Strictly speaking, Hussman doesn't make "predictions" about what is about to happen in the market.  What he does is utilize an ensemble of market indicators to identify historical profiles which have or have not been favorable to prospective investors.  His approach is to apply that histor...

Doodle: "Waste not, want not" are still powerful words to live by.  Ditto "A penny saved is a penny earned."  Our wants are what we allow them to be.  If we live with restraint, it ought to be fairly easy to satisfy them in a society where indigenous population growth is stagnant...

I've always wondered why farmers, who always produce far more than they consume, don't just pack it in and keep a small garden for themselves and their families.  The rest of their time could be spent fishing or composing haiku.  I'm sure no harm would come of this.... :-\  :o  ;) On second thought,...

Gumby: You ask why anyone should have to pay interest and then a few lines later ask why anyone would want to lend unless the interest rate were sufficiently attractive.  Everyone has a time preference with respect to money.  Either one wants to compensate folks for any delay in getting to spend the...

If deflation is so fatal to prosperity, why has no causal link been found between deflation and depressions?http://minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/sr331.pdf You mean... no casual link, except for the Great Depression . "Our main finding is that the only episode in which we find evidence of a li...

Judging from the language used to describe debt-based monetary systems, it sounds as if everyone but a select class of plutocrats is a prisoner to debt.  The wealthy are somehow aloof from it all, as newborns free of original sin.  Doesn't sound like any entrepreneur I ever heard of.  In fact, guys...

To add some background info to the discussion.... In the case of California, home prices grew in both nominal and real terms for many decades after WWII.  So did real property taxes.  By the 1970's, the adverse impact on older residents (and not just older residents) was substantial.  They sometimes...

Stone: Items that have traditionally been used as stores of wealth do get accumulated.  Nothing out of the ordinary there.  Gold often ends up in a vault out of a desire to keep it safe.  Presumably, many PP'ers do the same thing with their physical gold.  It would, I believe, be more generally used...

I think there are two sets of questions at work here. Stone:  The clearance of bad debt and the downward adjustment of prices is the mechanism which allows consumers to feel free once again to consume.  It's what allows businesses to hire and borrow for future expansion.  The impossibility of having...

Several here have expressed concern over mounting debt and the interest-payment burden it poses on citizens (individually or collectively).  When debtors do not possess the money to repay their debt, they default.  First, they may seek shorter-term remedies like refinancing into short-term rates tha...

What the price of goods or services costs then vs now cannot be taken in isolation.  It has to be taken in relation to higher level of wages, growth in wealth/assets and improvement in living standards. Even during the inflationary 1970's, the lower class was the least effected by the high rates of...

Gumby: I think you might enjoy reading/listening to the discussions about deflation and prosperity as shown below.  You may be surprised by the idea that any level of money supply is sufficient to support vibrant economic exchange so long as prices and interest rates are allowed to adjust.  The prob...

Sooooo good.  Thank you, thank you, WiseOne.

You get to collect tolls or an assessment payable by the village's residents.  You pay me back with interest.  Everyone is richer and happier. Well, perhaps not everyone is happier. From a Macro perspective, private credit needs to constantly increase in order for the population to pay the toll eve...

The trick is in expanding opportunities to gain wealth without reducing the heard-earned wealth of others in the process. I'm pondering this... I wonder if this is somewhat impossible. How do we preserve wealth while simultaneously allowing others to become wealthier? By definition, as others becom...

Gumby: I truly appreciate your magnanimous response.  As far as informational blinkers are concerned, we have all been victims at one time or another.  In fact, due to the conventional content of academic history texts, I used to teach certain themes in ways that closely followed the line you origin...

I think it is important not to bail out irresponsible banks as a way to bail out share holders or bond holders (irrespective of whether they wear monocles :) ). If banks can't fail, then banks have carte blanche to bloat up to the point where everyone is either a banker or a government employee and...

Gumby: Having lectured on American history over the years, I assure you I'm aware of the greenback movement, populism and Coxey's Army.  Revealing the shortcomings of a theory espoused in a certain video (Baum's Oz and the idea of debt-free money) doesn't signify unfamiliarity with, a failure to ack...

It comes down to an argument for debt-based money vs. debt-free money. I prefer the idea of debt-free money, in certain situations, since debt-based money tends to lead to an ever-increasing money supply (in order to keep things solvent). Thomas Edison and Henry Ford were supporters of debt-free mo...

TBV, did the big discoveries of gold in California and the Yukon make gold less of a "hard currency" during that period and was that instrumental for gold functioning well as money? I'm just struck by how successful monetary metal systems seem to coincide with massive discoveries of new m...

Having watched the movie myself, I am VERY interested to see TBV's questions/observations addressed by someone smarter than I (I'm looking at you, Gumby!  :) ) Meh. I think TBV has a certain opinion that I don't share. We can agree to disagree. He seems to think that bankers had our best interest i...

A less feverish monetary system would, I suggest, offer greater predictability, sustainability and the possibility of personal financial security through savings and the avoidance of excessive debt.  Not only that but a marked reduction in cronyism and speculation. There are two sides to the story....

If it's different and doping doesn't confer that much of an advantage, why do you think so many cyclists do it? I don't care either, but the whole story is pretty bizarre.  How do we know that whoever won second place in the Tour de France in 1999-2005 wasn't also doping? I didn't say it didn't con...

Compared to baseball players or weightlifters, tour cyclists are supermen.  Juicing to gain a prohibitive advantage in a sport where a few seconds of exertion is all that's required to win is truly despicable.  Having to submit to grueling weeks-long ordeals under all kinds of conditions while weavi...

Gumby:  It would not surprise me to have "mixed up a few historical realities."  But since the President was a Republican, the House only 24% Democrat and the Senate only 30% Democrat when Greenback legislation was passed, I don't think it's a stretch to conclude that Greenbacks came about...