Kass' take on perma bears

[ByLoSellHi]

Quote from Kassz007:

You are correct. I am Canadian but the name (the full name) is Polish.

For the record, I wasn't singling you out with this thread, although you do fit the description nicely. The main reason I liked this article was because of the part about the discrediting all government information (employment, housing, etc.). There are alot of people on this board who cry foul whenever the government reports good news. While they may have a point sometimes, there is no way all governement information is manipulated and bullshit...

Ahh, Polish was literally going to be my first guess (I swear).

I agree w/what you're saying. Bears like me (although I am not a permabear) gloss over good news when emotionally wrapped up in conviction that the economy is shit.

I really wish the government would get the hell out of the way, let asset prices fall to where true clearing could take place, and we'd all be better off, however.

And btw, I'd lose some coin if they did that, because some of the assets I'm currently holding would lose more value.

But I'd more than make up for it on the other side, whether that side came along in two years or five.

At least I'd get some clarity, and be able to make a rational decision on where and how to allocate capital, without Bernanke, Geithner & Co. screwing up any hope of a rational play.

Needless to say, I am extremely bearish, and have to laugh at any claim of any turnaround in the U.S. economy in the next two years, let alone this year.

I don't think many here actually believe we're going to hit 13% (and maybe higher) official unemployment.

 

[Eight]

I knew one guy that admitted to being a perma bear, not in so many words but basically he admitted it. His style of life was thrifty to say the least. He had a half $mil to play with but he lived in a broken down little house in a pleasant enough but krappy neighborhood. He hoarded guns and ammo, gold probably, fixed his own cars, etc... not a bad guy, not a dumb guy, just odd like that. He liked to sell options. I told him the big money is not made in selling options and it's in fact about the riskiest thing anybody does but he wasn't too worried about it. I think the appeal was in getting his money up front and not having to wait for the gains maybe or maybe he just enjoyred being right and taking money from people that weren't. He would trade a stock or option if he knew the company and he made a lot of very good bets really. He had good reasons for his bearishness though, it was ten years ago when I knew the guy and I think he saw the trend towards jobless recoveries and knew it wasn't good for anybody in the longer term. Being a bear he picked up on that kind of thing like a warning system detecting incoming...

 

[Topsurfi]

At least I'd get some clarity, and be able to make a rational decision on where and how to allocate capital, without Bernanke, Geithner & Co. screwing up any hope of a rational play.
[/B]

yes, but you have to make investment decisions WITH Bernanke and Geithner in the game. The market will always be manipulated by someone (even if the current amount of manipulation is really awesome). The fact that the FED plans to inflate the dept away by buying dept (printing money) is one of the most important reasons fueling the current rally.
People flee from Bonds into stocks where they think their money is safer (and I agree).

I believe that we will have a huge inflation coming together with a bad economy (at least in USA) and 3 sigma event rally in stocks. In this inflation rally huge amounts of money will be lost from people waiting for the final bottom and sitting on their cash, which will be inflated away faster than they can imagine.

So its not sufficient to be right on the economy, you have to be right on prices (as long as you really want to earn some money).

 

[Kassz007]

Quote from ByLoSellHi:

Ahh, Polish was literally going to be my first guess (I swear).

I agree w/what you're saying. Bears like me (although I am not a permabear) gloss over good news when emotionally wrapped up in conviction that the economy is shit.

I really wish the government would get the hell out of the way, let asset prices fall to where true clearing could take place, and we'd all be better off, however.

And btw, I'd lose some coin if they did that, because some of the assets I'm currently holding would lose more value.

But I'd more than make up for it on the other side, whether that side came along in two years or five.

At least I'd get some clarity, and be able to make a rational decision on where and how to allocate capital, without Bernanke, Geithner & Co. screwing up any hope of a rational play.

Needless to say, I am extremely bearish, and have to laugh at any claim of any turnaround in the U.S. economy in the next two years, let alone this year.

I don't think many here actually believe we're going to hit 13% (and maybe higher) official unemployment.

Bears gloss over good economic news much in the same way as bulls gloss over bad economic news. It's in the human nature to pay more attention and put more merit into evidence that supports their own hypothesis.

I'm also not a fan of government intervention, but believe there can be advantages to the spending etc. if done properly (i.e. infastructure will need upgrading eventually, so why not do it during a recession?). But I am always skeptical of government using this crisis to push their own agendas (that goes for the Conservative government here in Canada as well).

I don't think we'll hit 13% unemployment but it will be over 10% at some point. I guess time will tell.