Origins of Greed and Fear

Origins of Greed and Fear

Jan 31, 2019 by Morgan Housel

Greed and fear control everything in investing.

There is no amount of growth that can’t be destroyed by an investor’s temptation to grab too much of it. And there is no opportunity so appealing that it will catch the eye of someone who refuses to look.

But greed and fear aren’t always character flaws. People with the best intentions and ethics fall for their temptation. The two traits evolve from something innocent: the amount of confidence we have that our actions influence our outcomes. Figuring out how much of what you do influences what you get requires calculating odds in situations where accurately knowing the odds is impossible.

The problem happens when convenience masquerades as a calculation, and you cling to the most comfortable odds by thinking opportunities are more, or less, in your control than they really are. This form of greed – which has nothing to do with bad ethics – is pervasive. And this form of fear is innate. But they are powerful. They apply to investments, businesses, industries, and countries. Confronting them just once can make or break a career. And while greed and fear are typically seen as opposites, they share an origin.

There is a natural cycle where innocent analysis evolves into greed, turns into denial, then confusion, then fear. It often drops you off where you began, with the lesson you think you learned from experiencing fear setting up your next meeting with greed.

Here’s how it happens.

Part 1: Greed

Greed begins with the most innocent idea: You deserve to be right.

The decisions you’ve made. The decisions you’ll make. The worldview you hold. The strategy you use. It’s hard to wake up in the morning and look in the mirror without telling yourself that you can make good decisions. Nothing would get done if people doubted themselves all day. This is especially true if you’ve had past success in education and work.

And you deserve to be right because you’ve put so much effort into developing your views and decisions. You went to school for years. Passed hard tests. Did hard thinking.

Put in long hours. No one wants to hear they went through that grind and still don’t deserve to be right. And deserving to be right means you should be rewarded for being right. Effort equals reward. That’s how the world works, isn’t it?

Escaping this thinking is not easy.

It’s hard to make it through the day admitting you don’t know how the world works. So no one does it. The humblest of people use simplified stories that guide their belief in cause and effect. And it’s agonizing to rewrite your worldview, or your investment strategy, or your business model, from scratch after years of effort. So people become good at clinging to views even when they’re built on flimsy evidence.

Views that we insist are right and deserve to be rewarded are often tied to the random chance of our past experience. The investor who happened to be born in the 1930s was ravaged by high inflation in the 1970s.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/origins-of-greed-and-fear/

19 Things Your Suburban Millionaire Neighbor Won’t Tell You

19 Things Your Suburban Millionaire Neighbor Won’t Tell You

By Len Penzo

That’s right. Although having a million bucks isn’t as impressive as it once was, it’s still nothing to sneeze at.

In fact, Kiplinger reports that in 2019 there were 7,698,765 millionaire households in the United States alone.

That’s a lot of people, people. And the odds are one or two of them are living near you.

Heck, one of them might even be your neighbor. In fact, the odds are very good that it is your neighbor.

But, Len, you don’t know my neighbor. That guy doesn’t look anything like a millionaire.

Well, guess what? Your suburban millionaire neighbor called (oh yeah, we go way back) and the two of us had a nice little chat.

Here’s a few things he shared with me but apparently doesn’t want to tell you. (No offense, I’m sure.)

1. He always spends less than he earns. In fact his mantra is, over the long run, you’re better off if you strive to be anonymously rich rather than deceptively poor.

2. He knows that patience is a virtue; the odds are you won’t become a millionaire overnight. If you’re like him, your wealth will be accumulated gradually by diligently saving your money over multiple decades.

3. When you go to his modest three-bed two-bath house, you’re going to be drinking Folgers instead of Starbucks. And if you need a lift, well, you’re going to get a ride in his ten-year-old economy sedan. And if you think that makes him cheap, ask him if he cares. (He doesn’t.)

4. He pays off his credit cards in full every month. He’s smart enough to understand that if he can’t afford to pay cash for something, then he can’t afford it.

5. He realized early on that money does not buy happiness. If you’re looking for nirvana, you need to focus on attaining financial freedom.

6. He never forgets that financial freedom is a state of mind that comes from being debt free. Best of all, it can be attained regardless of your income level.

7. He knows that getting a second job not only increases the size of your bank account quicker but it also keeps you busy — and being busy makes it difficult to spend what you already have.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://lenpenzo.com/blog/id1151-19-things-the-millionaire-next-door-wont-tell-you-2.html 

“Sweep the Leg”

“Sweep the Leg”

Notes From The Field By Simon Black   May 7, 2020  Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

It was barely a week ago that the federal government estimated it would borrow $3.7 trillion this fiscal year due to all the Covid bailouts.

Then, only a few days later, the Treasury Department updated the estimate and announced they would in fact be borrowing $4.5 trillion this fiscal year.

That’s an increase of $800 billion in less than a week!

Not to be outdone, the Federal Reserve has printed more than $2.5 trillion in less than 50 days, expanding its own balance sheet by 62% since the start of the pandemic.

I’ve been really hammering this theme lately, but it’s critical to understand: there is no limit to the amount of money they’ll print, or to the amount of debt they’ll take on.

And this has serious implications for the dollar.

It would be foolish to expect that you can create trillions of dollars in a matter of weeks, and take on trillions of dollars in debt, without any consequences whatsoever.

I’ve already written this a number of times, but I’ll repeat it again: if printing money were the way to achieve prosperity, then Zimbabwe would already be the wealthiest country in the world.

Prosperity requires smart, talented, hardworking people efficiently producing valuable goods and services. You can’t just click a button and create that out of thin air.

But politicians don’t seem to understand this simple point.

It’s far easier for them to print money, go into debt, and bail everyone out. And when that approach doesn’t work, they resort to dismantling capitalism, brick-by-brick.

Housing authorities have ripped up centuries of contract law and told people that it’s OK to not pay their mortgages.

Politicians are attempting to pass laws to retroactively adjust insurance policies and force insurance companies to pay for pandemic-related damages that were NOT part of the contract

Local governments have suspended property rights and forced homeowners to leave town at the point of a gun, while police agencies raid businesses to seize legally-acquired private property.

Regulators have destroyed any hint of safety and told banks to NOT report non-performing loans, all while asking depositors to keep their savings in the banking system.

There’s a never-ending list of dirty tricks that these people have used to beat the economic system to a pulp.

You can practically hear them say, “sweep the leg,” as they come up with creative new ways to wreck the economy and devalue the currency.

Look, there’s still a tremendous amount of uncertainty about how this pandemic will play out. Will they open the economy? Will anyone show up? How long will the recovery take? How many jobs and businesses will be lost for good?

There are so many unknowns.

But one thing that’s becoming completely obvious is that they don’t give a damn about the value of the currency, and they will keep printing incomprehensible amounts of money to bail everyone out.

Consider that the $2.5 trillion they printed since March is more money than they printed in the first 95 years of the Federal Reserve’s existence. That’s astonishing.

We can keep our fingers crossed and hope this won’t create devastating, long-term consequences.

But as a practical matter it makes sense to at least consider owning some real assets, including precious metals.

History tells us that whenever governments and central banks resort to such extraordinary measures, precious metals tend to be a safe haven asset.

PS: Most people understand that it makes a lot of sense to own gold when governments around the world are conjuring trillions of dollars out of thin air.

But right now, silver looks like an even more compelling opportunity, because it has NEVER been this cheap when compared to gold.

 To your freedom & prosperity, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/sweep-the-leg-27742/

Monetary Madness for Virus Hoax

Monetary Madness for Virus Hoax

The Final Wake Up Call By Peter B Meyer

Humans Being Considered Cattle

Fake Money Destroys the Economy, But Boosts Stock Prices and Corona Hype

Inflationary Phase Is Coming Soon!

Trillions Worth Of Stimulus Is the Grandest Wealth Theft From the Public

Precious Metals Update

Corona Quarantine Is Our First Step Into the New World Prison

Fake money and central control will destroy the economy, but they can still boost stock prices, and keep people unnecessary Corona Virus quarantined. It’s a virus with a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a PR firm. It has gotten more press coverage and more views, than any ailment ever visited the human race on planet Earth. If this virus were a stock, it would be overexposed, overpriced, and overhyped.

Different countries use different strategies to fight the ‘fake’ invasion. Brazil, Nicaragua and Sweden haven’t implied any quarantine rules and don’t have more, even less infected people or none at all. And, there are 34 countries on the planet that have not registered a single Covid-19 case.

There are even more non-lockdown countries, which are Iceland, Belarus, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. Most have followed Sweden where early on a professor declared “reinfection with Covid-19 is a myth”; An Icelandic doctor has said; “the virus had arrived already in December last year”. Remarkably, their results have been as good or even better than in the lockdown countries. Yet, without having to endure socio-economic chaos that other countries are experiencing.

Pay attention: These countries, have already won the virus debate scientifically and convicted the implemented course of actions. The coronavirus is real, but not as severe as was planned by the Deep State, since the patriots secretly in advance had changed the toxicity formula into a mild virus.

The response to the coronavirus is without doubt overhyped. In time, this hype will be revealed as politically swindle. In fact, the Corona Virus hysteria will go down as one of world’s political biggest, shamefully overblown, overhyped, overinflated and outright deceptive health hoax in human history.

Is a lockdown necessary? Does it do more harm than good? Or does it merely provide an excuse for doing things that Deep State controlled governments wanted to do anyway? – Priming people for their first phase into the prison of the New World Order? It seems likely to be the case. The Corona pandemic is a fraud using inaccurate death statistics to push mandatory vaccination and poisonous micro chipped injection in every human being on Earth.

The likely death rate is less than 0.002% of the world population, and not the 6.9% as widely is published in the media. In other words; the C-virus is a nasty bug, with a particular grudge against people who are in bad shape and have a weak immune system, causing worldwide 30.000 registered death.

Is that a good reason to lock down the whole economy and prevent young, healthy people from going about their lives? Most likely not. But while the shutdown could be an honest mistake, which it isn’t, as, now turns-out that this has been thoroughly planned in advance.  

It is known that the 2012 London Olympics Opening Ceremony Predicted this Pandemic.

Faced with the clear-headed thinkers on one side, and the corrupt media on the other, people might have been tempted to accept a lock down of the nation, too. But as far is investigated, the virus policy of governments has been an honest mistake; certainly there would have been a better approach.

 So, based on what is known by now, it appears that the “experts” have made a terrible blunder. As, the virus only targets a very narrow segment of the population; the old, the fat, the diabetic and those with heart/lung conditions. But that’s not a reason to shut down everybody else.

If young people were allowed to go to work, and children go to school, no one is going to die from the virus, when they return home. As, another report undermines the case for a universal lockdown. Here is Bloomberg:

Children contract the coronavirus less often and with less severity than the general population, and there doesn’t appear to be cases of a child passing Covid-19 to an adult, according to a new report.

Besides the financial losses in the trillions worldwide, God may know what personal suffering a lockdown causes; bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness, loneliness, spouse beating and irritation, depression, suicide, etc.

Although, those of us most at risk number only about one out of 20. So, rather than shut down the entire economy, a better course of action would have been just to shut down the elderly. If they should focus on the most vulnerable people, especially in nursing homes, making sure they are properly isolated and protected while the rest of the population goes about its business and acquires its “sheeple immunity,” would have been a wiser act.

Humans Being Considered Cattle

All people are slaves, they own you and you are in it. Under the ancient Babylonian Religious Codes, “Slavery” is clearly facilitated. People were not recognised as human beings thereunder, but are mere items of Commerce, like cattle. Slaves could be arrested and assaulted on by government officers for not following the rules or showing up for work on time, as is happening nowadays with the excessive number of penalties for Corona compliance.

The text-books say; “The slave is not regarded or spoken of as a human being, but as a thing, and is reckoned with, in the same way as cattle.” And that are we the people locked down in our homes, under many useless restrictions and lots of penalties in the range of hundreds of euro’s each. In the first 40 days, the police in Spain have issued 750.000 penalties on average 200 – 400€ each. Just, to keep the money flowing for the government.

The fake money-printing has geared up. Because the Virus-enemy is approaching! Pulling out all the ammunition they can get their hands on! In the hysteria, Central Banks have added more trillions in the last two weeks, than in all the previous year combined. And now they are printing at a rate of hundreds of billion per day. The so called, necessary government “bailouts” are a crime.

It is the grandest theft in human history. Sooner or later, that money will begin to light up the Score Boards for shares and real estate. Although, governments can raise prices through inflation, but they cannot raise values. Stocks will rise, but the real value of the companies themselves will likely fall.

The Central Banks control the printing press. With it they can drive up prices for just about everything, except for one thing: the currency itself. As prices rise for goods, services, and assets, it means the purchasing power of each currency unit is going down.

The US-dollar and the Euro will be the gaskets that blows, to releasing the pressure from trillions of currencies’ worth of fake money. Before, that happens, the most obvious investment you can own is still gold which rises as currencies fall.

Fake Money Destroys The Economy, But Boosts Stock Prices And Corona Hype

The modern “magic” of creating money out of thin air had its roots in the ancient city of Babylon, some 600 years BC. While about 1000 BC, it was discovered that control over a fraudulent money supply not only gave them control over the assets of the people, but in a very real way, control over the government of the people. They learned to make money over the backs of the people with the sanction of their own elected government. Sounds familiar even today, doesn’t it?

Frequent FWC-readers will not believe that a small group of technocrats in the central banks can do a better job of setting interest rates than millions of borrowers and lenders in the free market, or that real wealth can be “replaced” with fake money.

The cabal obtained their control through a process of easy money/tight money cycles. By making money easy to borrow, the amount of money in circulation is increased. When the money changers were satisfied that enough suckers had taken the bait, the trap was sprung. 

Since the lockdown was announced on March 19, the monetary base has increased about 20%, by the Rothschild central banks all over the world, making a mess of the economy.

They are printing money in the Trillions, as the tax revenues are stopped by the corona virus quarantine, while there is no one to borrow from, because no one will lend them money. For the simple reason that nobody has got that kind of money. And if they had it, they wouldn’t be fool enough to lend to someone on such a reckless spending binge.

The only possible source for so much financing is the Central Bank. And these have only one source and that is the “printing press.” In the end, they all are following Venezuela with soon to be seen inflation rates in the millions of percentage points.

Many of us above the age of 40 years have experienced inflation in one way or another and can remember when prices rose an average up to about 300% per year. That kind of inflation does to an economy approximately what the fake coronavirus does to us the people. Businesses shut down.

They can’t make plans for future investments. They let workers go. People stay home. Their money loses value so fast, they try to get rid of it as soon as possible. This feeds even further price increases, and reduces production even further.

For example, typically in these circumstances governments propose price controls, that discourages the little output that was left. High taxes and capital restrictions drive away investors. As wars are meant to distract people from the financial mismanagement and to rally them behind the government: wasting the little wealth that still was left. Fake money and central control may destroy the economy, but can still boost stock market prices, and the Corona hype.

Interest rates are at 0%, which at the moment feels almost like a given and a normality. New stimulus packages are still being drawn up. And as unprecedented trillions of “fake money-” Band-Aids flood the economy in the form of central bank-printed currencies, dollars, yen, and euros, eventually, it takes no more money to buy the same amount of assets like gold and silver. As is read in an article on Zero hedge:

The central banks of the world are pumping unprecedented amounts of money into the financial system. It may not happen overnight, but over time, this will reduce the value of our paper currencies… especially relative to hard assets that central banks can’t print, like gold and silver.

Inflationary Phase Is Coming Soon!

Both bonds and the currencies may be telling us that the switch from deflation to inflation is not far off. The bond market seems to have topped out. The central banks are going to do “whatever it takes” to keep stock and bond prices high – at least in nominal terms.

They’ll buy bonds by the boatload to keep prices high. But like stocks in the ’70s, the ground will give way beneath them. The dollar – in which most bonds are quoted – will sink against almost everything else, particularly gold.

In times of crisis and thereafter, gold prices shoot higher after a brief “confusion period.” Recently this was happening in March. Gold was manipulated lower to a low of $1,500 per ounce. But nevertheless, again is the spot price of gold back to $1,700 per ounce. And insiders in the market firmly believe it will reach new highs at or above $3,000 in the very near future.

The bottom line is; owning at least some gold or precious metals is something everyone with savings should be a part of. Gold and silver have never been cooler.  

Trillions Worth Of Stimulus Is the Grandest Wealth Theft From the Public

Meanwhile governments are transferring trillions worth of wealth from the public to their friends, affiliates and cronies. And, be assured; No Corony is left behind. A report at Bloomberg tells that little of the bailout money actually goes to the firms that need it:

U.S. Loans Didn’t Flow to Businesses Most at Risk, as a study shows

Instead, it’s going to the industries with the best lawyers and lobbyists. And when that runs out, there’s plenty more where that can come from.

The shale oil industry, for example, was always a loser, supported largely by the Fed’s artificially low interest rates. Now, President Donald Trump pledges the public’s money to bail them out:

The Stimulus bill amounts to $2,200,000,000,000.00, divided over the population of 330 million is approx. US$ 6.000 per head. But instead every adult under a certain income will be given $1,200 each. So the big money goes where it always goes to the Elite. The Fed is funding the DC-Swamp Filler program. As it’s pumping trillions of dollars into the financial system directly, intended to boost stock and bond prices. Cronyism is still working.

There were all sorts of shenanigans that meant the fund ran out of money before the legitimate small businesses could even complete their applications. For example, big banks earned ten billion dollars in fees for processing the loans and here’s a list of big companies that played around with this system and drained it of millions.

Many, of the small businesses who need the money to survive haven’t gotten it yet and may never get it, but big banks and big businesses are sitting pretty with the help of their cronies in Congress. It isn’t a stretch of imagination to say that the longer a small business stays closed, paying their expenses and holding inventory while not being able to earn income, the less likely they are to reopen successfully (or at all) once the all-clear is given. And if they can’t reopen? All those folks they used to employ will be out of a job.

It must be clear; there is an urgent need for GESARA with the new monetary QFS system and GCR / RV to reboot the global people’s economy. Hopefully this will be realised soon.

Precious Metals Update

With this incomprehensible tsunami of government debt and paper money flooding the system, real assets are a historically great bet. As explained before: real assets are things that cannot be engineered long-term by politicians and central banks– assets like productive land, well-managed businesses, and of course precious metals. These tend to do very well when central banks print loads of money.

Farmland, for example, was one of the best performing assets during the stagflation of the 1970s.

Financial data over the past several decades show that whenever central banks print lots of money, the price of gold tends to increase. In fact, the price of gold is relatively cheap compared to the current money supply. While the price of silver is ridiculously low compared to gold. Factually, silver has never been cheaper in 5,000 years. This is why everyone with savings should own physical silver, as the price of this metal very likely is going to soar exponentially.

Stay tuned there is more to come 

http://finalwakeupcall.info/en/2020/05/06/monetary-madness-for-virus-hoax/

68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice

68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice  

By Kevin Kelly

It’s my birthday. I’m 68. I feel like pulling up a rocking chair and dispensing advice to the young ‘uns. Here are 68 pithy bits of unsolicited advice which I offer as my birthday present to all of you.

• Learn how to learn from those you disagree with, or even offend you. See if you can find the truth in what they believe.

• Being enthusiastic is worth 25 IQ points.

• Always demand a deadline. A deadline weeds out the extraneous and the ordinary. It prevents you from trying to make it perfect, so you have to make it different. Different is better.

• Don’t be afraid to ask a question that may sound stupid because 99% of the time everyone else is thinking of the same question and is too embarrassed to ask it.

• Being able to listen well is a superpower. While listening to someone you love keep asking them “Is there more?”, until there is no more.

• A worthy goal for a year is to learn enough about a subject so that you can’t believe how ignorant you were a year earlier.

• Gratitude will unlock all other virtues and is something you can get better at.

• Treating a person to a meal never fails, and is so easy to do. It’s powerful with old friends and a great way to make new friends.

• Don’t trust all-purpose glue.

• Reading to your children regularly will bond you together and kickstart their imaginations.

• Never use a credit card for credit. The only kind of credit, or debt, that is acceptable is debt to acquire something whose exchange value is extremely likely to increase, like in a home. The exchange value of most things diminishes or vanishes the moment you purchase them. Don’t be in debt to losers.

• Pros are just amateurs who know how to gracefully recover from their mistakes.

• Extraordinary claims should require extraordinary evidence to be believed.

• Don’t be the smartest person in the room. Hangout with, and learn from, people smarter than yourself. Even better, find smart people who will disagree with you.

• Rule of 3 in conversation. To get to the real reason, ask a person to go deeper than what they just said. Then again, and once more. The third time’s answer is close to the truth.

• Don’t be the best. Be the only.

• Everyone is shy. Other people are waiting for you to introduce yourself to them, they are waiting for you to send them an email, they are waiting for you to ask them on a date. Go ahead.

• Don’t take it personally when someone turns you down. Assume they are like you: busy, occupied, distracted. Try again later. It’s amazing how often a second try works.

• The purpose of a habit is to remove that action from self-negotiation. You no longer expend energy deciding whether to do it. You just do it. Good habits can range from telling the truth, to flossing.

• Promptness is a sign of respect.

• When you are young spend at least 6 months to one year living as poor as you can, owning as little as you possibly can, eating beans and rice in a tiny room or tent, to experience what your “worst” lifestyle might be. That way any time you have to risk something in the future you won’t be afraid of the worst case scenario.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://kk.org/thetechnium/

What Is A Money Story And How Can It Affect Your Finances?

 What Is A Money Story And How Can It Affect Your Finances?

If I had more money, ____ wouldn’t be a problem.  I work hard. I deserve that new _____.

I’ll never be able to pay off this debt.  I can’t earn enough to get ahead.

I need X amount of money to have peace of mind.  I’m a cheapskate.

Spending money on things for yourself is selfish.

Money can elicit a whole slew of feelings: shame, pride, guilt, stress, and more. And, more often than not, these feelings about money stem from your childhood.

Even if the adults in your life didn’t openly discuss money as you were growing up, you still picked up on how it was handled in your family.

Maybe there was a traumatic event, like a job loss, death, or divorce. Or perhaps it was things such as extreme frugality or spending, parents arguing about money, or a feeling of tension about paying the bills.

All these experiences combined to form your money story (or money scripts, as some call them).

Your money story was written, whether you realized it or not. And you carry your money story from the past into your adult life.

your life and money story in a book  

By better understanding your story, you can take steps to improve your financial future.

Below we’ll explain what a money story is and how it can affect your finances. We’ll also discuss how you can identify your money script and create a new one.

What is a “Money Story”?

A money story is a personal narrative about money. It makes up your beliefs, thoughts, and feelings about money – and affects your financial behaviors. Money stories are often generational and culturally based.

Your money story started forming in early childhood. It passed down to you from parents and other influences in your young life.

As a child, you observed the adults in your life – even when they didn’t know you were paying attention.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://womenwhomoney.com/money-story-affect-finances/

What Worked (And Didn’t Work) During 1970s Stagflation

What Worked (And Didn’t Work) During 1970s Stagflation

Notes From The Field By Simon Black     May 5, 2020  Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

When the New York Stock Exchange opened for trading on January 2, 1970, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 809 points. It was the start of a new decade, and expectations were high.

Consumer confidence was high, the economy was strong, and NASA had just put a man on the moon only a few months prior. America was ready to move on from the tumultuous 1960s and was looking forward to a boom in the 1970s.

But that didn’t happen.

Over the next 10 years, the US economy would suffer its most painful episode since the Great Depression.

The 1970s were hit by a nasty bout of stagflation-- a period of high unemployment, high inflation, higher taxes, higher debt levels, and pitiful economic growth.

It’s one of the worst fates an economy can suffer. But it lingered in the US for years.

Inflation peaked above 10% in the 1970s. Unemployment was around 8%. ‘Underemployment’ was nearly 20%, i.e. people who wanted a full-time job but were only able to find part-time work.

And most traditional financial investments suffered too.

Bond investors were destroyed by inflation; anyone who purchased a US government 10-year Treasury in the early 1970s earned just 5.5%, well below the rate of inflation.

And the stock market produced dismal returns.

Remember-- the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened in 1970 at 809 points. At the close of the decade in December 1979, the Dow was worth just 839 points-- almost no gain.

And when adjusted for inflation, stock market investors LOST about 49% during the 1970s.

It was a brutal time to be an investor in mainstream assets.

But people who invested in REAL assets did quite well.

Consider farmland, for example: according to the US Department of Agriculture, the average price of US farmland in 1970 was $137 per acre.

In ten years, farmland had risen to $737 per acre-- a hefty return averaging more than 14% per year.

Investors who purchased farmland with a modest amount of leverage (i.e. a 30% down payment and a bank loan for the remaining 70%) earned a 24.7% average annualized return throughout the 1970s.

And that doesn’t include what they earned from their crops either.

Beef prices more than doubled in the 1970s. Corn prices nearly tripled. Wheat prices quadrupled.

Even after adjusting for inflation, agricultural commodities and real estate produced very strong returns and were among the best performing assets of the decade.

Residential real estate, however, was a mixed bag.

In some parts of the US, residential real estate as an asset class performed very well in the 1970s.

California real estate, for example, tripled in value during the decade as the state’s population exploded.

The population in counties like El Dorado (near the state capital of Sacramento) and Santa Cruz (south of San Francisco) grew at nearly 3x the national average, and home prices soared.

But in other parts of the country, residential real estate was a dismal investment as local governments imposed rent control, limiting how much a landlord could charge.

Reduced rents meant depressed property prices. So residential real estate was a very uneven asset class.

You won’t be surprised to learn that gold and silver also generated phenomenal returns during the 1970s.

Gold opened the decade at a price of $36.56-- the official US government price.

Back then the US dollar was still pegged to gold at that price. But by the end of the decade, the US dollar was officially a ‘fiat’ currency and no longer backed by gold.

By late 1979, the gold price had risen to more than $400, so gold investors made 10x their money during the decade.

And SILVER actually outperformed gold, rising from less than $2 in 1970, to more than $30 at the end of 1979-- a gain of more than 15x over the decade.

There are plenty of other examples, but the larger point is that real assets generally produced strong returns during one of the worst periods in US economic history.

Now, it would be ridiculous to say that the 2020s will be exactly like the 1970s.

As I’ve written multiple times before, it’s important to approach everything about this pandemic from a position of ignorance and uncertainty.

There are very few things we know for sure. One of them, however, is that they’re printing an enormous amount of money and going deeper into debt.

The US Treasury Department just announced yesterday that they plan on borrowing a record $3 TRILLION this quarter alone.

And who knows how much more they’ll borrow for the rest of the year.

Plus the Fed has already printed $2.5 trillion just in the last sixty days.

These are already incomprehensible sums of money, but it looks like they’re just getting warmed up. There’s likely a lot more debt and money printing to come.

So while we can’t say for certain what’s going to happen next-- stagflation, deflation, inflation, etc., it’s historically been a good idea to own real assets when the debt machine and printing presses are running like this.

PS- We think that silver has the potential to outperform gold by a large margin, though it's really difficult to purchase right now because investors are 'panic buying' silver and paying exorbitant prices for it.

But we recently sent a special report to members of our premium service Sovereign Man: Confidential explaining how to use the futures market to buy silver at an ENORMOUS discount to what everyone else is paying.  Click here to learn more about this strategy and why silver is so compelling right now. LINK

To your freedom & prosperity, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/what-worked-and-didnt-work-during-1970s-stagflation-27738/ 

Good News And Bad News From Warren Buffett

Good News And Bad News From Warren Buffett

Posted by TEBI on May 4, 2020

The world’s most famous investor Warren Buffett spoke at length at the weekend. Now aged 89, Buffett was addressing an online version of the annual meeting of his firm, Berkshire Hathaway. He talked about stocks, the economy and of course the coronavirus crisis.

Some commentators have suggested that Buffett was more downbeat than he has been in the past. He certainly had bad news as well as good. But, as Andrew Ross Sorkin commented in the New York Times, it’s more accurate to say he was neither pessimistic nor optimistic but realistic.

Particularly noticeable was how often Buffett repeated the words, “I don’t know”. That’s right, Warren Buffett, the most successful investor of the modern era, doesn’t know how this crisis will unfold. Yet there are plenty of experts in the media offering their opinions.

Ultimately, as Buffett’s friend, the late Jack Bogle, liked to say, “nobody knows nothing”. If there was ever a time for investors to stay humble, surely this is it.

Bad News

The current situation is unparalleled

In 2008 and 2009 our economic train went off the tracks. This time we just pulled the train of the tracks and put it on a siding. And I don’t really know of any parallel — in terms of the most important country in the world, most productive, huge population — in effect sidelining its economy and its workforce.

Nobody knows how the crisis will play out

We’re not getting a best case and we know we’re not getting a worst case. The range of possibilities is still extraordinarily wide. We do not know what exactly happens when you shut down a substantial portion of your society.

Anything can happen in the markets

Perhaps with a bias, I don’t believe anyone knows what the market is going to do tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. I know America’s going to move forward over time, but I don’t know for sure. Anything can happen in terms of markets. You’re going to have to be careful about how you bet.

… Good News

Nothing can stop America

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.evidenceinvestor.com/good-news-and-bad-news-from-warren-buffett/

The Ones Most Responsive to Change

The Ones Most Responsive to Change

By Muhammad Ali

IF YOU FAIL TO PLAN, YOU PLAN TO FAIL

Benjamin Franklin supposedly once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” Sir Winston Churchill is credited with another, oft repeated, saying: “Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” And along that same vein there’s the phrase we hear often in the workplace, “learn from your mistakes.”

The questions that I have for you today are more about the odds.  Alright let me elaborate on this.  If you fail to plan, does that mean you will definitely fail?  What are the odds of this happening?

And the other side, if you plan, does that mean you will not fail?  What are the odds of this happening?

I think it's pretty obvious to ascertain a conclusion on the above based on the several articles that I have written, about Sudden Wealth Syndrome and that statistically 70% of people lose their wealth within 2 years and we know that 85% of the millionaires created from the Kuwaiti rise in value were broke in 5 months.  So let's refine our question and ask, did any of those people who planned yet they still failed?

Having a plan is one thing, but it is completely useless and a waste of time if you do not put it into action. Statistics say 90% of strategy fails because of poor execution.  This I am sure that everyone is in agreement.

So what is clear is that we want to be among those who planned and succeeded.  We don't want to plan and still fail, right?  We've definitely waited long enough to think about all kinds of plans from A-Z.  So how can we make sure that we find the right plan that will guarantee us long term success?

I for one don't want to be in the after RV enjoyment mood for only 2 years.  Wouldn't you agree?

I have also written articles about forming a Team and I have even created an entire section dedicated to help you in forming your Team in my new Currency Exchange Planner Companion Edition.  I said your Team should consist of a High Net worth Lawyer, Financial Planner/Advisor, Wealth Manager and a CPA just to name a few, but will having a Team of professionals increase our odds of success? 

Yes, it most certainly will, but will it guarantee us that we will not fail long term?  So again, we're playing the odds, we want to be sure that we are within that 15%-30% group category that will not only be successful, but we will be successful for 20, 30, 40, 50+ years.  Now, we're getting into generational wealth.  That is our goal.

As Charles Darwin famously said, “It’s not the strongest, who survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.”

Now, I don't like this guy, as he's got other theories that I am totally against, however, I think he has something in his statement above that we need to ponder over.  As we begin our exchanges and new lives, it will be your responsiveness that makes or breaks you, in other words we need to be able to adapt to change.

Your plan will change as the environment changes around you, you may need to adapt to new circumstances as you will test different ideas or things, learn new things, find new technologies, and even meet new people.  Breathe a little life into your plan, make it adaptable to any environment, any circumstances.  So, let's keep our focus on the 'ones most responsive to change'.

God has told us to look out into His Creation to gain inspiration, so what if we take this to Nature, and the animal world?

 When we think of the most adaptable species, what comes to mind?  Camels are able to survive without food or water for months, cockroaches are said to have survived the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, and Emperor Penguins are able to make journeys 60+ miles long with their last meal being four months earlier.  All of these species are very well suited towards their particular environment, but if one were to put a camel in Antarctica, or an emperor penguin in the Gobi Desert, they would not survive for very long. 

Adaptability is defined as the ability to adjust oneself readily to different conditions, so while these previously listed species may be able to survive in extreme conditions, they are poorly suited for other environments.

The only creature on earth that would come close to our adaptability would be the Tardigrade, also known as the water bear.  These are very SMALL animals (0.05 mm – 1.2 mm long).  Tardigrades are able to survive insane environments from close to absolute zero; to pressure that is far greater than the deepest parts of the ocean.

Take a look at this video for an understanding of them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxndOd3kmSs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=IxndOd3kmSs&feature=emb_logo

What Tardigrades lack, though, is intelligence this is the difference between us and them.  Humans are able to form complex social structures and relationships with each other.  Social structures are seen in many other primates and species which help them all to hunt better and defend themselves. 

Humans could not have individually gotten to where we are today without the help from others. Just like the saying goes, team work makes the dream work!

 So let's put this all together and formulate these concepts into our planning.  We need to be responsive to change (adapt), do not let things change around you without you being aware of it.  That's one.  Two, there may be some wisdom in keeping things in a small controlled state.  The Tardigrades have survived 500 million years and maybe one of those reasons was due to its size. 

Now, I am not saying that after the RV, you can't move out of your 3 bedroom apartment to a new 10 bedroom bungalow, not at all, but what I am saying is that make sure you keep everything around you in a controlled state.  You keep control, you maintain the control.  Three, don't be afraid to get help from your Team. 

However, do not rely on them to make your final decisions, they have knowledge and they have experiences, but rely on yourselves and that may require educating yourselves to better grasp the knowledge that they may impart onto you.

And last but not least, impart the same knowledge of your planning to your children and educate them so you all live under the same philosophy.  And maybe write this saying on your computer screen wall paper or what the heck write it on your wall.

“It’s not the strongest, who survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.”

To play the odds, you must first have a solid plan and my Currency Exchange Planner can help you with that.  It is designed to help you with your immediate RV exchange. 

My Companion Edition is designed to help plan your wealth for 15 years and more.  So together that helps to put you in the winning percentage, after that it depends upon how responsive to change are you?

I hope you have benefited from my article.

Thank you and I wish you all the success in your currency exchange.

Muhammad Ali    www.CurrencyExchangePlanner.com

How Inflation Affects Growth Versus Value

How Inflation Affects Growth Versus Value

By Ben Carlson   Posted by TEBI on May 3, 2020

It seems bizarre to worry about inflation during the sharpest, more severe economic contraction of our lifetime.

But the sheer amount of government spending and monetary policy being instituted by the Federal Reserve means it’s something that’s on people’s mind as a potential risk in the not-too-distant future. The “worry” is once the virus is contained the economy could potentially overheat through a combination of pent up demand and government spending.

My initial read on this is if we do get inflation from all of this spending that’s a good thing — it means we beat the virus and things are back to normal (if there is such a thing).

The Fed would have a much easier time fighting inflation than the current predicament.

Here’s former Fed chair Janet Yellen in the Wall Street Journal discussing this idea:

Bigger federal borrowing needs will make it costly for the Treasury should interest rates eventually rise. “If the economy recovers and inflation is a problem, that will be the test,” says former Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen. That isn’t a problem now. If it ever is, she says, “I think the Fed is going to win out on that.”

You have to be thinking 12 moves ahead to start planning for higher inflation at this point but there are likely some areas of the market that would benefit more from an inflationary spike than others.

Earlier this week I posited that low interest rates may be the simplest explanation for the stock market’s resilience. A few people pushed back with the fact that rates have been low in Japan and Europe as well and their markets haven’t been quite as strong.

Japan is on another planet when it comes to market relationships in general but there is an explanation for this. Because of the differences in the sector make-up of the underlying markets, U.S. stocks are more heavily weighted towards growth stocks while European and Japanese stocks are more in the value camp.

 In a low rate, low inflation world, growth stocks tend to perform better while value stocks tend to do better when inflation is higher:

Think about growth stocks like they are a bond. The reason inflation is such a big risk for bondholders is because the purchasing power of your fixed rate income payments is eroded over time by inflation.

To continue reading, please go to the original article here:

https://www.evidenceinvestor.com/how-inflation-affects-growth-versus-value/

And The Winner Of The Next Half Trillion Dollar Bailout Is...

And The Winner Of The Next Half Trillion Dollar Bailout Is...

Notes From The Field By Simon Black     May 4, 2020  Bahia Beach, Puerto Rico

At precisely 4pm on Friday October 17, 1975, New York City’s government would have a $453 million debt to repay.

But literally the night before, the city’s government had only $34 million on hand.

It was the makings of an epic financial crisis: the wealthiest city in the world was about to declare bankruptcy.

New York City’s mayor Abe Beame had called US President Gerald Ford numerous times begging for federal assistance, but Ford refused. The nation had bigger problems to deal with.

New York was desperate.

But with only hours to spare, they managed to convince the powerful Teachers’ Union to use its gigantic pension fund to buy up the bonds and save the day.

The plan worked, and New York City was very narrowly able to escape bankruptcy.

But that wouldn’t happen today; a number of state and local governments are teetering on the edge of default, and public pension funds are in no position to bail them out.

Pensions are actually a huge part of the problem.

New York’s Teachers’ Retirement System-- the same union that bailed out the city in 1975, is today technically insolvent.

According to the pension fund’s most recent financial report, the fund is about 40% short of being able to pay out its obligations.

And the numbers are similar across the board for New York’s Fire and Police pension funds as well.

And New York is definitely not the only problem spot.

Public pensions in the State of Illinois are 60% underfunded, on average. And more than 65% in New Jersey.

In fact, only TWO states in the Land of the Free have fully-funded public pensions as of 2019: Wisconsin and South Dakota.

So, most pension funds are in serious trouble and in no position to bail anyone out.

State governments are even worse off: Illinois’ debt is rated one level above junk, and the state legislature asked the federal government for a $40 billion bailout.

California, New Jersey, and New York are also lining up for a federal bailout.

And amazingly enough, Congress is actually considering a $1 trillion bailout for state governments.

Plus, last week, the Federal Reserve announced that it will step in and buy $500 billion worth of bonds from states, counties, and municipalities.

So that’s another $1.5 trillion for state and local governments, on top of the trillions of dollars worth of bailouts they’ve already made.

Remember-- all of this money is just being conjured out of thin air. These politicians and central bankers believe they can print all the bailout money they need without ever having to make a difficult decision.

But this solution is a ridiculous fantasy: you cannot borrow or print your way to prosperity.

If that were the case, Zimbabwe would have become the wealthiest country in the world long ago.

It’s perfectly fine to remain optimistic and hope that, maybe just maybe, the virus will just magically disappear, everything will go back to normal, and there will never be any consequences from all of this money printing.

And while I’m at it, I can also hope that the Dallas Cowboys decide to make me their starting quarterback next season.

But back here on Planet Earth, it’s far more likely that the virus will be around for a while... that decisions will continue to be made by weak leaders whose greatest fear is not being re-elected… and that all this money printing will eventually become a problem.

Let’s be frank: there are VERY few instances throughout history where so much money has been created without any nasty consequences.

We know the famous stories like hyperinflation in Zimbabwe and the Weimar Republic.

Then there are stories from ancient and medieval times, like the insufferable inflation of China’s Jin and Yuan dynasties (both of which used paper currency and printed it freely).

Even in the United States in the 1970s, cheap interest rates and expansion of the money supply led to some of the worst inflation in US economic history.

You really don’t need a PhD in economics to understand that conjuring trillions of dollars out of thin air might hurt the long-term value of the currency.

This is why I keep writing that real assets make so much sense.

There is no sure thing right now. But real assets like productive land, profitable businesses, and precious metals tend to be safe havens at a time when governments and central banks are willing to sacrifice the currency.

Compared to the amount of money that’s being printed right now, precious metals are actually fairly inexpensive.

Gold is undervalued relative to the money supply, and silver is downright cheap relative to gold. LINK

Again, there is no sure thing. And we could see a real roller coaster ride in prices.

But if you believe (as I do) that they’re going to continue printing money to bail everyone out, then there’s a very strong, long-term case to own precious metals right now. And especially silver

While silver looks like an incredibly compelling opportunity right now, there’s one problem…

Silver demand has gone through the roof because of Covid, and investors are now paying 20%, 50%, even 100% above the price to get their hands on physical silver.

We think that’s crazy.

So we put together a special report for members of Sovereign Man: Confidential, providing step-by-step details about how to buy silver through the futures market for a fraction of these insane premiums.

 To your freedom & prosperity, Simon Black, Founder, SovereignMan.com

https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/and-the-winner-of-the-next-half-trillion-dollar-bailout-is-27730/