking and on Fox Business News for the next 10-20 years talking about topics like which is the best payroll management system. But the world needs a writer, a speaker, an advisor within the same genre, that represents and lives the lives of the next generation of people. While Jim has young kids and John Mauldin writes about the struggles of his own children in his weekly newsletter, it is impossible for them to live and breathe the life of those people. The mental outlook of the next generation combined with the historical and economic perspective of those great thinkers – that is the missing element in the investment world today. It is the element that I am choosing to be.
I am a mid-thirties professional living and working in the United States. I grew up middle class and now run my own business using guides like this one on how to understand paystubs. I have traveled all over the world, and have spent years of my life learning how people, societies, investments, business, medicine, and technology all combine to provide us the world we live in today. Today I take the next step in my journey by starting this site. I hope you will come along for the ride.
‘I don’t always start websites, but when I do, I try to be The Smartest Man Online’
