Onebornfree’s Financial Safety Reports- a free report from Financial Safety Educational Services.Examining the psychology behind dangerous investment beliefs+assumptions common to most individuals; that endanger their wealth and long term savings, short term speculations, and their financial safety, security and privacy.
Excerpt: "You're cheap. You're so cheap that your clothes went out of style in the Roosevelt administration. Teddy Roosevelt's administration. Cheap. When someone asks you for three cheers, you only give two.
So when you look at the price of gold and notice that it's nearly 35% off its record high, you're intrigued. Is it cheap enough to buy yet? "
Excerpt: "Consider: Investors who bought gold at its January 1980 peak of $875 an ounce are today still below water in inflation-adjusted terms. They even were showing a loss two years ago when gold was trading for more than $1,900. "
Fig. 2: Gold Price in $US, Daily 1968-2013
The Bald Truth
Of course the bald [yet un-admitted] truth is that neither of them know where the price of gold will be next week, next month, or next year, and neither does anyone else!
I don't care if the person claiming to know the future for gold is a famous investment advisor, an economist [regardless of "school"], a central bank spokesperson , an astrologer, or a government bureaucrat.
None of them have, or can have prescient knowledge of how the sum total of the subjective and changing valuations of literally billions of individuals will effect the value of anything relative to anything else tomorrow, next week, next year, or 10 years from now.
And the situation is no better for stocks, bonds or any other class of investment asset either!
A Scam
The truth is that the whole "prescient investment advisor" profession is a scam.
For fundamental reasons that I am not going to bother to try to explain "for free" in a blog post, the economic future is, and must remain, almost entirely unknown and unknowable
If you believe you have found an advisor who has predicted the future successfully, be warned, more than likely, as soon as you start to follow his/her advice, they will lose their magic touch, whether they claim to be a gold guru, a stock market guru, a bond guru, a "technical analysis guy", a "fundamental analysis guy", a tea-leaf reader, or whatever.
Both of the articles linked to above are "mainstream", and not "gold bug" or "hard money" biased. Of the two, Mr Hulbert probably has a higher credibility within the investment community purely by reason of his investment review newsletter " The Hulbert Financial Digest" which has tracked the performance of over 160 investment newsletters since 1980.
However, as far as I can see, and somewhat ironically, Mr Waggoner of the ultra-mainstream USA Today gives far sounder advice- he at least tells the reader to hold 10% of their long-term portfolio in gold bullion, while Mr Hulbert reveals his complete misunderstanding of why gold bullion is a necessary part of a long term savings plan by advising you to "hedge against inflation" by "Investing in the U.S. Treasury’s inflation-protected bonds, or TIPS,".
A " Goldbug" Speaks
And just to be "fair and balanced", here is a link to an article by a "gold bug" :
Excerpt: "Gold may well go plunging down but will ultimately come back up and go well beyond previous levels. $2000? $4000? $6000?.."
[Hint: this writer, no differently from the other two linked above, and no differently from anyone, anywhere in the world, has no prescient abilities that would enable him to be able to accurately forecast the future price behavior of gold in the general market either! ]
The Bottom Line:
The key to an effective long term financial safety strategy and to investment wisdom is to be found in the acceptance of the following realizations/facts of life:
1] No one class of asset [e.g. precious metals, bonds, cash, stocks, real estate orwhatever] increases in value in every historically recorded economic scenario[ i.e. inflation, deflation, stagnation, good times/general prosperity ], meaning all of them will rapidly decline in relative value under certain specific economic conditions , and all will increase in relative value under certain specific economic conditions. [And even then, sometimes they will fool us all by temporarily increasing in value when according to the existing economic environment, they should be decreasing in value, or by temporarily increasing in value in an economic environment within which, historically, they have always decreased in value :-0 !]
2] No investment advisor, fund manager, economist, bureaucrat, astrologer, central banker, "successful investor" , or anyone else, can reliably and consistently predict future economic events and general conditions.
Fig. 1: Federal Reserve monetary base [M.B.] growth 1959-2013 [Click on image to enlarge]
N.B.This article is in no way to be considered as an endorsement of either the Federal Reserve System [which this year celebrates the 100th. year of its existence] nor of any of its previous or current members . To view the long term [1913-2000] effects of the Federal Reserves existence on the value of the $U.S. , see Fig. 8 at the close of this article: "$US Price Inflation Under The Federal Reserve System [1913-2000].
Article Explanation:
The graphs shown above and below are my attempt to graphically illustrate how much the monetary base, [i.e. the narrowest measure of the Federal Reserve's money supply measures, known a "MB" in financial circles ], has expanded under the various Federal Reserve Board of Governors Chairmen who preceded Mr. Ben Bernanke, who took his chairman position in 2006 , and to try to put into some sort of broad perspective for the interested person, investor or speculator, the visible results of Mr Bernanke's chairmanship to date; by demonstrating just how much the Federal Reserve's monetary policy under Mr Bernanke's leadership has differed from [even] the amazing excesses of all of his predecessors, at least as far as can be construed for the period examined [ from 1959 through 2013].
As you will see, when examined on an individual basis, almost all of the previous chairmen examined [1959-2006] have had exceedingly unsteady hands on the "steering wheel" called the monetary base.
And yet now, every one of the previous 5 holders of Mr Bernanke's current position that span the period 1959-2006 pale in comparison when viewed within the "big picture" [see Fig. 1 above], and actually appear downright "conservative" by comparison to Mr Bernanke. Outside of Mr Alan Greenspan, not one of them comes close to replicating what has to date occurred under Mr Bernake's chairmanship, especially since the 3rd. quarter of 2008.
Investment/Speculation Implications? : The article closes with a graph depicting the massive loss of purchasing power of the $U.S. from 1913 [when the Federal Reserve came into existence], through the year 2000, and closes with a few observations which may or may not be of interest to the investor or speculator.
Explanation: "Monetary Base" :
The monetary base [MB] is the narrowest measure of the Federal Reserve's monetary measures. The next narrowest is called "M1", and the next narrowest is "M2". The broadest measure of all is called "MZM". The Federal Reserves monetary measures, as well as a lot more financial data, are regularly published and updated here.
For more information on the various definitions of the Federal Reserves money supply measures, please see here.
Explanation: Logarithmic [Log] scale [also called a "Ratio Scale"] .
All of my graphs for this article use what is called a "Logarithmic scale" for the "Y" [or vertical] scale, simply because a logarithmic scale makes it easy to show percentage increases/decreases on the "Y" [vertical] axis, between any two points in time along the horizontal "X" axis of the graph. More information on logarithmic, or ratio scales, can be viewed here.
Explanation: "Monetary Inflation" Is Not "Price Inflation"!:
The title of this article is: "Ben Bernanke, the Great[est] Inflator?" and concerns monetary inflation, not price inflation.
It attempts to graphically illustrate how under Mr Bernanke, the base monetary supply [M.B.] has been to date inflated [i.e. increased] in excess of 275%, a percentage increase for the monetary base that exceeds that of any of his predecessors for the period charted [1959-2013].
By way of direct comparison with Mr Bernanke's tenure, approximate resultant percentage increase figures in the monetary base for each of the 5 Fed chairman [1959-2006] during their own terms are also given below.
Please understand, monetary inflation is not the same phenomenon as price inflation [i.e. a general, steady accelerating increase in the price of most consumer goods, due to a steady to accelerating decrease in the real-world value of each unit of a currency ].
The Complete Time Line History of Federal Reserve Board of Governors Chairmen 1913-2013:
As I have already mentioned,the F.R.E.D published monetary base figures I have used to construct my graphs start in Jan. 1st. 1959, that is, a little under half way through the chairmanship of the 9th chairman, Mr McChesney Martin Jr.
For a complete list that includes the previous 8 who preceeded Mr McChesney Martin Jr. [i.e. from 1913-1951] click here
Fed Chairman 9: William McChesney Martin, Jr. April 2, 1951 –January 31, 1970 :
Mr McChesney Martin has to date been the longest "reigning" chairman of the Federal Reserve Board - his tenure spanned an unprecedented 19 years.
Under this tenure, according to Federal Reserve [F.R.E.D.] on-line records starting 01/01/59, through 01/01/70 , the monetary base steadily increased from around $50 billion to a little over $75 billion- a 50% increase over the course of the last 11 years of Mr W.M. Martin Jr's chairmanship:
Fig. 2 The Monetary Base under W.M. Martin Jr 1959-70 [Click on image to enlarge]
Fed. Chairman 10 Arthur F. Burns February 1, 1970 –January 31,1978:
The monetary base goes from around $75 billion at the start of his term to around $140 billion at its close- a [albeit comparatively smooth -compared to other Fed chairman 1959-2013], roughly 85% increase in the monetary base - which is a roughly 35% greater increase in the monetary base in 8 years than W.M. Martin Jr managed in his own last 11 years. [Way to go, Arthur!] :
Fig.3 The Monetary Base under Arthur F. Burns 1970-1978 [Click on image to enlarge]
Fed Chairman 11: G. William Miller March 8, 1978 –August 6, 1979 :
The short, 16 month only term of the 11th chairman of the Federal Reserve, G. William Miller [March 8, 1978 –August 6, 1979], resulted in a more than 15% increase in the monetary base over 16 months, roughly 10% per year. This may not seem like a lot , but keep in mind, if compounded at an approximate 10% per year rate over a typical 8 year chairperson time period , that 10% annual increase compounded would have resulted in a roughly 110% increase in the monetary base [ in other words Mr Miller's actions were on track to exceed the excesses of his immediate predecessor, A.F. Burns] :
Fig.4 The Monetary Base under G. William Miller 1978-79 [Click on image to enlarge]
Fed Chairman 12: Paul A. Volcker August 6, 1979 – August 11, 1987 :
From 1979 to 1987, under Mr Volker's chairmanship, the monetary base went from around $145 billion in 1979 to over $250 billion by 1987, an approximately 70% increase in the monetary base over 8 years:
Fig.5 The Monetary Base under Paul Volker 1979-1987 [Click on image to enlarge]
Fed Chairman 13 . Alan Greenspan August 11, 1987 –January 31, 2006:
Under Mr Greenspan's term, the monetary base can be seen to have gone from around $250 billion in 1987 to $800 billion in 2006, a roughly 220% increase in the monetary base over a 8 year period.[ A new record for monetary base expansion.]:
Fig.6 The Monetary Base under Alan Greenspan 1987-2006 [Click on image to enlarge]
Fed Chairman14 : Ben Bernanke February 1, 2006 –
Not to be outdone by his immediate predecessor Alan Greenspan [who himself had overseen an approximately 220% increase in the monetary base over 8 years], under the leadership of Mr Bernanke, the monetary base has gone from $800 billion to more than $3000 billion [i.e.$ 3 trillion] , an approximately 275% increase in the monetary base over a 7 year period. A roughly 50% increase over what Mr Greenspan "achieved". What's not to like ? :-(
Fig.7 The Monetary Base under Ben Bernanke 2006-13 [Click on image to enlarge]
N.B. One thing to keep in mind about the above graph [fig. 7], is that a logarithmic scale tends to flatten out/ make less obvious changes in the vertical [y ]axis along the time line of a graph, and yet here, despite the logarithmic scale, we can still see a dramatic almost vertical increase in the monetary base that occurred in the 3rd quarter of 2008, which should drive home to the observer just how dramatic, substantial, and fast this increase occurred. The monetary base in fact doubles [i.e. 100% increase] in the last 6 months of 2008.
$US Price Inflation Under The Federal Reserve System [1913-2000]:
Fig.8 [Click on image to enlarge]
Investment and Speculation Implications of Bernanke's Monetary Inflation Policies - The Economic/Investment Future Remains Uncertain!
Given my own biases and background education in economics and investment philosophy [i.e. a25+ year "hard money" and Austrian economic theory background and [self] education], it would seem natural for me to predict that massive price inflation in the US must surely happen within the next 5 or so years, as indeed many of the investment advisors I have followed for the past 25+ years are now doing.
In The Real World....
However, despite the temptation to follow their lead, I will instead tell you that despite what is revealed in this article, the real-world reality is that the economic future, as always, remains entirely uncertain and mostly unpredictable, whether or not it is an "Austrian" economist [or any other type of economist], a "hard money" investment "guru", a technical or fundamental analyst/stock market "guru", Warren Buffet, your financial planner, the Board of Governors at the Federal Reserve, or "Uncle Tom Cobley and all" doing the predicting.
In fact, as far as Austrian economic theory is concerned, I believe that all "Austrian"/"hard money" economists and investment advisors who are on record as predicting massive inflation [or whatever] in the near future because of what has occurred under Mr. Bernanke's term, have actually misunderstood a key component of Austrian economic theory - but I am not going to address that subject here, nor anywhere else, for free [hint, hint :-) ] ; suffice to say that because of this overlooked key component, the financial/economic future must always remain largely unknowable.
And the above should in no way be construed as me saying that the Federal Reserve is necessary, or is"doing the right thing under the circumstances", or that a stock market boom is now on the cards, or a bond market collapse, or anything else. I repeat, I have no idea what the future may bring [inflation, deflation, fake "good times","stagflation", or whatever], and the plain vanilla truth is that neither does anyone else [despite whatever successful previous prediction record someone might claim to have.]
For more on the implications for investors and speculators and how to profit/protect your precious savings from both unforeseen economic events, and from all investment prophets, advisors, gurus, economic crystal-ball gazers etc. etc., regardless of what the future might hold, please read the Financial Safety Services disclaimer.
Financial Safety Services is NOTan investment advisory or asset management service!
Goal: the primary goal of this service is to get the individual to the point where they fully understand that the financial and economic future cannot be reliably and consistently predicted by anyone, and that relying on the forecasts of "advisors", graph- interpreters, government officials, investment "gurus", fund managers, bankers, or any other proclaimed financial/investment "expert", for their "sure- fire predictions", can be very costly to the individual, even if that "expert" apparently has made successful predictions in the past.
To that end, Financial Safety Services is an educational service that after that goal [above] has been reached with an individual, then attempts to show that individual non-original [i.e. invented by others far more clever/intelligent than myself], time-tested safe methods/principles that might be successfully used by the individual to self-managetheir savings [i.e. use no advisors or money managers ], via relatively low risk speculations in various financial markets, using only money they can afford to lose, and also how to self-manage precious savings they cannot afford to risk losing [i.e. use no advisors or money managers ], and how to protect those savings from unforeseen inflation, deflation, and other unforeseen future economic events/scenarios, as well as how to protect those savings from the likes of allegedly prescient professional investment and financial "advisors","gurus", investment "managers" etc. etc.
ACCURACY OF INFORMATION : Financial Safety Services MAKES NO CLAIMS AS TO THE ACCURACY OF ANY INFORMATION EITHER GIVEN AT THIS BLOG SITE, OR IN PERSON TO PAYING CLIENTS.All information given/sold, must be understood to have been acted on AT THE INDIVIDUALS OWN RISK .
Financial Safety Services is a private , mostly off-line, international, person to person consulting service that attempts to show its real-time [i.e. mostly non-internet derived] clients how to speculate safelywith money that they canafford to lose.
Money that the client cannot afford to lose should never be risked in these speculations!
For more than 20 years, nearly all of Financial Safety Services clients to date have been found via direct [i.e off-line, in-person] referral from previously satisfied clients only.
No attempts are made to procure clientele via the selling of the sporadic, deliberately incomplete online information posted at this site. All valuable information is sold to clients, via e-mail, or preferably in person, on a "need to know" customized basis, depending on their specific speculative wants/needs.
Therefor any/all posts at this site are for the reference and possible benefit of pre-existing , real-world, paying clients only as part of my services [and to perhaps help emphasize a particular point I make to them in private], andneverfor the benefit of the general reading public and casual internet reader at large.
Internet posts arer not made on a regular schedule in order to build an on-line audience; only when I feel that so doing is beneficial to my actual existing clientele.
I have no interest in gaining clients first hand from any posts made either here or elsewhere [if it happens, it happens!] - as I previously stated, to date [20 years+], nearly all of my previous clients have come to me via direct, in-person referral from other satisfied clients- that is, [1]an existing client personally recommends my services to a close friend, [2] the friend contacts me, [3]we discuss their wants/needs, [4] I make a decision as to whether or not I can really help them, [5] We come to a financial agreement- or not :-) .
None- Client Questions?
Should a casual reader/none client have a serious question about an assertion I make on this site, they must write to me at: onebornfreeatyahoodotcom and I will do my best to answer their question. Their first question will usually be answered for free. After that, fees may apply.
Current Client Questions.
All existing, paying client questions are of course, answered for free [usually via private e-mail]- it is part of the service!
Click on image to enlarge [Financial Safety Services commentary: Here's Bill Bonner to prove to us all that economics and investment articles do not have to be dry and humorless Heck, they can even be "x-rated" and still profound, in the right hands. On the other hand, despite what is revealed in my graph above this commentary which dramatically illustrates what the Federal Reserve has been up to for the past few years, it does not mean that his dire prediction will necessarily come true, or, at the very least, it does not have to come true for you. Financial Safety Services main goal is to show individuals how to protect their precious long term savings from the type of shenanigans outlined by my graph and by Mr Bonner's text- and even how to safely speculate with money you can afford to lose -should you be lucky enough to have any "play money" in these troubled times. Bottom line: you do not have to be F**king F**ked . Enjoy! ]
Bill Bonner "Neil Barofsky, the federal employee in charge of auditing the TARP program, says the "U.S. is pretty f**ked." The Huffington Post reports that he is not the first to resort to the F-word to describe Americans' situation: Christina Romer... the former chair of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, told Bill Maher last year that the U.S. was "pretty darned f**ked" on the night that Standard and Poor's downgraded the country's credit rating. Another Washington official known for his testy language? None other than Tim "I have been the most f**king transparent secretary of the Treasury in this country's entire f**king history!" Geithner. Yesterday, we found out that whatever it takes to bring about a real f**king recovery... with real f**king growth... and real f**king prosperity... central banks don't have it. All they have is the ability to manipulate the credit market... and print more money. If that's all it took to make people wealthy, Zimbabweans would be the wealthiest f**king people on Earth, followed by the f**king Argentines. And now we discover that, despite f**king Herculean efforts on the part of central bankers, more and more of the world economy is nevertheless still f**ked. Central banks doubled their f**king assets (and the foundation of the world's money supply) in just four short years. The Bank of England was particularly energetic. It tripled its f**king assets. But the recession in Britain continues. And in the U.S., another f**king recession may be here already. If not, it's probably right around the f**king corner. McDonald's sales are at a two-year low. If you can't afford a f**king Big Mac, what can you afford? Economist David Rosenberg, at Gluskin Sheff, says export orders are collapsing too. The last two times this happened, we were in a f**king recession. From Bloomberg: Exports appear to be collapsing around the world. Data out of Germany this morning showed exports falling 1.9%, and South Korea, the canary in the coal mine, has seen exports crumble. Now, Gluskin Sheff's David Rosenberg writes that soon we'll find "that the U.S. prints a negative-GDP reading on the back of a negative export shock that does not appear to be in any forecast." He writes that 70% of real GDP growth since the "recovery" began three years ago has come from export volumes and inventory investment. In fact, Rosenberg points out that there is an 81% correlation between annual growth in U.S. exports and ISM new orders, and that this level of new export orders coincided with the last two recessions. And yesterday came the official announcement that France, too, is in a f**king recession. "France is f**ked," said a friend at dinner last night. "Everything is rigged... and re-rigged. France's Socialist president, Francois Hollande, is a rich man. He has three houses on the Cote d'Azur. But he claims to hate the rich. And gets votes by promising to punish rich people with higher taxes. "They're already doubling the wealth tax. And now they're putting the income tax up to 75%. Of course, it doesn't really matter. It applies only to people earning more than a million a year. And hardly anybody earns that kind of money in France. If you're going to earn that much, you go somewhere else. "So they say it's mostly symbolic. But symbolic of what? It's a symbol of a stupid, hypocritical government... that pretends that it can treat people who create wealth as though they were milk cows. It squeezes them dry... and then kicks them in the ass. "And you know what? I can do something symbolic too. I can leave France." Which is why France is f**ked. People with any gumption leave. They can move to London. They can move to Geneva. They can move to Brussels. They can live well in any of those cities. Another guest at last night's dinner party was a farmer: "I went to a meeting hosted by our regional farm bureau last week. They were explaining to us all of the wonderful things they are doing for us. They had a PowerPoint presentation... with great photos of them at work... showing all of the resources we had to work with. "What they didn't bother to talk about was how costly all of their 'help' has become. In Europe, there are now five bureaucrats working in some area of agricultural administration for every one farmer. And these people increase a farmer's workload. Now I spend half of my time filling out the forms that these people require... or being inspected... or complying with some new rule or regulation. "So when they got to the end of the presentation, they asked if there were any questions. I stood up. I said, 'I'd like to make a proposal. Since there are now five administrative people in the agricultural sector for every farmer... and since every farmer must spend half of his time dealing with the admin people... I propose that each farmer be given one paper pusher to work for him exclusively. That paper pusher's job will be to push the papers back to the other paper pushers. "'You can plainly see the advantage of such a system. It will cost nothing. No jobs will be lost. And it will free farmers from doing things that aren't productive. In theory, it should double a farmer's productivity. So everyone will be better off.' "The guy from the farm bureau just muttered something, and then they closed the meeting." Our friend did not say so. But farmers are f**ked by the f**king farm bureaucracy. But so what? We're all f**ked, because whatever the f**king central bankers have got, it ain't f**king enough to bring about real f**king growth in the real f**king economy. And as we saw yesterday, the central bankers and central planners are the ones who f**ked up the economy in the first place. And now the only thing that would bring real growth is the very thing they refuse to do: Stop f**king with it!"
*****************************
FINANCIAL SAFETY SERVICESDISCLAIMER:
Financial Safety Services is NOT an investment advisory service. Financial Safety Services is an educational service that teaches the interested individual non-original [i.e. invented by others far more intelligent than myself], time-tested safe methods/principles that might be successfully used by the individual for relatively low risk speculations in various financial markets.
ACCURACY OF INFORMATION : Financial Safety Services MAKES NO CLAIMS AS TO THE ACCURACY OF ANY INFORMATION EITHER GIVEN AT THIS BLOG SITE, OR IN PERSON TO PAYING CLIENTS. All information given/sold, must be understood to have been acted on AT THE INDIVIDUALS OWN RISK .
For more than 20 years, nearly all of Financial Safety Services clients to date have been found via direct [i.e off-line, in-person] referral from previously satisfied clients only.
No attempts are made to procure clientele via the selling of the sporadic, deliberately incomplete online information posted at this site. All valuable information is sold to clients, via e-mail, or preferably in person, on a "need to know" customized basis, depending on their specific speculative wants/needs.
Therefor any/all posts at this site are for the reference and possible benefit of pre-existing , real-world, paying clients only as part of my services [and to perhaps help emphasize a particular point I make to them in private], and never for the benefit of the general reading public and casual internet reader at large.
Internet posts arer not made on a regular schedule in order to build an on-line audience; only when I feel that so doing is beneficial to my actual existing clientele.
I have no interest in gaining clients first hand from any posts made either here or elsewhere [if it happens, it happens!] - as I previously stated, to date [20 years+], nearly all of my previous clients have come to me via direct, in-person referral from other satisfied clients- that is, [1]an existing client personally recommends my services to a close friend, [2] the friend contacts me, [3]we discuss their wants/needs, [4] I make a decision as to whether or not I can really help them, [5] We come to a financial agreement- or not :-) .
None- Client Questions?
Should a casual reader/none client have a serious question about an assertion I make on this site, they must write to me at: onebornfreeatyahoodotcom and I will do my best to answer their question. Their first question will usually be answered for free. After that, fees may apply.
Current Client Questions.
All existing, paying client questions are of course, answered for free [usually via private e-mail]- it is part of the service!
