Two Great (Quick) Reads For Your Weekend Pleasure
The first one is sourced from the King World News Blog. The author makes the argument that, on a relative basis, Europe will begin to appear “stable” relative to the U.S. What’s interesting about this that I was meeting with prospective client who was relating a presentation he heard from some fancy economist who talked about a stronger dollar vs. all the problems in Europe. My response was, “huh?” California alone is a bigger problem for the U.S. than Greece, Ireland, Spain, Italy and Portugal combined. Then layer in Califorinia, New York, New Jersery, The Rust Belt…”
Anyway, this commentary alludes to all of that:
In no way do we see the Build America Bonds program as a panacea for what ills Municipals, rather we see it as the duct tape holding states together until growth in whatever guise comes its way. With no growth and no duct tape, we see the problems of state and local governments coming to the fore. Given California, New York, and Illinois comprise 25 percent of the US GDP, we believe headlines regarding their budget deficits will soon overtake those regarding Ireland, a country that makes up only 1.8 percent of Euro-Zone GDP.
More interestingly, he makes the argument that the best way for China to revalue its yuan vs. the U.S. dollar is to continue buying a lot more euros, which they are doing anyway in order to diversify out its increasingly worthless dollar position. It’s the first time I had thought of this issue this way and I believe he’s dead right. Here’s the link and it’s definitely worth reading: Buy Euros On Dips
The second article is about silver from Sprott. Like most of us who understand the how/what/why of the precious metals market, Sprott as an institution – and the principals of the firm individually – have overweighted silver in their investment portfolio. I know both Eric Sprott and John Embry have 90% of their net worth in the precious metals sector because they have stated that on several occassions. It made me feel a lot better about having 90% of my net worth in the sector as well. At any rate, if you want to read an excellent summary on why silver is poised to provide breathtaking investment returns just click HERE.
As an aside, I was out to dinner last night with a good friend going back to 1st grade. At one point in his career he was a Federal prosecutor at the Justice Dept who prosecuted RICO cases. I told him about the RICO lawsuit filed against JP Morgan for manipulating the silver market. His only response is that JPM is likely in a lot of trouble at this point…
