Thread: What is this guy talking about

I simply asked about investing in PM's and mentioned some of my reasoning behind it. Do you find his advice as accurate or is he just blowing steam? What is he getting at?


(joeyV)

What are you trying to accomplish?

First off there are only three (or perhaps four) precious metals that are traded - gold, silver, platinum and possibly palladium. Copper is not a precious metal ($3/lb) so anybody who is telling you that copper is a precious metal is an idiot and not worth lstening to for more than time of day. Buying any other metal besides these is deeply nuts unless you are a pro buying an enormous pile.

Second, all of these are wildly volatile investments. Buying them as your primary investment is nuts.

Third, buying them "long-term" is just stupid - they have been going down steadily in value for 1000 years. The recent blip up is a blip unless you believe that a 1000 year trend has reversed for some whacko reason (all the reasons are wacko - like Armaggedon is going to happen and kids with bags of silver are going to save the day).

Edit: If you really want to make money, you will bet me that you know more about economics or economic history than me. I'll bet $1000 at 100:1 odds. If you think the US is anything like Weimar,then you know nothing and shouldn't be managing your own money. Ditto for Greece. Neither of those countries was remotely in control of their own money - Greece because it was a small insignificant country with an external currency and Weimar because of the wildly oppressive treaty of Versailles that let them keep nothing. Inflation is very healthy if kept at a reasonable level. US inflation is very light and healthy. The Fed has a $3T balance sheet. $3Trillion. That's $3,000,000,000,0000. That is wildly different from Greece or Weimar where their central banks had nothing. If you don't know how the size of a central bank's balance sheet affects their ability to control inflation better go read up.

In the meantime - about that bet? Let's do it - you could make some good money if you knew something.

I agree with a lot of what he said, though he sounds like a ........ someone I would not want to ask for advise...

sounds like he at least thinks he knows what he is talking about.....he would probably bet you at those same odds that he is the best fighter he knows and that his numerous girlfriends are all hotter than yours.......as to does he know what he is talking about really i could not tell you one way or the other, he is just giving you his opinion.....if he really knew as much as he says he does he would be out there running the world and making millions of dollars, not kickin it on the net talking to the likes of us! No offense meant with that last line by the way.

This is always the section in cointalk, and the most rational.

Not sure I understand this part, unless I don't know what "them" and "they" are.

Third, buying them "long-term" is just stupid - they have been going down steadily in value for 1000 years. The recent blip up is a blip unless you believe that a 1000 year trend has reversed for some whacko reason (all the reasons are wacko - like Armaggedon is going to happen and kids with bags of silver are going to save the day).

He's refering to precious metals in general.

Originally Posted by JCB1983

I simply asked about investing in PM's and mentioned some of my reasoning behind it. Do you find his advice as accurate or is he just blowing steam? .[/COLOR]

Jason: Wow, that rant was precipitated by a simple question about investing in PMs. Please provide some context of your reasoning you provided behind your question to him. TC

Wow that guy is smarter than every government on the planet. We as a world society should elect him as World Dictator and he could solve poverty.

I prescribe Xanax and no sharp objects.

What is it with hardcore PM groupies (present company excepted of course) and the lack of a personality?

Well basically he is an investor and claims to have owned a "hedge fund." My overall opinion is that he has lost his shirt a few times but has the brains to pull himself up again. I think that he is making another run at some ponzi scheme is heavy in the paper market. I would like to mention that I am nothing more than a frugile college student, and by no means meant to offend him.

The only thing that I stated were historical facts that I learned from watching shows on PBS/brief internet scanning

#1 Our society is operating under the false illusion of prosperity much as in the 1920's
#2 Since 1912 the value of the dollar has lost 90% of its value
#3 Germany's way of paying off ww1 debt cornered and propelled their cause to begin ww2 in the first place.

Originally Posted by cmilladoo

sounds like he at least thinks he knows what he is talking about....

This was my perception as well. You meet people like this once in a while. People who are so strong headed they can convince themselves to believe anything they want to believe and say it's fact. They always have something to prove or one up somebody on.

There is no doubt the US had/has the benefit of being the largest, most prosperous country in the history of mankind. Just because it takes a much larger number before all of it's equity is burned up, doesn't mean it can't turn into a Weimar situation. If inflation is so good, why don't they print enough money to pay off every debt and buy everything that everybody needs right now? Bail all the states out and every business. Problem solved in his eyes!
A stable money supply should experience zero inflation. We are relying on infinite, compounding growth to keep the wheels turning. It's impossible. We're seeing the limits tested with the job markets right now. 1 in 2 college students can't find a job. If 50% of them are unemployed, how are the "lowly" blue collar workers doing? So we have a severe economic downturn with a huge drop in tax revenue, but the governments budget keeps skyrocketing by default because it has to! Whether the money is coming in to pay for anything or not, really doesn't matter any more..

When George Washington took office the country had very little debt if any.
When George Bush I took office, the country had accumulated a paltry 1 trillion in debt. (Took how many centuries and how many wars??)
When Obama stepped into office we were at 9 trillion.
Today we're at 16 trillion. This isn't even counting unfunded future liabilities.

This isn't " light and healthy inflation". This is essentially a runaway train, picking up speed. I'm sure if the government tells him inflation is 0% he would believe it no matter the situation.
Unless the powers that be create and institute new math at some point, I can't see how this ends well. Nothing less than new math will save this system and if it does, the little guy will still get screwed.
That clown has his head in the sand. Wishful thinking. He's willing to make a bet that 'maybe' nothing will happen in his lifetime. Well, maybe so. It doesn't mean he's a fountain of knowledge on the future of economics. He actually seems naive.

Jason. Did you mention copper to this fellow? I think that's what might have set him off. Poor fellow was probably doing a plumbing project and went to Home Depot for some fittings and pipe and was aghast at the checkout.....

I take any sort of advice mixed with little insults as someone who is blowing hot air. That does not mean that he is necessarily wrong in whatever he is trying to say, just that he is adding adjectives like idiot, nuts, deeply nuts, whacko, and wacko (two different spellings in the same rant?) to me shows someone who thinks such words make his rationale somehow better, but it does not.

I suspect that something set him off, and instead of just answering you in a logical matter of fact way, his emotions made him add all the little insulting adjectives.

Like I said, that does not make him wrong, but it does lower the value of his advice in my eyes.

Second, all of these are wildly volatile investments. Buying them as your primary investment is nuts.

Third, buying them "long-term" is just stupid - they have been going down steadily in value for 1000 years. The recent blip up is a blip unless you believe that a 1000 year trend has reversed for some whacko reason (all the reasons are wacko - like Armaggedon is going to happen and kids with bags of silver are going to save the day).

Gold and silver have outperformed most every other investment vehicle over the past decade other than a few hand picked high performing stocks. Silver may be wildly volatile but gold is not so much. It's not really fair to lump them together in that. Also, the volatility that is there is because of margin requirement changes and speculators that are enabled by paper silver - not because the real market is actually volatile. Regardless, volatility doesn't imply bad performance. Volatility is necessary to reach new highs, so I don't see it as a bad thing personally. It just means that you have to have conviction in your decisions to avoid being shaken out.

I'd be interested in this supposed 1000 year trend being spoke of. Gold was money throughout that span, and the only thing that changed was that one day we started measuring gold in dollars instead of dollars in ounces of gold. Gold moves because of monetary policy and perceived future monetary policy. To say that gold is going down in value implies two things that I disagree with. First being that gold has retained its purchasing power for the most part throughout that span, and the second being that gold's value never really changed - only the value of the currency measuring it has. Besides, what else could you have invested in 1000 years ago? Did they have stocks and bonds back then? Maybe, but not anything that has value today. Did they have currency back then? Yes, but nothing that's worth more than it's value as a collectible today. So what has gold gone down in value in relation to exactly? It's quite a broad and unquantified statement being made here.