Long time reader “Shaken”, via email;
As our journalists continue to cast themselves under a self-made asteroid, hundreds of thousands of small investors find themselves on a ledge, wondering which version of The Truth is the one that will inform their retirement or educational fund management decisions. Reporting in the mainstream financial press of late has been at best like a ride on the vomit comet: Greece soon to default; ECB funds a bailout; oops not quite – actually China is our white knight; not so fast – the Greeks cannot agree to terms… On and on it goes.
Can anyone be surprised then when the Al Gore’s invention glows red hot with rumor and speculation as a worried public experiences daily cognitive disconnects while trying to reconcile what their lying eyes see and or read from the professional financial journalists?
Is it any wonder, then, that in such a climate of fear, deliberate disinformation, misdirection, obfuscation and even plain lying that blog posts such as this one become viral within hours of publication?
When one reads through this blog post, pieces seem to fall into place, and otherwise paradoxical events and statements begin to form into a cohesive and logical pattern. Believability ensues. Caring relationships ensure rapid dissemination.
Millions of people around the globe stand ready to do what our professional journalists have forgotten to do, or have otherwise been convinced not to do: be one of us looking out for each other.
Perhaps the blog post to which this note refers is merely the speculation if an intelligent and well meaning individual that has been swept up in the milieu of anxiety which grips us all ever tighter each day, but that us beside the point. The point is, this post went viral as though cycled in a Swiss particle accelerator, evidencing the appetite of the public for reliable information, an appetite no longer satisfied by journalists.
The veracity of the rumor will soon be established or dismissed. Reading it through, one cannot but help sense that there may just be a tinge of truth to the rumor, especially as it has a large degree of congruence with the latest musings at established and credible blogs such as Mish’s and Zerohedge.
If this rumor turns out to be true, and the MSM has once more been scooped by the humble blogosphere, it will be perhaps the nearest of the near misses – the biggest story in the lives of many today, unreported, either by malfeasance, or incompetence. Or both.
Related – Among European nations, debt-ridden Greece is most exposed to Iranian oil disruption.
So Angela Merkel is a drachma queen?
She has a lot on her Plato.
Just watch as all of Europe falls like Dominoes right behind Greece. I just pray we can avoid the fall out.
Everyone should note that there is big money to be made in a downward market. When stocks and commodities fall, they fall fast and if you are ‘short’ you can make money faster than buying and holding your investments. We are only now seeing the prices from 2008 return, when it only took a few months to fall. Imagine making money when the market is falling.
Learn now about buying put options, contra ETFs, commodity ETFs and the VIX. Switch your retirement savings to a self-managed plan. Google is your friend. Mutual funds and your investment advisor are not.
Desperation plan now in effect, two Greeks will go to work this week, and Dmitri will pay his 2003 taxes. I don’t know, this just could work.
Much as I feel for Greece, and if the citizens don’t tear the country apart by end of March, it could be the best way of insuring Obama doesn’t get another term. Wall Street is heavily intertwined with what happens in Europe and if Greece goes their own way our stock markets would be severely affected. The good road to recovery Obama is counting on to win the next election would see some major setbacks and add the price of Gas/Diesel which will drive up the price of all consumer goods as well as put a damper on the entire tourist industry and you will have a POTUS that could have a difficult time explaining why he refused ethical oil from Canada while his green energy plan continues to suck billions out of the dying economy. What happens in Greece will have a big impact on the next election.
socialists finest moments are about to be put on display, hope the lefties will appreciate show
Good time to stock up on canned goods.
It’s not only journalists that are at sea. My broker is definitely of the optimistic persuasion – the markets are improving slightly etc.
Another investment manager that I deal with is apocalyptic: the end is nigh, Europe is collapsing, buy gold bullion.
Frankly the advice given a German friend of mine may be as sound as any to me:
Germans of wealth would traditionally keep one third of their wealth in gold, one third in stocks and bonds, and one third in cash.
That allows room for growth but is weighted for disaster.
However, I will look a little more into “Bull”‘s suggestions. A friend of mine has had much success in shorting stock; he is happy when everyone else is tearing his hair.
Probably a good reason why we shouldn’t be as dependant on ME oil.
What Ken (Kulak) said.
Oh and you should buy a rifle and some ammo if you don’t already own one. Course I’m probably talking to the wall if you haven’t already by now.
Mad love to John Lewis. Really enjoyed the quotes around my handle. Let it be known the “Bull” has nothing to do with a Bull Market. People who know me would get my name, but it’s a small crowd. In fact my Twitter profile sates that I’ve been short-selling civilization since 2008. Short selling GM buying Ruger and crude oil. I’m betting on the downside.
The reality is that the market is rising and you should never short a rising market no matter how screwed we are. Best to wait for a definitive sell signal where people with billions of $$$ on the line are leaving the market. You will get rich riding on the coat tails of the rich. That’s actually the point of this original SDA post. You will never beat them, better to be one of them.
If you sold your tulips before the tulip market crashed you’d be relieved. If you never invested in tulips in the first place you’d be happy. If you were growing tulips you’d be saying the party’s over.
If you said the whole lot were idiots and wanted to bet against them all you’d buy an ETF called the VIXY. But you’d wait until the market is crashing before you did.
The Greeks have one gambit left. The Romanian solution.
Greece is going to collapse, the only questions are when and how hard. If it is easy, we will have a global recession for two three years. If it is hard I think we will look back on the Thirty’s with the sense that we missed the good times. And still the Greeks will go on strike and hasten the fall.
This isn’t news. Greece’s default has been expected by the smart money for months, and it’s been priced into the bond market.
What, you think sovereign defaults haven’t occurred before? Argentina’s default ten years ago was far larger, and the world didn’t come to an end then. So why should it now? Fact is, Greece is just too small to matter.
1) euro govts started peinting their own money in october
2) german banks are now at proper capial ratios
This has always been about playing for time.
3) technical point, but greek bonds held by the ecb were reworked to not have a collective actin clause. Means ecb bonds are now practically senior to any other debt. The cram down is now set up…..
Final point. The greeks recently tied taxes to utility bills…as in pay your income taxes or your water and hydro get shut off. This was successful in bringing the money in, but the funds “disappeared”. Perhaps the greek people are completely rational in their tax avoidance.
The whole place needs a ground up rebuilding. Can it be done without letting non friendly elements, or tyrants run the place. And can it be contained?
And will the us see it as a parable.
This has never been about Greece they are only 1% of the European economy. It has always been about the big EU and US banks that are on the hook in the event of a default. This has been in the blog sphere for months. It is also well known that Greece is just the first and most of the rest of Europe, Japan and The US in that order will also one way or another eventually default. It is only a mater of time.
Any one who gets their news from the traditional sources is a fool.
A specter is haunting Europe — the spectre of running out of other peoples money.
Don’t be stupid, Kevin. I don’t care what meaningless gas drifts around on the blogosphere, which can be just as full of nonsense as the MSM. I care about bond yields.
You claim the US is going to default along with the rest of Europe, do you? Prove it. Unlike Greece, these places have real economies, which Greece hasn’t had in 30 years. What Europe needs to to is the same thing that the US did in 2008, its own TARP program. Can their debt loads be serviced? Yes.
Read my post again. There have been many much larger sovereign defaults than Greece. The Euro banks survived those, and the Euro banking system will survive this.
This maneuvering by the Americans (if true of course) would put Barry’s Big Borrowing policy in an even worse light. They are going to BE Greece in ten years, their interest payment will be over 100% of GDP.
Unless they’re doing it -deliberately-, as some kind of “war by other means”. Given that everybody in Western Civilization seems to be doing the same thing, one gets the feeling that at some point its going to come downto who’s got the biggest guns.
peterj,10:43pm;
the crash is how Obama wins reelection!
1) Obama will state that a stockmarket crash and second dip into resession, “is not my fault”, “don’t blame me”, “we were on the road to recovery”, “I(or he could say Americans) had nothing to do with this”….and the “American Media” WILL TELL US IT”s SO! They will pound that notion harder than ever.
2) Obama will tell us “not to change ships in mid steam”, and so will the MSM.
end of story, reelection!
Some feel Obama(Soros et al) will do what he can to hold off the crash till after the election, I think it will happen in Oct. prior to the election, for the above reasons.
Wonder if that eeeevil tarrrrsands oil looks so dirty to euroweenies now. The headlong dive into the pool of fools (environmentalism, saving the planet) has cost the european economy much more than it can monetarily withstand, along with all western economies, reality has to be brought back and soon. After being in Europe years ago and seeing how lazy a lot of them are this is no surprise, but the taxation was so high in northern part that I really couldn’t blame them, what is the point of working your self ragged only to give it to the likes of Herman Von Romperroom.
cgh,
I won’t call you names in return but I will refute what you say. The US is in no better shape than Greece. The one advantage they have is that they are the reserve currency. This means they can print money and buy their own bonds to keep the interest rate low. They currently have a debt/GDP ratio of 100% close to $15 TRILLION. They have an unfunded liability of close to another $75 TRILLION. They will not pay off their debts with dollars that have the same purchasing power as they do today. They will debase, refute, renig and/or eventually just plain default on their debt.
Everyone is seeing WW3 or the apocolypse. This is what I see:
Default, followed by an initial period of mayhem by the usual suspects. A few dummies are going to be killed in riots and stampedes of stupid people.
This will settle down fairly quickly. Then other stupid people will slowly grasp the new reality – work or don’t eat! All those unnecessary social programs, all those welfare, entitlement and union slobs – they will become socially unacceptable and ostracized literally overnight.
I see a 1930’s mindset coming back to us all – and this is a good thing. People that save and are independent will be admired. Those that do not will be reviled.
There is a whole lot of liberal social engineering going out to the curb in the days ahead.
Shaken’s observations of the dino media in the shadow of the asteroid are correct but it has only a small amount to do with being “scooped” by alternate media – it has more to do with people waking up to the fact the dino media do not print news – only rumors useful to their clients – and they print no news that is detrimental to their patrons interets. They are essentially whores who publish the prescripted sales pitch for their patrons.
In this case of impending implosion of inflated credit and currency, it’s a constant drone of “don’t worry be happy” market advice and a black out on national defaults due to credit hocus pokus with international lenders and debtor nations.
It has been that way for some decades now, it’s just that the contrast of real news reporting that came with the advent of the internet makes the dino media seem so obviously corrupt.
This is old news – months old to those in the know. It was all about finding and convincing a patsy to hold the bag. Got a firm grip on it? See yah…
Big Bad Jim @ 9:58 is right – there is no such thing as a free lunch. There is just herd instinct and the accompanying wolves:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ_7GtE529M
uhuh. busy shooting the messenger again.
here’s a hint: the deception originates with the politishuns.
Occam nails it!
I agree with Occam. Blogs act as a publicly viewed depository for all to see,of rumour and innuendo. They lack the personnel or resources to confirm these rumours as fact, nor do they desire too. There is no scooping, just prodding the MSM cattle to investigate and print rumours they are sitting on when they normally wouldn’t be so inclined, for whatever reason, usually ideological or political. You can’t have discussion or debate at confirmed rumours you never read or hear about. That is the beauty of blogs.
Rubbish. This is old news even for the MSM. This is blog-o-sphere wankery.
Kevin, I agree with you that the US is heading in Greece’s direction in terms of sovereign debt. There is one essentiall all-important difference. The US has a meaningful economy. It produces things. It has a large manufacturing base, and it’s the financial centre of the world.
By contrast, Greece has no meaningful economy. It manufactures nothing. All it has are tourism (vapourizing now in the wake of all the strikes), a trivial fishing industry, and some minor agriculture (mostly bad wine and some trivial fishing). The US may be in trouble, but the problem with Greece is there’s no there there. There’s literally nothing on which to rebuild a country.
Even Portugal is better off than Greece in this regard.
Lawrence Soloman, Financial Post, has a brighter view of Greece’s possibilities: http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/02/17/new-glory-for-greece/