About That Gold...

As we wrote back in May, we are not fond of the yellow metal. It has no productive purpose, although lately, with the ever skyrocketing price of gold, supporters have claimed that it could simultaneously protect against inflation (Central Banks using quantitative easing to monetize governments' debts) and deflation (caused by a double-dip recession). Again, how something can simultaneously protect against two fundamentally different views of the world is beyond our comprehension.

We certainly hope the price action in the past few weeks (racing to recent higsh of over $1,900 / oz before crashing to ~$1,600) will serve as a stark reminder of the inherent speculative nature of gold. Remember, in 2008, gold actually fell along with the value of all assets. If anything, you should buy gold equities (with low-cost production or unrecognized assets), since they actually generate cash flows from their productions of gold. 


- The Aspiring Analyst

I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today...

Our thoughts after hearing President Obama's speech today is aptly captured by Jim Quinn of The Burning Platform (brilliant post - one of those, why didn't I think of that calibre post.)

POTUS wants $447 BB in new stimulus. Everything will be fully paid for, according to POTUS. The only catch is, he doesn't know from where. So he'll ask the Congressional Committee tasked to find $1.5 T in cuts before the end of the year to find another $447 BB. Brilliant. POTUS gets the photo-op. Congress gets stuck doing the hard work. 

- The Aspiring Analyst

Ben Is Set Up To Fail

Dear readers, through a recent email exchange with a Canadian thought leader, we came across an interesting idea. Why do we, as a society, continue to rely on men to do superman's job? Aren't we simply asking for failure? We explore this idea a little bit in this month's newsletter.

The Aspiring Analyst