Randomness and Anti-Fragility

"I think that an oil shock would be very good because we need to be trained to finally give up on these stupid cars. We have so many alternative sources, and people are too lazy. We need to enhance anti-fragility in this area. You can move from wild randomness into mild randomness by creating some. It is like hormesis: You give someone a little bit of poison and they get stronger. Economic life gets stronger not with bailouts, but with bankruptcies."
Nassim Taleb

An excellent read:
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2755

The Cooperative Metal

Gold has now sustained its price above the psychological barrier of $1500/ounce.  At this present moment, it's selling for $1544/ounce.  Unbelievable to some.  Right on track for others.  The best part about gold to date is that it's cooperated so well from a technical chart perspective.  It builds nice long bases and conforms to pattern prediction such as the "reverse head and shoulders".  Of course, this cooperation can change tomorrow.  There is concern as Robert Prechter warns that "everything is up".  Commodities and equities were moving in similar tandem leading up to the 2008 crash.

My recent picks were quite good it I don't say so myself.

Gold ETF "GLD" with recent buy points.

Happy Easter

I wish everyone a blessed Easter!

A re-post of some wise words from the late Father David Kirk:

"If you want to find God, really find God, go to where people are suffering. There, if you can open your eyes to the needs of others, and let your heart respond to see.....you're in for a great adventure! May this Sunday be a day for beginning to DO the word of God and not simple hear the word of God. Amen."

A Fourth Turning Update

"The storyline promulgated by the mainstream linear thinking opinion leaders is the economy is recovering, the banking system is sound, the stock market is booming, buying a house is a great investment, inflation is below 2%,  jobs are being created, and consumers have regained their confidence and spending power. This message is hammered home on a daily basis by the corporate run mainstream media. It is patently false and the thinking members of the American public know it. The economic condition of the country is rapidly deteriorating. While politicians posture and lie to the citizens, the fissures in our financial system grow wider. As of today, regeneracy and unification behind one common national purpose seems light years away. Strauss & Howe speculated in 1997 about potential events that could spur events during the next Fourth Turning.The event necessary to cause a regeneracy in this country will need to be on an epic scale. Based upon a review of the foreseeable issues confronting our society it is clear to me that a worse financial implosion will strike before the 2012 presidential election. It may be triggered by a debt ceiling confrontation, the ending of QE2, a panic out of the USD, hyperinflation, a surge in oil prices, or some combination of these possibilities. The ensuing collapse of the stock and bond markets will remove the last vestiges of trust in the existing financial system and the government bureaucrats who have taken taxpayer dollars and funneled them to these Wall Street oligarchs."
James Quinn, "The Burning Platform"

A must read article:
http://www.theburningplatform.com/?p=14483

A Day In The Fed's Vault

Michael Lewis published a great article yesterday regarding The Fed and their recent practices.  Great stuff:

"Last week the Federal Reserve bravely released 894 PDF files containing 29,346 pages that detailed its heroic actions during the financial crisis.  These documents revealed how open-minded the Fed can be when it needs to be. Local governments in Belgium, Japanese fishing cooperatives, the Libyan government and many other unlikely parties received the Fed’s financial aid. Failing U.S. banks, such as Citigroup and Morgan Stanley (MS), were of course handed whatever they wanted, and permitted to post as collateral pretty much anything they could get their hands on: junk bonds, defaulted debt, volatile equities.  To naive critics this came as just more evidence that the Fed had mistaken the wants of a handful of rich people for the needs of the wider society.  Many Fed spokesmen have wisely declined to comment, many times.  Upon seeing how incapable the public is of understanding its wisdom, the Fed judiciously elected to withhold a second, far longer document."
Michael Lewis

The entire article:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-12/the-fed-rescue-program-too-bizarre-to-be-true-commentary-by-michael-lewis.html

The 3 C's

"The circumstances that got us here will not lead us out. Watchwords for the future: Community, cooperation & co-dependance at a local level."
The Automatic Earth
http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/

Limitless Growth

"Nothing in conventional economics of any flavor suggests how to create 'growth' when oil is scarce/rationed and it costs $300 per barrel. Having been conceived in daylight, conventional economics has never experienced darkness, and has no way to conceptualize a world without 'limitless growth.'"
Charles Hugh Smith

Cocaine Crazed Lab Rats

"The Keynesian experiment is being extended to its ultimate point of failure.Interestingly, China, Europe, Japan and the U.S. are all pursuing the same Keynesian credit-expansion Grand Strategy. It is the single tool available to States and Central Banks imprisoned by conventional economic theories, and they are hitting that single policy switch like cocaine-crazed lab rats clamoring for another hit."
Charles Hugh Smith

Buy On The Cheap

"Most Americans know little about gold. While they sleep, we buy on the cheap."
Sean Broderick, Weiss Research