Taleb Joins Me In Exile (via HuffPost)

I don't write Econ/Finance posts anymore, I can't stomach it, and my hero, Nassim Taleb feels the same way. I'll let him do the talking, from today's Huffington Post:

Good Bye! The Reappointment Of Bernanke Is Too Much To Bear

What I am seeing and hearing on the news -- the reappointment of Bernanke -- is too hard for me to bear. I cannot believe that we, in the 21st century, can accept living in such a society. I am not blaming Bernanke (he doesn't even know he doesn't understand how things work or that the tools he uses are not empirical); it is the Senators appointing him who are totally irresponsible -- as if we promoted every doctor who caused malpractice. The world has never, never been as fragile. Economics make homeopath and alternative healers look empirical and scientific.

No news, no press, no Davos, no suit-and-tie fraudsters, no fools. I need to withdraw as immediately as possible into the Platonic quiet of my library, work on my next book, find solace in science and philosophy, and mull the next step. I will also structure trades with my Universa friends to bet on the next mistake by Bernanke, Summers, and Geithner. I will only (briefly) emerge from my hiatus when the publishers force me to do so upon the publication of the paperback edition of The Black Swan.

Bye,
Nassim

Amen.

Inductive Reasoning Fallacy

A holiday lesson on thinking, straight from my idol Nassim Taleb:

A turkey lives 1000 days. Every day for 999 days the turkey is fed and fattened, eating a little more everyday.

Let's say for the sake of this piece that this turkey is a fantasy free-range turkey, not the traditional mass-produced, death-farmed, slaughterhouse, pig-boned, steroid special you will be eating this Thursday.

So from this turkey's perspective he is happier and happier every day, thinking to himself, "Wow, what a great life I have. Every day just gets better and better and every day I just get bigger and bigger!"

Day 1000. Chop. Thwack. Slaughter. Gutted.

Today has everything to do with yesterday, until it violently does not. Past performance is not indicative of future results. In other words, yesterday has nothing to do with the here and now.

And for that we can all be grateful!

Happy Thanksgiving all. Please keep the slaughterhouse product consumption to a minimum this year.

And don't be a turkey.

Pop.

I'm gonna do my best to explain what's going on here on earth, and then after this post, I really mean it this time, no more finance posts.

There's a lot more interesting stuff going on out there which I can't wait to write about. I do thank you so much for spending time here and in my gratitude, I do feel an obligation to explain this one more time and then let it all go.

So as my final reportage, here you go:

After 25+ years of misfeasance, easy money at the Fed, we're broke, and going broker, we are fighting two illegal/ immoral wars, on our way to a third.

Peace Prize!

So, we had absolutely no money last year when the Banks blew up due to the incompetence ethos, survival of the slimiest, etc. But the oligarchy needed to get paid, so we had the bailouts when said banks indicated it would be the end of world if they could not pay bonuses.

It was!! Only good call they made in 20 years.

Yes, so not only are we run by corporations, but by failed corporations -from Mr. Obama on down.

Sigh... He has not made any difference despite my false hopes.

This is NOT Capitalism despite Michael Moore's wishes. This is not Socialism nor Communism either. Those models would imply we are redistributing wealth from rich to poor.

It's the opposite here. This is straight up banana republic.

Okay you get it already, no money here, bananaland, our balance sheet has trillions in debt we simply, arithmetically cannot pay.

So we will print it. We will create it out of paper and ink. That was okay way back when we had something of worth backing it, like gold.

And it was still good for a while after that when we were a production-based, non-consumer-based nation, as it was backed by the full faith and credit of the taxing power of the US Congress.

That used to mean something. Now it does not. So the printing to pay debts, coupled with the lack of real demand for said dollars will only lead to one outcome:

Hyperinflation and the likely dissolution (or major restructuring) of the United States.

Look at the stock markets, look at gold and other commodities. I made a mistake when I told you to sell US stocks 1000 points ago. You can hold anything as long as it's not US dollars. Pet rocks will go up in price in dollar terms.

(*Except your house. That credit-based asset will continue to plummet and basically ruin your life -Enjoy!)

So, my mistake, although I was prettay, prettay clear about holding gold or foreign stocks which both way outperformed US stocks this year.

If you followed my blog and did what the fuck I told you for the past two years, you are basically crushing it.

You're welcome. Gravy fucking train is over. I"m too bored with all this. You can always call me...

No, you cannot.

I still think the US stock market is the biggest stock bubble in history, but it is competing with the biggest asset bubble in history, that which dwarfs the stock market.

The deflationists look at the US fundamentals and rightfully see awfulness and much lower prices going forward. Like me, they see bankrupt companies like AIG, Citigroup, Bank of America, Fannie Mae, etc. lead the charge the higher, and shake their pointy heads.

They see the stock bubble but miss the biggest bubble of all time popping before their eyes.

And that bubble my friends, is the US Dollar.

Pop.

GOLD 100 OZ FUTR (USD/t oz.) $1050.90

Dear Ben Bernanke, Thank you for being you.

Dear Barrack Obama, Thank you for not understanding math.

Dear Wall Street TARP Bankers, Thank you for taking up all the last few hundred spots in hell.

Dear US Congress, Thank you for your awesome spending.

Dear America, Thank you for sleeping.

Thank You For Playing

Carry on, nothing to see here.

Please, no loud crying.

Gentle sobbing appropriate.

Manifest Volcker

I've said this before and not at all lived up to it, but no more posts on finance/ the economy.

Done.

I've warned everyone like ten times in the last month, do not buy US stocks or mutual funds even if you have a 100 year time horizon.

And do not hold US dollars either. You will be engulfed in flames as your portfolio will be incinerated and the dollar collapses.

So that's it! Closed. No more negative posts, I am delighting in the chaos to be televised this Fall. I hope you are as well.

I am also done crushing Obama. He can still turn it around, he is smart enough. I believe he is re-appointing Bernanke such that the captain can be onboard for the final iceberg.

He will reverse course soon enough, probably before the end of the year and dismantle his entire econ team post dollar crisis.

The really-not-that-smart Repubs will sweep in 2010, but they will F it up almost immediately with some xenophobic, culturally conservative idiocy, and be re-swept back out in 2012.

Barry will be re-elected to term 2 having fired his economic generals like Lincoln did his army captains.

Volcker will take over at age 100 and that is when you can get long US stocks again.

All is well. It's all vibration anyway. As Abraham Hicks says, become a vibrational match to that which you want. You will never attract what you want by focusing on the lack of it.

Become a vibrational match to Volcker.

Manifest Volcker.

Clunker Please Don't Go

We will look back at the Cash For Clunkers Era as the brief utopia before we were engulfed in flames.

Future history books will read as follows (in Mandarin):

Cash For Clunkers was a massive handout to the failing US car industry and lazy Americans that drove shit-boxes in response to Barack Obama's coddling of the US Banks.

As documented mostly in blogs of the era, the Banks (with the full backing of the Federal Reserve) successfully destroyed Capitalism while paying themselves enormous taxpayer funded bonuses.

Obama needed an opiate to dispel the notion that he was just another "Corporatist" (as coined by hard-core Republican Capitalist Frank Rich of the NYT). So he gave his obese citizens a $4500 voucher to buy a Toyota.

One of the first blogs to cover US Banker Satanism in 2007 was Yogatrader which went on to become the official blog of Communist California. Eventually the MSM caught wind of the rampant banker sociopathy. Here is right-wing extremist, Paul Krugman in the August 21, 2009 NYT:

"And then there’s the matter of the banks.

I don’t know if administration officials realize just how much damage they’ve done themselves with their kid-gloves treatment of the financial industry, just how badly the spectacle of government supported institutions paying giant bonuses is playing. But I’ve had many conversations with people who voted for Mr. Obama, yet dismiss the stimulus as a total waste of money. When I press them, it turns out that they’re really angry about the bailouts rather than the stimulus — but that’s a distinction lost on most voters."

This Banker Satanism torpedoed any chance of Obama achieving much needed US healthcare reform.

Obama lost the middle, and had to deal with death-panel crazies and 60 IQ US College graduates that wanted "government off their Medicare!"

So he doubled down on Clunkers until it ran out of money.

Of course, we all know Cash For Clunkers was the greatest fiddle performance of all time, as unbeknownst to the fiddler, Rome was completely engulfed in Dante's inferno.

And this of course is where glorious Communist China came to the rescue and saved the world.

As the second best US President of the 21rst century, Mr. Obama's legacy was complete.