jungle

Interesting article on the current world economy:

The Quiet Coup - The Atlantic (May 2009)

IC ALL

Oh, I thought you were talking about electric cars there for a sec.

tomgoodman

The primary vice of the "oligarchs" is also their greatest vulnerability: They don't produce anything.

jungle

Nonproductive and redistributive behaviors seem to be held in quite high regard by those who don't understand them. Moving water from the deep end to the shallow end or charging to move the water are closely aligned.

chuck416

Jungle,
Read the article. Down right scary. With these things in mind, where to you put your money these days. Please don't tell me 'under the mattress'. Seriously though. Just saving cash doesn't sound prudent, as it's quickly becoming hi quality tissue paper. Commodities maybe? But which one? Gold? Oil? I've made some $ in the run-up since March, but this market scares the beejeebers out of me.
Regards,
Chuck

jungle

Hard to say. I think much of the recent runup was from Banks getting a wad of cash from "stimulus" funds. Where to put it since loans were not being made? Shallow volume and not much drop in the money market investments by the majority.

I think most commodities are priced fairly or fairly high now. What is going to make the stock market go up? Maybe 2010?

Inflation is a strong possibility, but if the money isn't loaned and a wage price spiral never develops we can easily find ourselves in a deflationary scenario similar to the last decade of the Japanese economy.

A possible good bet is a strong rise in interest rates, already reflected in the price of money even for secured loans in the real world. Lots of toxic debt still in the system and very little "hard" currency. Maybe the money market is a good play right now.