yadayada

where do you find the fillings of PRDGF

yea but if you put 50-100% in one stock, you really need some sick conviction. It basicly needs to be a slam dunk that can't go wrong. I wouldn't want to have even a 0.5% chance to blow up my entire portfolio.

I wouldn't put all my money in stocks like BAC. there is always some possibility it goes wrong. especially if you made serious bank. Why risk losing your big bankroll on some black swan event, just to get 20% extra per year?

Unless you look at different numbers than I do, revenue (receipts) are approx. $3 trillion, and outlays are about $3.6 trillion, creating a 600 billion annual deficit. So the $18 trillion debt is not 3x income but 6x. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com I also count state and local revenue, not correct?

like a 25% loss this year. decent % in oil and some hong kong stocks, and bombed with ASPS. I guess hoping 2015 will be better. Some of those stocks are really dirt cheap now.

Btw the government balance sheet and FED balance sheet are two very different things. Fed owns 4 trillion in securities (MBS securities and bonds mostly). But this basicly means that they injected 4 trillion$ in the US economy and institutions. This was bought with 'printed' money. Buying from other countries and from US institutions/citizens. They can destroy these securities for all they care. If they sell them they can reduce the money supply. But if they abuse this power, then ofcourse they can ruin a country and potentially severly damage an economy by hampering exchange of goods and services. Part of the reason you did not see inflation because of this was because a lot of value was destroyed. So basicly moneysupply would have went down rapidly, but this was filled up by the FED. But when you talk about what the government owes, that is very different, they cannot simply wipe out their debt without huge consequences for the country. The FED's balance sheet isn't really a traditional balancesheet. They dont really owe anybody anything. I wouldn't even call it a balance sheet, more a money lever injection device or something.

Sorry for tripple post, but to add, I think the 60 trillion in medicare and social security can be viewed as an erosion of what the US government can spend on other things in the next few decades. As the US population ages, as happens with all first world countries, fewer and fewer can be spend on roads, education, defence etc. So with 6 trillion in income (and only slowly growing), only increasingly small parts of that 60 trillion have to be paid each year to become a problem. This leaves out the 18 trillion ofcourse. And the problem here is, it basicly becomes a ponzi scheme at some point. So the government will need a certain level of complacancy. If Japan would collapse, that would be huge, and Im not sure what will happen then. A lot of investors sure dont want to borrow money so easily to the US if they see Japan go down like that. That would essentially end the ponzi scheme, so this could become a problem sooner then you think (eg in 5 years already instead of 15). http://www.aoa.acl.gov/Aging_Statistics/index.aspx

As for FED balance sheet, I think it is like 4 trillion$? Total money supply is like 18 trillion $ now I think. I think the reason you barely see any inflation in the regular inflation basket (besides housing education and healthcare) is because it takes a while to trickle down from wall street to the real economy. First it basicly cleans up the balance sheets of the financial industry. But ofcourse they dont just hand out the money to the regular people, so it does not really add to the pile of money bidding on goods and services in the inflation basket. Only if lending standards are loosened up because of the increased pile of money banks have will you see inflation in things like housing. I think you see it first in things like stocks? If anyone knows more on how this money trickles in the economy, that would be great.

Im not sure if a hidden liability like pensions is a really big problem. US tax revenue is about 6 trillion $. And the deficit is about 500 billion$ I think. Which is really not too bad, since it is shrinking. So basicly 6.5 trillion is spent, while 6 trillion comes in. But in the past years, tax revenue has been lower then the historical average. And gov spending has been higher. So it is not really a huge problem compared to some other first world countries. As for debt, the figures differ. Some say 18 trillion$, which ofcourse isn't that bad, very managable, and nothing too worrying, just 3x income. But this does not take into account hidden liabilities: http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2014/01/17/you-think-the-deficit-is-bad-federal-unfunded-liabilities-exceed-127-trillion/ And: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323353204578127374039087636 Aaah 127 trillion. Now suddenly the debt load looks a lot more crazy. If average age rises a bigger and bigger % of tax income has to be spent on pensions. So fewer and fewer money available for servicing debt and other things. To paint a picture what is happening in Japan and how much worse it could be in the US. http://www.mof.go.jp/english/budget/budget/fy2014/02.pdf Tax income is 45 trillion yen, and they spend 90 trillion yen. So their deficit is huge compared to the US. And their debt is freaking 780 trillion yen. I dont think this includes offbalance sheet debt. Those are actual bonds outstanding. So with the US debt is 3x tax revenue, but for Japan it is 20x!! But if it doesn't then ofcourse it is more insane even. The problem here is that when the population ages in the US, which will happen, pensions will eat up most of the spending. In Japan they basicly eat up 26 trillion yen, vs 45 trillion yen of income. Politicians are not happy to cut into that, so what will happen is, they borrow more and more and more. So what you see now in Japan (and what is extremely likely to end badly) will also happen in the US, unless something drastic happens. So where does the central bank come in? They can inject money in the system by buying up this debt. Basicly reducing the debt load for free. The problem is, you gotta insert money in the system to do that. And if you do that then you get inflation. And if you get inflation (because putting more of something in the system bidding on the same amount of stuff decreases its value) investors demand higher interest rates. So after a certain point when the debt load is huge, and a large % of tax income has to be spent on paying interest, if you want to print yourself out of your debt load, hyper inflation is the only outcome... For example 22 trillion of the 45 trillion of income in Japan is spent on debt servicing. So if there is inflation, this figure will go up, because interest payments go up. And with too much leverage, if it goes up even a little bit the debt problem spins out of control. Because tax revenue doesn't really go up by much because the country ends up being poorer because of this. So now maybe interest payment is 40 trillion instead of 22 trillion. Also take into account that higher interest rates will also partially reflect future expected inflation. So Increased interest cost far outpaces increased tax revenue in this case. This means they gotta borrow even more to fill up that spending/income hole! And if they borrow even more, this means even more interest, and if they dont print they will have to default if they run out of lenders. Or they print more, causing more inflation, causing higher interest even, causing a even bigger hole in the budget. etc etc. The only way is higher tax revenue, but if you increase taxes, it often hurts GDP. And with large debt loads, you often have a bad economy, so not much chance people will just earn more by them selves and pay more taxes that way. So you can say that at a certain point you reach a tipping point where basicly you get default (argentina) or hyperinflation (zimbabwe). The US has not reached that point of no return yet. But if they are not carefull in the next decade or so, it will happen.

The problem is, a woman's sexual attractiveness goes down rapidly as she ages. It starts at age 30, and at age 50, even the previously hottest women cannot beat an average 21 year old. But for us it is the opposite, because unlike us, women actual get attracted by other things then looks. So our value goes up. You can be in your 40's and have all the options in the world. That is rarely the case for women. So it is really the woman who should lock up the man, and not the other way around. Men age like wine, women like cars. So naturally if you are a woman, you dont want to spend your best years with one guy, and then have to look for a mate with possibly little skills and faded looks when you are like 48. That is a really shitty situation to be in. So that is why some of those women can get so angry in a divorce, because she feels like she wasted her best years with you, so they want something to show for it. All those guys with all the options in the world (which most women are after) will pick a younger girl over her now. Because let's be honest, no matter how amazing their personality is, it does not really make a woman much hotter if she is fat and ugly or old. The oposite is true for men, since women are much less superficial that way. If you mary a bad looking older but nice woman, it is basicly a live in buddy. Those commercials for viagra? Mostly for men with ugly wives, not really because there is an impotence epidemic. That is why I think things can sometimes get so ugly in a divorce with women really going after their ex husband's assets viciously. They feel they wasted their best years with him, even if he did not cheat on them, which is sort of understandable really.

yeaa... Remember that scene with Robert deniro, his wife and the bank manager in Casino? He trusted his wife blindly, she was a complete maniac. I think most of the time you are too biased to really judge wether its a good idea. Better to just not sign the contract... If she leaves you because of that, she wasnt all that to begin with. And besides, with your dream girl scenario, why the hell put a ring on it anyway? If she is so amazing, why do you need a contract to keep her with you?

dump mattel. I would avoid products that will be the first expense that people put off in a crisis. It also does not really look that cheap, and toy business is not really that good a business to be in.

http://qz.com/317093/adultery-ramadan-and-puns-an-incomplete-list-of-things-china-banned-in-2014/ A pretty ridicilous list. Pretty much all entertainment is banned (really bad move it seems). Puns or improper use of the language is banned lol. How can there not be some uprising the moment China slows down?

Im worried about Japan. Im afraid it might cause a shockwave. Since government debt markets are basicly a form of ponzi scheme. I think some higher up ministers and Abe were caught saying something like, 'well printing money is far from perfect, but got any better suggestions on fixing this mess?'.

studied this one for a while, but the US army holds the patents on their products it seems. I forgot the name of the substance. but if that was a real opportunnity you would have seen something already. There is a british equivalent that uses the same product. |It is doing a better job monetizing it. Called tristel plc.

Serious question, why get married? Pressure from family or your girlfriend? Religious beliefs? It seems like a terrible decision to get married if you are a guy. Why do you need some piece of paper that can potentially ruin you financially, and presents no upside at all unless your religious to help you keep your relationship?

Lol i can imagine that there is someone watching when Kim Jong un is browsing the internet. And they shut it off everytime he is about to click on a joke at his expensive to avoid his furious temper tantrums.

Park your money in the safest cypriot bank. You get like 3.5% per year. But it is locked up for a year. For 6 months it is like close to 3% I think. Only do this for small amounts though. Those balance sheets do not look very pretty.

heh what is up with the hate for cooperman on this board?

Getting inflation is the target of Abenomics, without inflation they can`t inflate their debt away in the long run. Its called financial repression and was done by the UK in the past century. They are not forced to borrow their money long term, when rates go up they can just finance this with short term debt. And short term rates are under full control of the BoJ. yeah but interest rates go up with inflation. And since they are so extremely levered, if that happens, the hole in their budget becomes bigger and bigger. They spend twice as much as comes in already, and one quarter of that is interest. So if interest doubles, suddenly they are screwed. They would need to borrow more, and more inflation will only widen that budget gap, untill there is no other way besides hyperinflation or default. What you are saying is possible with the US. But not with Japan. The US has a small budget deficit, and debt isn't so massive yet. I mean sure there is some small chance things will go alright. But there is a reason they are rotating through ministers of finance. And one even had a panic attack after looking at the books.

The BoJ just buys the debt, problem solved. Every foreigner selling stuff in japan will just shy away and leave marketshare for the japanese companies. The Japanese economy is getting back on track and finally they get GDP growth. (In a weaker Yen, but who cares?) At that point the Yen stabilizes and everybody is happy. I didn`t want to post in this thread, but i am bored so here are my predictions: (But i don`t put my money where my mouth is here, so who cares?) S&P500 -> up to 2200 and then back to 1800 and up again to the end of the year. Oil -> down to <40$ where it bounces around and at the end of the year it will go up again to around 65$. Gold -> down, up and down again, will end the year below 1100$. 10y Bond Yields -> Up to 2.6-2.8% and then down again, will end the year around 2.5% Deflation will come to europe until Super Mario starts the biggest QE europe has ever seen. As a consequence the €/$ will fall to parity. I dont think it works that way. That would cause inflation. Your basicly saying, print yourself out of the whole mess! That still leaves that they get only half their spending from income, other half has to be borrowed. I think a quarter of their spending is just servicing debt. If inflation goes up, interest rate would go up. So that means and even bigger hole in their budget. And given that debt is so high, and their budget deficit is so enourmous, they would have to print large amounts of yen. A few % rise in inflation would be a disaster and make the whol fragile structure collapse.

And apparantly they seem to be more of an introverted bunch. They should have some more sex . Seems like japan and korea lead the world in social awkwardness. Could probably make a fortune there if your a dating coach.

Japan could finally crash when they run out of people to borrow cheaply from. The moment they cannot roll over debt at those low rates, or inflation spikes up there (yen is already falling hard in the past 2 years) is when it will collapse. Pensions will be wiped away. I really hope it will be a warning sign to the rest of the western world.

@pete, good post. But I think the high oil price in the 80's was much more artificial then it was in the past decade because OPEC had such an iron grip. Usage has skyrocketed, just check out china's growth in oil usage. Rest of asia will follow I think. The US uses less oil every year actually. But costs have skyrocketed. Opec does not have nearly the same power now, so I doubt we will see a long period of cheap oil now. At some point there are no 90m barrels of oil a year available for 50-60$. the highest cost guys set the price in the end. What everyone is forgetting is that current oil wells have a CASH break even cost of like 30$ or maybe 40$. For example, Suncor. But if you include capex , that is closer to 60-70$. So if current wells run dry , they need oil at like 80$ to drill new wells to make it economically feasable. That is why SA is not at all in a hurry to cut. They know if prices stay depressed for a year or so, north america will be very hesistant to aggressively invest in new wells. They want close to 100$ oil. They sacrifice now, and get more stable high oil prices later. They are smart guys. A lot of other opec countries are quite short sighted in this regard. So yeah for maybe a few years those shale fields pump out cheap oil, but if price stays depressed, those 9m barrels, or however much it is of US oil, will partially go away.

I wonder what the long term business cycle has to do with buffett's success. If you look at debt world wide, it went from being low in the 50's, to going at all time high's right now. Is it possible that maybe there is such a thing as a long term debt cycle? And we might enter a bad period in the next 10-20 years? You might think, well 50 years is a long time! But it might not be long enough. And so buffett should not be so optimistic, as 50 years is still a bad sample size in the global economy?