.
TrendBert: Not meaning to insult anyone, but how often have your predictions been wrong?
*****
December 9, 2005
SouthAmerica: I donât make a lot of predictions â only when I am sure that the outcome has a very high probability of coming to past.
That I can remember only once I made a prediction and it did not materialized.
I thought that if Lula became the president of Brazil in 2002 â Brazil would be in real trouble â and we would have a similar economic collapse as the one they had in Argentina.
I did not count on Lula choosing a good economic team in the first place â and that his economic team would be making the necessary hard decisions and not give away to political pressures.
I still surprised about that one â The Brazilian economic team have been acting as the economic team of a country of the first world â I canât say the same for Alan Greenspan and what has been happening in the US during that same period.
*****
TrendBert: I am not saying that there are no big problems and even bigger challenges facing the US economy and the economies of many other countries as well. I am not saying that some, many or perhaps all of your predictions will come true at some point in the future. You make some very valuable and wise observations. But the thing is, if you wait long enough anything that is predictable will at some point in time happen. We might even see Chief Chimp GWB joining Al-Qaeda... who knows what the future holds?
******
SouthAmerica: If you followed the market closely then you know that I could have made my prediction regarding the coming collapse of the US stock market at various points in the go-go stock market of the 1990âs.
But I did not. â I made the prediction at the end of October 1999, very close to the turning point. And when I made the prediction many people said the same that you are saying - that perhaps all of your predictions would come true at some point in the future.
******
sputdr: Of course the doomsday scenario could happen but if it does everyone goes down, the euro isn't going to offer any safety.
Yes they dont' have large deficits but if the US goes into crisis mode the eurozone will be an absolute disaster considering they have almost no domestic demand and make all their money from the United States consumer.
******
SouthAmerica: It will be a hard time for everybody, since the majority of the economies of the industrialized world today are more interconnected than ever before.
But the hard times will not be as bad in Europe as it will be in the United States because of the European countries protection of its labor force â it is harder to layoff workers in Europe than in the US â and that make the European recessions more palatable since they keep the maximum amount of people working as long as they can. (and these workers make money and have some kind of purchasing power as compared with the US that when you lose your job you are in real trouble â mainly if you have a long recession, or even an economic depression.)
European recessions are much easier on its work force than in the United States.
The difference is in Europe they treat workers like a human being â in the US American corporations treat them like a short term useful thing and shortly after that as a disposable trash.
******
davidLynch2000: I had previously stated, to you, in a previous thread that I was slightly bearish on the dollar. That is not an opinion that I have any amount of confidence in. "Balls" have nothing to do with making market calls to within specific ranges.
Regarding the second part of your quote, I am a trader, and predictions don't bother me at all. I tend to think the dollar will weaken to some extent, but I don't think it's a foregone conclusion, and I think chances are good that you will be wrong when you make a call that is as far outside the market as yours is.
*****
SouthAmerica: If you did read my articles and postings then you know that there are very few economists and people on Wall Street that I highly respect their opinions. Warren Buffett is one of these people â and he has made a major bet (in the billions of US dollars) against the US dollar and he has been saying a lot of the same things that I have. I am glad that someone of his stature is in the same wavelength that I am on this subject.
You said: âI don't think it's a foregone conclusion,â regarding the decline of the US dollar â I agree with you because of the price of oil and the amount of petrodollars windfall in 2006 is a wild card â we donât know how much petrodollars will be generated and where the people holding these petrodollars will invest their profits.
But Ben Bernake will keep increasing the Fed Funds rate to at least 5 percent in 2006 â after that the international market will react accordingly to expectations and most likely we will see the US dollar start its declining trend on world markets.
.
