patrick.net

Now the second piece of work done by PPT is on gold. Gold was going up as DOW plunged, then after PPT, gold plunged from $91x to $891, but PPT's job was not so clean on this one. Why? They forgot to short CEF, and CEF is up 2%.

At some point, the paper gold market is going to end in shambles due to all these naked shorts.

At some point, the paper gold market is going to end in shambles due to all these naked shorts.

I heard that physical market is very tight right now and COMEX OI is dropping. GLD is actually seen as almost-physical because it owns physicals.

I do not mind someone hammering gold down so that I can buy more.

Disclosure: I own some GLD.

I wonder if the PPT is going to prop this up all day. There is a vacuum on the bottom of that graph...

Have you guys looked into gold stocks? They are way down. The severe disconnect between XAU and GLD occurred around July-August.

Opportunities there?

Gold/commodity stocks may involve less counterpart risks than futures.

Not investment advice

The market is going down so sharply because there are no short sellers in financials.

They WANTED this to happen.

I predict large donations of surplus canned food to the food banks come Christmas.

Bush is speaking. The words "working closely with" keep coming up. Nothing much concrete so far, mostly a recap of the world as he sees it.

I am not even watching, did he say, "work very hard"?

You meant mostly a recap of the world as his prompter sees it.

I can't believe that they haven't figured out that putting that clown in front of us just lessens our confidence.

OO, lots of platitudes about how good workers we all are. Thank you, Papa Bush. I'm beaming with pride now.

So there is no concrete plan at all about how to loosen up the credit market except for dicking around the stock indices that really do not help any shippers to get their job done or make it possible for smaller companies to secure payroll.

Just great. Then I expect my Thanksgiving and Xmas dinner will be canned tuna.

Buy that turkey now!

Not thanksgiving dinner advice.

OO has a point. A lot of food shipments depend upon credit facilities of one sort or another (letters of credit, for example) to bridge a transaction's cash flow demands. Don't know how prevalent credit disruption is at those companies, however. Currently it doesn't seem to be widespread, only between trading partners who haven't done a lot of business with each other already; my SO works in the retail side of the business, and they don't have supply chain problems at the moment with their suppliers. If the credit availability picture clouds too much for these companies however, then supply chains will definitely get stressed over the next few months (usually these companies can play games with receivables and payables for a cycle or two before they run into hard solvency problems).

I recall when we used to comment that this was the weirdest slow motion train wreck we have ever seen. With the financial contagion through international highly leveraged institutions we are showing we can do things more effeciently in 2008. Bank runs now take seconds. The speed at this point is shocking.

Patrick, please recall that many here asked that the correction be fast and thorough. Well, it is that.
What we will wake up to in a few weeks? I don't know.
I tend to think the US, as a nation rich in food and natural resources, will be okay.
But the bankruptcy of Pakistan. The problem now showing up in India. The stock market failure of Russia. The possible balkanization of Europe. The crushing cost of intervention by those countries mitigating failure. We are kind of looking at rewinding to the geopolitical situation of the 70s.

Patrick, did you pick up a stable gig? As companies downsize they will be keeping on the best talent and I think there will be few dollars for contractors.

A real problem with buying survival food is that food that is good for you is generally perishable, whereas junk food is so full of preservatives that it may last for an eon, e.g. ding-dongs and ho-hos. :(

I just have mostly corned beef, canned corns, and salmon.

I think a 15-day supply should be sufficient, right?

I would like to argue that storing food in premature. But, it always pays to be prudent. However, we are really no where near this.
At this point we need to only pay attention to emplyment numbers. If we start seeing massive job loss, then it is time to lay in supplies.
I am talking numbers like 10% (now at 6.1%).

Log time lurker... first post.

I just wanted to jump in on the food supply issue, since I work of a frozen veggie importer. 99% of our suppliers are outside of the US. I am fairly deep inside the food distribution industry.

At this moment I am seeing zero problems with transportation or distribution. The ports are all open. Trucks are still picking up and delivering open orders. Manufacturing sites are still manufacturing. The foods is still flowing (at least the frozen food is).

The trucks will only stop running when they can no longer put diesel in their tanks. That will happen if enough of the customers can no longer pay them and/or the fuel credit card becomes unusable. So far that has not happened yet.

Most payment terms between trucks and their customers are between 15-30 days, so it is probably a little early to tell if lack of cash/credit is going to cripple transportation. So far all is fine.

Thanks damenace!

Monterey was once one of the biggest sardine producers in the world.

Was.

But I love sardines.

The business talking heads are trying to panick people into buying. Saying you will never see these kind of valuations again.
Hmm.
Limited upside.
Tremendous downside risk.
Who are they kidding?

The Mercury laden tuna? or the mercury free edition?

http://www.fishscam.com/

Fishing tackle is still relatively cheap. Maybe a time to buy shares in tackle companies?

Not investment or fishing advice.

Sardines are best grilled and drizzled with olive oil.

I have seen them fresh in some grocery stores. Otherwise, I like Crown Prince canned sardine.

Which flavor do you prefer?

These guys have relatively cheap prices www.blueflycafe.com Forget Orvis they want too much for their stuff.

Yum! Need to stock up on Crown Prince sardines.

"The Mercury laden tuna? or the mercury free edition?"

Toxic poisoning from "red tide" domoic acid is a far bigger risk. I know that from working at a marine mammal hospital; it travels up the food chain into fish and ultimately seals. On the west coast, mercury poisoning risk is greatest from lake fish where natural mercury is present. There is also some mercury remaining in the SF Bay due to gold ore extraction processes.

Yep, we got dried fruits and nuts.

* How should we secure our food source?
* How should we protect our physical safety?
* How do we thrive?

I am an optimist and would rather go straight to point 3. I would start looking at good companies and wait for valuations to get real. This is not the end of the world. Oil is crashing, gas could be cheaper. This would be good for US & world economy (excluding oil rich economies: who cares anyway about them). I would say to OPEC to not bother meeting and trying to keep prices higher. Nobody cares about oil Period.

This forum has been great in being realistic about downside to economy. I strongly believe stock mkt is adjusting to realities. It's good to buy some insurance to worst case scenario, not prudent to be entirely thinking about worst case scenario.

I hope folks on this forum will not panic and lose out on possible opportunities that might be coming up.

my 0.002 cents

The Four Horsemen of the Housing Apocalypse
One Year (Are we there yet?) Anniversary Edition: updated with references to financial instruments of mass destruction

And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, David Lereah saying, Come and see.
And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had The Exemption; and two hundred fifty thousand dollars was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.
And when he had opened the second seal, I heard Lew Ranieri say, Come and see.
And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him to securitize mortgages, and that they should leverage CDOs: and there was given unto him a great sword called the credit default swap.
And when he had opened the third seal, I heard Robert Shiller say, Come and see. And I beheld, and saw a black horse; and he that sat on him had the Fed funds rate in his hand.
And I heard Alan Greenspan in the midst of the National Association of Realtors say, a measure of abundant liquidity for a penny, and three measures of low risk premiums for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the gold.
And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of Chris Thornberg say, Come and see.
And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Fraud, and Casey Serin followed with him. And power was given unto them over multiple primary residences, to inflate with false appraisals, and with negative amortization, and with no money down, and with low initial rates.

Peter, don’t tell me youre a mustard sauce man…

I do like the mustard sauce. :)

What is happening in gold?

Hey, this may sound crazy, but I would like to here some opinionsI have no credit card debt and no saving outside of an IRA rollover.
I have 30k in available credit on one card. The credit card company will let me write a check and put the 30k in my bank account for 3% fee and I pay 3% interest until Dec 2009. Why would I even consider this? Well I worry what will I do if things get much worse and I have no cash? I have a good job in For Profit Education, so I am as protected by the larger economic disaster as one can be, but still I am worried and trying to work out whether I should pay 6% a year (or less) on 30k just to have the security of knowing it is sitting in the bank. I am also paying as I go for a PhD...I don't need to share how f'ing expensive that is!

Am I crazy to even coonsider this?

Is Campbell's Soup still a good investment?

figalito, forget it.

Peter, I think we're seeing deflationary expectations at work. Gold will drop with everything else. Of course, when the government comes out with their next massive bailout, it will pop back up, while the stocks will be a dead cat.

Not investment advice.
I do not own dead cats.

Is Campbell’s Soup still a good investment?

I bought a whole case of chicken noodle soup.

tend to think were going to have the appearance of deflation followed by a total annihilation of the dollar.

I think it is the other way around: massive reflation efforts, followed by inflation, then deflation.

Peter, I think we’re seeing deflationary expectations at work.

The movements look like something else. It opened high, then dropped slightly when Dow made the first dive. Later, it went down 8%?