yadayada

Buy and hold when Shiller PE is <10x http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/dongfangmeiren/ShillerPEHold.png This is holding treasuries when shiller PE is >20x http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v233/dongfangmeiren/ShillerPESwitch.png

Seems like there is a huge difference between owning 5 stocks or just one. Especially if that one stock can theoretically go to zero. Maybe not as much as between owning 5 and 15. But 1 to 5 is a huge step.

http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21638088-machine-has-discovered-best-possible-strategy-one-version-poker?fsrc=scn%2Ffb%2Fte%2Fpe%2Fed%2Ftheperfectcardsharp Heh, HU limit holdem has been solved now. So the computer is now unbeatable, unless it plays against another computer, then they will break even against each other at best.

It seems another good reason to invest in service firms. I dont now why people bother with exploration firms, or large cap oil companies with not much upside.

Take a look at OZ minerals.

heh. i used to live near mexico city. but my annual expenses at the time were more like 10k. Those gated communities and bodyguards add up ;) . No but seriously, how safe is mexico city?

I wish someone like Kyle bass would make a fund of those contracts he bought. That would be really neat. Doesnt seem like it would take much of his time, and he could earn nice fees?

what are the different ways to short them? Is it possible to buy longer term puts somewhere? It would be a nice hedge.

Buy pawnstocks instead. Also exposure to gold, and anything is better then a goldminer basicly

what the hell dude, 26k$ for fitness??? A gym membership and some protein shakes should only come in about 2-3k$ a year tops. Watch a few youtube video's, and your good to go. You could spend the extra 23k$ on a super nice apartment.

If you retire you still make a return on that 4m$.

If you enjoy poker stories, check out this book from Doyle Brunson http://www.amazon.com/Poker-Wisdom-Champion-Doyle-Brunson/dp/1580421199/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1420651972&sr=8-9&keywords=doyle+brunson Stories about his adventures on the road as a poker pro. Might not learn much, but it is a short and entertaining read. Wish I could have lived that

Except for Ivey , those pro's are mostly mediocre at best compared to new breed of players. And lederer is stealing scum. No coincidence that Ivey had to clean him out at the end ;).

I think it is now over 20% in the US, 45% in the UK and I have read (although can't quite believe) that it is 60% in France. So basicly if a government cannot pay up anymore, you will see GDP shrink by huge amounts, not seen before in history.

seems that if you concentrate part of your networth in Liberty media (and check which ones malone has most exposure in) google, FFH and mastercard or something, you will likely outperform the index with little risk.

@tom, the macro situation basicly boils down to this, governments everywhere spend more then come in, and government debt is really high all over the world. In some places even 20x+ tax income. A large % of this goes to health care and social security (so old people). In the old days, it was always population growth that saved the day (so a growing number of tax payers). Now that number is shrinking or staying even. Because for the first time, everywhere in the civilized world, people have no kids or have only 1 kid. So working population compared to old people sucking up tax money will shrink. So income will go down or stay even, instead of up, while governments keep growing those debts to very dangerous levels. And government spending compared to GDP is at all time highs (like 10-15% of the economy). So that will have a very serious impact on the economy at some point if that grinds to a halt. Likely bigger then the housing crisis. Question is when. For a very long time governments have been spending what they cannot afford, and since there were always people willing to borrow them money at low rates, the doomsayers have been wrong for a long time. But it has to end at some point. The only reason it still happens is because people have this crazy believe that somehow governments of first world countries cannot go broke. Madoff's schemes lasted over 15 years... So the fact that it still goes on is not a reason to not worry really. It is a sentiment, thing, it goes on untill people decide it cannot go on anymore. So really hard to predict. So probably best to just find really cheap stuff. Even if you do 15% a year for 3 years with 30% cash, and then lose 50%, you would do better as holding cash all that time. If you hold cash and you got your expenses in euro's, holding USD is best. Because they are in a better situation debt wise then Europe. Holding the dollar is sort of like a gold lite I think.

real consumption. The problem is, there are some real bargains out there. But I think i should have been a bit more conservative. It is probably best to have like 15-30% in cash now. And stay out of Japan and Europe for the most part. And limit exposure to financials, especially the ones outside the US.

It always pays to look at the numbers. 2014 actually had more oil consumed then 2013. It was still under predicted demand, but only a v small %. I think it is the perfect shit storm of speculators shaken out, OPEC not cutting, shale not being able to cut for the most part because of debt and finally deflation (so people dont like commodities in that enviroment). Sort of a lollapalooza. I think the economy only plays a small role in this whole thing. I just keep looking at USD/Yen. If that starts to go rapidly to 200, i will start selling some of my stocks. Meanwhile I keep my cash in USD. I cannot imagine that not more people worry about all those massive countries that are in debt traps, combined with an aging population and huge government liabilities and deficits everywhere while consumer debt is still very high. It seems serious pain has to come at some point. But staying out of the market because of that would be a mistake I think.

http://www.icecapassetmanagement.com/uploads/documents/2014.12%20IceCap%20Global%20Market%20Outlook.pdf

costs have been going up in the last decade or two.

Is there a good data that offers data on tax revenue and gdp etc and is up to date? For example I get 2 different numbers for japan, almost 200 trillion and 45 trillion. There doesn't seem to be a free website that has this data for all the countries? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending Judging by that list, the deficit in the US would be 3 trillion $... That is not right.

i guess we will see who is right. http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/chinese-tv-host-says-regime-nearly-bankrupt-141214.html That is sort of worrying too. But that was 3 years ago. China is sort of a black box. If you hear figures of 50 million appartments being built and no one living in it, you also have to realize they have 1.3 billion inhabitants. So probably about 400-500 million houses at least. Seems a lot of the economic machine is built on sentiment. As long as you can fool people it will keep going. But once fear sets in, it can quickly go very wrong. Like how in early 2007 there wasn't really any worry, and in 2009 it was armageddon. And when those GDP figures turn out to be a lie, it could get very ugly very quickly

http://www.doctorhousingbubble.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Oil-sands.png those are full cycle costs. If this is even remotely right, then oil wells will dry up in 1-2 years, and unless oil is at 80$+ or there is some hidden lost cost capacity somewhere (and the owners really hate money), oil is very unlikely to stay at these levels.

yeah so forex reserves are about 150 trillion yen. Enough to fill to hole for a few years I guess. I guess it wont collapse in the next few years. At some point though, BoJ will be the only one able to give the japanese government money at such low rates, and ofcourse that leads to massive inflation. If you say that it will be inflated away, doesn't that basicly destroy a lot of networth, unless at some point the BoJ owns the entire debt load? And in that case it is the tax payers that pay the bill... If it is inflated away, that has to mean tax income will have to exceed spending at some point. Otherwhise the debt load will just keep growing. So that means that interest rates cannot track inflation, and that basicly means the BoJ has to finance the government. Isn't that going to lead to serious inflation with such a massive debt load? They would have to 'give' the government about 400 billion $ each year on top of a GDP of 5000 billion $.. How is that not going to lead to really serious inflation? This will hurt tax income ofcourse because everyone will be poorer, and savings aren't exactly high. Causing tax revenue to drop... It seems before that happens people will start dumping the yen? And isn't the massive debt load on the BoJ's balance sheet a problem then? I just cannot believe they will inflate away the debt load with such a huge spending gap, without any serious consequences. At some point only the BoJ can give the government money as they cannot afford to borrow anywhere else. But the Yen will be rapidly declining, because that can only result in large inflation. And those civil cervants will only get a currency that is quickly losing its purchasing power. Anyway, interesting to think about.

That's what I thought would happen with shale gas. In fact, it turned out to be economic at much lower prices than this analysis suggested. Isn't the lack of exports holding down shale? prices are like 4x as high outside the US... It seems once the government stops blockign those terminals, prices would shoot up. As demand could not meet supply at those lower prices? Gas transport by sea is through LNG, a significantly more expensive proposition as a percent of the product transported compared with oil transport through VLCC. You need to build refrigeration infrastructure to liquify gas on the export terminal, and then build infrastructure to receive liquified gas on the importing side. Those add to landed cost of gas significantly. Gas will never be as internationalized a commodity as oil. despite those costs, it would still be incredibly lucrative to export gas. Yet those terminals are being blocked by politicians that are paid by industries that like the really cheap gas.