I would propose that it is the reserve status of the dollar that has allowed the U.S. to maintain its dominance in the international order. The reserve status of the dollar is also the reason why the U.S. has enjoyed its extraordinarily profligate standard of living and the privilege of being able t...

Do geopolitics matter?

joypog wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 24, 2023 3:15 pm

From your other thread, I don't see how "Short-term treasuries, real estate with timber value, maybe a few old fashioned dividend-paying stocks with certificates" will save you in a national collapse.

Well, if I felt confident that they would save me, I wouldn't be an anxious mess.

There are certain things that are indisputably different this time. And simple mathematics says that there WILL be a time of reckoning. The question is whether the government, which has so far managed to keep the ball in the air by injecting incomprehensible amounts of liquidity into the markets, by...

flyingpylon wrote: ↑

Fri Mar 24, 2023 11:10 am

This is pretty much what I've been wondering. Is this not just a case of one of the asset classes being out of favor currently?

The thing is. . . Not a one of the other three asset classes looks rosy--or even safe.

I am grateful for the "thinking outside the box" that occurs on this forum. When I look at what's going on over at the Boglehead site, they're still just lumping along telling each other to "stay the course." Who knows, they may be right in the end, but for now the idea of putting on blinders just m...

I'm really sorry, you guys. I'm just feel incredibly defeated about what's happening, and last night it was really getting to me. It's the long bonds that are the real nut-buster. They're down over 30 percent, and even after reading Tyler's piece, I still don't see a plausible path to recovery. And ...

Mark Leavy wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 11, 2023 9:14 pm

But a few times I've gotten a long rambling email from the girlfriend and I couldn't make heads nor tails of it. I asked the AI to break it into relevant bullet points, summarize the points and suggest a response.

Absolutely classic!

For over a year now, I've been asking the question, "Could Harry have anticipated this?" I'm referring primarily to the extraordinarily reckless manner in which the dollar's reserve status has been abused, to the resulting distortions in the financial markets, and to the chaotic bufoonery by which t...

The only thing I can think of to do is to split your money between multiple banks and credit unions. Because credit unions are insured by an entirely different entity with different rules, and because credit unions are typically exposed to a somewhat different set of risks, that kind of diversificat...

glennds wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 21, 2023 8:53 am

Where do you keep your money?
Do you have a way of paying your bills outside the banking system?

I don't have a lot of money, so that solves a multitude of problems!

It's fraud because what the bank says to a given demand depositor is effectively, "We will hold your demand deposits for safe keeping, and we promise to make them available to you for withdrawal immediately at any time." They don't mention the potential actions of "every single depositor", because ...

The current debt load in unmaintainable unless there is significant inflation. If the government were at all concerned about its debt load, it wouldn't be cranking the printing presses 24/7 to fund the most frivolous stuff imaginable. There's something else going on here, and it has the feel of a p...

boglerdude wrote: ↑

Sat Mar 18, 2023 6:34 pm

Business should have to pay for high limits like that

Let's see. . . You lend $250,000 to the bank. You get virtually no return on your money and become an unsecured creditor of the bank--subordinate to shareholders and secured creditors. Sounds like a good deal to me.

jalanlong wrote: ↑

Thu Mar 16, 2023 9:00 am

. . . until you get frustrated and throw in the towel.

I've concluded that that's the point.

Thanks, Jalanlong. I think you're right. I looked closely at Fidelity's numbers this morning (as detailed in its "Positions" section), and it does appear that it's showing yesterday's data until about 9:45 EST. Even after that time, market prices are delayed significantly, so if you're interested in...

So... Is it stupid to have money in any bank that isn't one of these? "Systemically important": Meaning what? That the reach of their malfeasance has become so extensive that the federal government has no realistic choice but to continue propping them up? There are a number of commentators, one of ...

While the FDIC was stepping in to make all depositors whole at SVB, the Fed was setting up the lifeline for all depository institutions called the Bank Term Funding Program. Pretty cool, they will make term loans to institutions on assets AT PAR. So if a bank holds a bond or MBS portfolio that has ...

Xan wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 14, 2023 7:54 am

Sorry, Vinny, I may have been unclear.

Nothing unclear here.

glennds wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 14, 2023 11:00 am

. . .That people can be both patriots AND insurgents. . .

As a thought experiment, I would ask whether an "insurrection" can occur when the focus of rebellion is an illegitimate government or an unconstitutional exercise of power. Just hypothetically.

I'm hoping that someone can explain to me why, at any given time, the quotes on particular securities vary so dramatically between platforms. I have money at Fidelity and Ameritrade and use both of those platforms to monitor what's going on in the market. This morning, I was (once again) stunned by ...

Long before its epic collapse, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) was a darling of the left. It allied in cash and manpower with a liberal nonprofit run by California Gov. Gavin Newsom's wife and fully embraced the environmental, social and governance (ESG) platform now being banned in some red states, whil...

Silicon Valley Bank's chief administrative officer, Joseph Gentile, was the CFO for Lehman Brothers Global Investment Bank.
https://mishtalk.com/economics/the-stun ... ks-failure

Vanguard is Silicon Valley Bank's largest shareholder. https://investorplace.com/2023/03/5-investors-that-are-betting-big-on-silicon-valley-bank-sivb-stock/ VTI is among the funds affected, though minimally. https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1143550/which-funds-are-taking-the-biggest-hit-on-silic...

Some interesting observations from Bill Ackman: The gov’t has about 48 hours to fix a-soon-to-be-irreversible mistake. By allowing @SVB_Financial to fail without protecting all depositors, the world has woken up to what an uninsured deposit is — an unsecured illiquid claim on a failed bank. Absent @...