‘Tis the Season to be…..WARY….

By InsightAnalytical-GRL

Well, I’ve been dormant for a long time, but itching to get back to the blog the whole time…..

Instead of researching politics, I’ve been immersed in stocks, the economy, and Aerogardens (I hope to  post something on these amazing little machines sometime!).

Lettuce/arugula in one of my Aerogardens

Tussling with asset managers who really don’t get it has been an increasing occupation…researching links to European banks, etc.  It is very time-consuming, to say the least!

Yesterday, I was on the monthly conference call with the guy who manages an “Alternative” portfolio….metals, currencies, foreign ETFs, etc.  He gets the overall mechanics of it all, some of the big picture, but not the underlying monster.  I keep raising questions about things and never REALLY get the answers.

Well, I am no longer alone.  A woman named Elizabeth asked a question: “How do you plan to keep our money safe?” and referred to ME….that she had been reading what I had been reading! Eureka!

The guy is good guy and has no problem adjusting our accounts. So I just finished off an email to him instructing him on a couple of things…and then added a “reading list” for him to peruse. Whether he reads any of it is a big question, but I sent it along anyway. I tried to tap into something we have in common…he got his graduate business training at Cornell and I am now heading into my 40th Reunion year since my undergrad graduation !  (Which is pretty crazy, that I’ve come that far and survived! ) I told him that as Cornellians, we could put our brains together and survive….

Anyway, I thought I’d just plug in the part of the email with my reading list….this is a VERY short list….it is probably overwhelming for him but it barely touches the surface of what I read.

So, here goes, straight from my email to him…to you. It’s not pretty, the formatting is a mess…. but it gets to the basics! Hope you find this to be a helpful start…although, if/when systemic collapse comes who knows what preparations will really bail us out as individuals.

****

Now, I will bore you with a list of things I read regularly…
1)   http://www.zerohedge.com/    ZH is the go to place for the real nitty-gritty on what’s going on, no sugar-coating.  It’s really a must; updates during the day.
2)  http://www.jsmineset.com/      Jim Sinclair’s father worked alongside Jesse Livermore and Sinclair himself took care of unwinding the Hunt Bros. silver stake way back when.
Sinclair, otherwise called “Santa” around the blogosphere,  is very respected on the economic situation, metals, etc.   You will see a link to the left for Guild …their free newsletter may interest you.  Trader Dan Norcini started here and links to his own blog are now offered.  Direct link to Trader Dan….who is very cogent on gold,general market etc. analysis http://traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/

3) http://harveyorgan.blogspot.com/  This Canadian watches every ounce vs. paper at the Comex and the ETFs…things are not good there!  Also cites important news.

4) http://www.tfmetalsreport.com/   Great analysis of what the Cartel (mostly JP Morgan and the infamous Blythe Masters) is doing plus other stuff. all free. Reviews the COTS.  He’s been pretty spot on about price activity….

5) http://www.chrismartenson.com/   This started it all for me.  Former CEO, scientist started pulling things together and created the CRASH COURSE. It’s free pulls together various
threads for a big picture look at how our world is shaping up…Plus, very spot on economic analysis.  Site also is a great resource for “sustainable” living.   This site is a “safe haven” of
sorts….supportive and practical..  STRONGLY RECOMMENDED as a basis for what has many of us VERY WORRIED….and reading Zero Hedge every day….I have acted on many    recommendations…including yanking nearly all our money out of the banks like Wells Fargo….and I’m still researching TD Bank….nearly everything this man talked about a couple of years ago is unfolding now.    Pulled this up on TD Bank ….GreatPonzi.com – Canadian Credit Health Update 2011-09-19
Especially timely…current post…..http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/worse-2008/67136

6) Last but not least….the big picture of the bigger cycles/forces at work….Ray Merriman, whom I know personally to some degree.  His Weekly Preview is free.
Cut out the terminology you don’t understand, you will still get the idea….http://www.mmacycles.com/weekly-preview/mma-comments-for-the-week/
My 2012 book just came last night, so I’ll be deep into it.  These cycles are playing out right on schedule….

And, of course…I listen to Marc Faber, Jim Rogers...http://marcfaberchannel.blogspot.com/     http://jimrogers-investments.blogspot.com/
These try to keep up with major comments….

Also,  at KWN, there are a boatload of thinking people of some repute who are really watching the gold, currency etc markets and know we’re in big trouble
The KWN Weekly Metals Wrap available on Saturday AM features Bill Haynes from CMI Gold and Trader Dan.   KWN is where all the key people are interviewed–Jim Rickards, James Turk,
Martin Armstrong, Sinclair, etc. etc.   The link is the Gold/currency section, but there are sections on other areas of the market as well.
http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Gold.html

I was so happy to hear another person (Elizabeth) pipe up on the call….I don’t feel so alone.  The stuff coming out of the mainstream is really not getting to the nitty-gritty. We are nervous
for good reason…I’ve been following this for several years now.  I actually keep wondering if I should just yank my money out. … Marc Faber has talked about being diversified because we don’t know what will happen….25%+ metals; 25% real estate (esp. foreign); 25% cash; 25% equities, although he is getting more negative on them… His ideas on diversification are repeated here from yesterday 12/21   http://www.zerohedge.com/news/mark-faber-i-am-convinced-whole-derivatives-market-will-cease-exist-and-will-go-zero

The overriding sense I have that we’re on the edge…and we’re not going to be an island of safety ultimately.

***

So, that’s what I fired at the poor guy…

Hey, sorry to be a downer during the holiday season…but, a holiday is just one day…it’s gone and then we’re back to reality.

I’ll toss in one positive…the days are now going to get longer and Spring WILL come…until then, I bask in the grow lights of Aerogardens!

Hey, Obama! “Shovel-Ready” Stimulus Needed for Our Water Supply Problems…(TRILLIONS of $)

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

While Barack Obama sells his Republican health care “reform,”  there seems to be some other important work being forgotten.

As economic hard times continue, many towns and cities are losing tax ratables as businesses shut down and an increasing burden is being placed on residents as aging water treatment and sewer construction funds dry up.  Projects are folding and bills are skyrocketing as detailed in the story below:

Strapped Cities Struggling to Fund Water Treatment Upgrades (N.Y. Times via Greenwire)

Excerpt:

Federal assistance declines

As for capital expenditures, Hornback said that almost all of the burden now falls on the local water agency.

During the 1970s and into the 1980s, the federal government provided construction grants to upgrade public drinking water and wastewater systems to meet stricter regulatory standards imposed by Congress. Since then, Congress has put about $2 billion into a revolving fund for loans that Hornback said is not sufficient to meet today’s needs.

There are 16,000 publicly owned wastewater treatment plants in the United States that operate 100,000 major pumping stations, 600,000 miles of sanitary sewers and 200,000 miles of storm sewers, according to U.S. EPA. That system received a grade of D- from the American Society of Civil Engineers in its latest “Report Card for America’s Infrastructure.” The society noted that billions of gallons of untreated wastewater is discharged each year because of lagging investments.

Hornback said many communities would be facing a difficult challenge even if the economy were more robust. Communities historically “undervalue” their water and sewer services, charging users less than is needed to keep the systems operating to modern standards.

“The pipes in the ground are in some cases over 100 years old,” he said.

Water has to receive the same priorty as transportation, according to several parties:

NACWA has asked Congress to establish a trust fund — similar to the one used for transportation projects — to help cities and towns upgrade their water and sewer infrastructure.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors Water Council is also calling on Congress to boost federal investment in wastewater treatment plants. A March report from the council blasted Congress for authorizing a “costly and increasing wave of mandates” while essentially abandoning any effort to provide “meaningful financial assistance” to local governments.

What will it cost to repair our critical water and sewer infrastructure?

The conference report, written by senior adviser Richard Anderson, estimates that local governments will have to spend between $2.5 trillion and $4.8 trillion over the next 20 years to fulfill those demands for improved water and sewer systems.

That’s right…$2.5-$4.8 TRILLION added to our burgeoning budget (or non-budget, to be snarky about it.)

Congress seems to think they’ve done all that’s needed:

There is a “vague and false confidence among Congress that they have already addressed the issue by granting $60 billion to cities over two decades ago to build water infrastructure when the cost in a single year (2008) is over $40 billion in capital investments and another $50 billion for operations and maintenance,” Anderson wrote. “A more thorough understanding of how much is spent on public water and wastewater is a necessary first step in establishing a framework for a National Strategy.”

The report advocates adoption of a national strategy that would prioritize the mandates based on comparative risk and direct federal resources where they would have the greatest public impact.

Meanwhile, in Davenport, California, residents are “bracing” at the likelihood of a 74% increase in their sewer bill as one of their big employers has closed and someone has to make up the difference:

Household rates will likely reach $4,000 a year — $2,500 for sewer and $1,500 for water.

Who can afford THAT???

What interests me is how this fits into some of the ideas in Chris Martenson‘s Crash Course, namely, as we go through a massive economic shift, what do we have to prepare for?  Tops on the list is a viable water supply…how many of us living without wells are prepared for water problems?

When I bought my solar oven, not only did I buy it to cook food…it also boils and pasteurizes water in a pinch on a sunny day (and it does more good things, too!).

Let’s hope the Southwest keeps having sunny days…until we have energy problems and we all roast for lack of electricity to run air conditioning!

What Do the Commonwealth Club and the U.N. Have in Common? The Great Chris Martenson…

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

As you may or may not know, I’ve been a big fan of Chris Martenson, so much so that I’ve posted the link to his site under the economic links section to the right and have quoted him in in previous posts.  

Chris has put together “The Crash Course” which I blogged about last year (Saturday, July 11, 2009: One Year Anniversary of “Peak Oil Day” Makes it a MUST to Watch “The Crash Course”).  At that time, you could hear zip about some of the topics he has woven together.  Now, I’m beginning to see others mention things like “peak oil” and “sustainability” when I flip through the channels…rarely, but it’s a start.

Well, it seems like things have picked up a notch.  Last Thursday (January 28)  in Sonora, California, Chris spoke to 400 people and people had to be turned away. Tomorrow (February 2), Chris will be speaking at the U.N. on the topic “After Copenhagen: Understanding the Energy Trap for Policymakers.”  Along the way, Chris has lectured at colleges, meetings, been interviewed on smaller radio stations…but it seems the venues are getting to be more high profile.

For example, on January 26, Chris delivered a talk at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco.  I thought I’d share some of it with you.

Big Ideas at the Commonwealth Club (Transcript)

Tonight I want to examine the obstacles that stand way of a full and lasting economic recovery and to illuminate the connection between economic growth and energy.

But before we delve into the details and explore the possibilities for alternative outcomes, let me share a little bit about myself and how this information has radically altered my life, and the life of my family.

Six years ago as a married, 42 year old professional with three young children, I lived in a suburban, five-bathroom house on the coast of Connecticut, had a secure position as a corporate Vice president with a very large company, and a twin-engine fishing boat in a slip.

I loved that boat.

Today I live in house that is less than half the size of my prior one, now located in a semi-rural location, I have a strong local community, and a kayak.

A small one.

Perhaps I could summarize my journey that way; I went from twin engines to a double paddle.

Yep, that about sums it up.

Now, why did I do that?

For the past 6 years I have been combining information and trends in the Economy, Energy and the Environment into a single comprehensive story.

Instead of delving deeply into any one of these subjects, I discovered that there’s immense value in looking across all three at once.

Instead of being like a blind man trying to describe one part of an elephant, I chose to be like a blind man examining the whole elephant.

Okay, this took me a few years, I’ll admit, it was a big elephant, but it was worth it.

This exploration altered my investments, my work, where I live, who I know, what I value and the things I choose to do.

The results of this exploration were put into video form which I made freely available to everyone on the internet about a year and a half ago.

It is called “The Crash Course” and has been viewed more than a million and half times and translated into numerous languages.

I have to say that I’ve made some changes as a result of watching “The Crash Course.”  The biggest is a mental change…a fierce desire to break away from “the system” as much as possible in terms of protecting my assets.  For example, I’m not listening to the financial crowd that, once again, is back to the old “buy and hold” mantra.  No, it’s time to take more control of my money and to that end, I’m in the midst of studying technical aspects of the market.  I want to make money, not get if siphoned off by handing over control to the “experts.”  I’ve also yanked money out of the “big banks” and it sits now in the local banks where I’ve known the folks who run them for years.

I’ve stored some food and started using a solar oven for some of my basic cooking.  The thing costs nothing to run and can purify water and dehydrate fruits as well as baking the most fantastic sweet potatoes you’ll ever taste!  I figure I save cooking gas that way and don’t heat up the kitchen and then have to run the A/C as much, either!

I keep up with my vegetable garden and have planted two more grape vines. I plan to plant a couple of more fruit trees.

In short, in my small way, I’m trying to be more self-sufficient!

Chris continues:

Here’s an example of how I connected the dots for the current economic crisis at a very high level.

While the entire narrative of this crisis is riddled with strange acronyms, unfathomable derivatives, and complicated regulatory lapses, my view is that these were just elements of the story.

The main plot line can be summed up in just three words; “Too Much Debt.”

The big picture view of our difficulties is nothing more complicated than the fact that from 2000 to 2008, eight short years, the total amount of debt in this country doubled.

You heard me right, it doubled.

Meanwhile no net jobs were created and median incomes actually went backwards.

When it comes to owing a debt your options are to either pay it back or default on it, and I don’t care if you are an individual, a family, a town, a state government or a corporation, the same basic rules apply.

As we all know, in order to pay your debts back you’ve got to have earnings and cash flow. If debts are growing but earnings are not, then sooner or later a debt crisis will result.

Which is exactly what happened, and was utterly predictable.

I’d love to take credit for having had a keen insight here but I really don’t consider this extraordinary.

It was common sense.

Common sense. Gee, how creative!

So, where are we?

A very large credit bubble developed right before our eyes and it was completely obvious to anyone who cared to see it for what it was.

My view is that we’ll be living with it for some time yet because I do not believe that it is possible to “solve” a crisis rooted in ‘too much debt’; by going deeper into debt.

And that is exactly what we are doing.

I think it’s like trying to cure an economic heart attack by feeding the patient a few more tubs of greasy debt.

So my assessment is that we’ll face an even bigger fiscal and maybe monetary crisis in the future.

We are compounding our mistakes.

But you know what? We’ve faced economic problems before as a nation and solved them, and if this were the only problem we faced, we’d solve this one as well.

However, even as we’re attempting to recover from our self-inflicted economic wounds several vital facts stand in the way of a full and lasting recovery.

Let’s discuss a few of those facts:

Fact #1: There are 70 million more people on the surface of the planet this year than last year.

Fact #2: Each of these new humans consumes some amount of resources such as food, oil, air, soil, water, copper, coal, or timber.

Fact #3: Someday, perhaps already, maybe a little later, the global flow rate of oil coming out of the ground will peak and then decline inexorably thereafter.

Fact #4: Every dollar in circulation was loaned into existence, with interest. We’re going to get back to this one in a minute.

Fact #5: During the industrial revolution, humans have consumed vastly more energy each decade. During the lifetime of a 22-year-old, humans will have burned more than half of all the oil ever consumed throughout history.

Fact #6: Oceanic fish stocks, ancient aquifers, and topsoil are all being depleted at unsustainable rates.

When I review these facts I come to this opinion – within our lifetime and that of our children, these disparate facts will coalesce into the greatest economic and physical challenge ever faced by our country, if not humanity.

Then, Chris takes you on an imaginary journey:

Let’s get back to those pesky facts.

Each one was tied to all the others by a single common feature.

In each case the thing being described was tied to exponential growth in some way.

Now I know that most of us aren’t accustomed to thinking about exponential growth, so before you start counting the ceiling tiles, let me see if I can bring the dynamic of exponential growth to life.

Suppose I had a magic eyedropper that could dispense a drop of water with a most unusual trait – this drop of water will double in size every minute – and I place a drop of water in your hand.

At first you’d just have a lonely drop of water sitting there, but after one minute it would double in size, and after six minutes you’d have a blob of water that could fill a thimble.

Do you have a sense of that growth?

Good. Let’s go to a Major League Baseball Park and start over.

To make this interesting, let’s assume that the park is water-tight, and that I’ve handcuffed you to the highest row of bleacher seats.

Now imagine that it’s tomorrow at twelve O’clock noon, you are manacled to a bleacher seat and, way down there, on the pitcher’s mound, you see me bend over to plop down a magic drop of water so small you could not possibly see it from where you are sitting, and it begins to double.

My question to you is, at what date and at what time would the park be completely filled? That is, how long do you have to escape from your handcuffs? Do you have days? Weeks? Months? Years?

The answer is this: in only 49 minutes the park is completely filled.

You have only 49 minutes to escape from your handcuffs.

Now let me ask you this, at what time do you suppose that the park is still 97% empty space (and how many of you will appreciate the seriousness of your predicament)?

The answer is that at 12:44 pm the park is still 97% unfilled. The first forty four minutes filled just three percent of the park, while the last five minutes filled the remaining ninety-seven percent.

It took from all of human history until 1960 to reach a population of three billion people; but only forty years to add the next three billion.

Forty four minutes for the first three percent, five minutes for the final ninety-seven percent.

And because we are surrounded by exponential growth we need to appreciate it.

For quite a while, everything seems just fine, but a few minutes later your park is overflowing.

MMM …do you feel wet yet?

The next section of the talk addresses our future path that exists if we don’t start making adjustments to our lives:

An energy crisis rooted in resource limits will quickly translate into an economic crisis unlike any other.

What follows next will be a disappointing string of associated crises starting with a food crisis, progressing through a profound fiscal crisis that could even result in a dollar collapse, before proceeding to a population crisis.

But you know what? If we choose, we can avoid that future.

Feeling overwhelmed?  Chris Martenson has decided our challenges should be met with a sense of optimism and adventure. But, there IS a sense of urgency, too.

In the past, with extremely abundant resources at hand, we had the luxury of making bad choices without really suffering any significant consequences.

But the stadium is now mostly filled, the water is rushing up the stairs, and our margin for error has shrunk considerably.

The longer we fiddle around the more our options shrink.

Today our wrong choices will be magnified many fold by virtue of where we are in our resource depletion curves.

And so will the good choices.

We must be intelligent and creative stewards of what remains.

The best news? I know we can do this.

We need our bright and shiny kids in the next generations to know that they’ve got an important role and that we’ve got their backs as they wrestle with the challenges now laid at their feet.

Change is not easy, but sometimes it is necessary and we find ourselves in a time of need.

How the future turns out is up to us. We have this responsibility at this time.

I don’t have all the answers and I can barely conceive of all the things that need to be done, let alone imagine their details.

But I do know that the first step begins with a proper understanding of the issues and that we are now in an era where it is the very largest picture that will serve us best.

There’s an elephant in the room, and we need to put our hands on it and describe it fully and accurately.

The alternative is to somehow miss seeing the next most predictable crisis in all of history coming towards us.

In closing, I am not all depressed by what I see coming, or exhausted by the thought of all the work laid out before us.

Truth be told, I am excited to be alive at this time – to be in the game when the entire trajectory of humanity may shift course.

You really can’t ask for more than that.

I have a proposal: Together, let’s create a world worth inheriting.

I again enthusiastically refer readers to ChrisMartenson.com. Check out the great community for the latest REAL news and the forums that discuss many of the ideas and suggestions that Chris has proposed.

And start taking control!  Every little bit each of us does is part of reinventing our world…

Goldman Sachs Chairman & CEO Says Company Is Part of a “Virtuous Cycle” With a “Social Purpose” Even as It Apparently Moves Markets in “Miraculous” Ways (SEC, Where Are You?)

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

A couple of weeks ago we brought you this little ditty about how some executive at Goldman Sachs explained how moral the marketplace is (See: This Would Be the Laugh of the Day if It Weren’t So Aggravating: Pious Rationalizations About “Morality in the Marketplace” from Our Buddies at Goldman Sachs (Posted 10/21/2009). 

Goldman Sachs’s Griffiths Says Inequality Helps All

A Goldman Sachs International adviser defended compensation in the finance industry as his company plans a near-record year for pay, saying the spending will help boost the economy.

“We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all,” Brian Griffiths, who was a special adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, said yesterday at a panel discussion at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. The panel’s discussion topic was, “What is the place of morality in the marketplace?”

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., based in New York, set aside $16.7 billion for compensation and benefits in the first nine months of 2009, up 46 percent from a year earlier and enough to pay each worker $527,192 for the period. The amount set aside this year is just shy of the all-time high $16.9 billion allocated in the first three quarters of 2007. Goldman Sachs spokesman Michael DuVally in New York declined to comment.  (MORE)

Now, we’re in for ANOTHER treat from the grand poobahs at Goldman…From The Sunday Times (U.K.) profile on Goldman’s chairman and CEO, Lloyd Blankfein:

November 8, 2009

I’m doing ‘God’s work’. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs

John Arlidge

…

Luckily for him and his firm, he’s a damn good salesman. He starts with a little humility. He understands that “people are pissed off, mad, and bent out of shape” at bankers’ actions. Goldman played its part in the meltdown that almost destroyed the global financial system. It, like most other banks, lent too much money, made its first quarterly loss for more than a decade last year and ended up taking bail-out cash from Washington. “I know I could slit my wrists and people would cheer,” he says. But then, he slowly begins to argue the case for modern banking. “We’re very important,” he says, abandoning self-flagellation. “We help companies to grow by helping them to raise capital. Companies that grow create wealth. This, in turn, allows people to have jobs that create more growth and more wealth. It’s a virtuous cycle.” To drive home his point, he makes a remarkably bold claim. “We have a social purpose.”

Social purpose? Those who have lost their jobs or seen their pay slashed thanks to bankers who flogged dodgy mortgages and dreamt up investments so complex not even they understood them, would gladly tell him where to stick his social purpose…

This piece goes on for 7 web pages and gets deep into the secretive Goldman Sach spider web and its political force, so it’s worth taking your time to rummage through it all.

Meanwhile, over at one of my favorite sites, Chris Martenson has been doing some analysis in a piece out on 11/6/200 titled “Market Recap – Ridiculous Productivity“. The start of the piece takes a look at Goldman Sach’s pattern of amazing level of investment success in the current financial markets (italics mine). (And, just for the record, Goldman Sachs profit last quarter was $3.2 billion and the average pay of the 30,000 on staff is going to be around $700,000 this year with top earners making LOTS more…)

After digging around and sifting through the things both said and not said, I have come to the conclusion that what we are seeing are the likely effects of a rescue operation.

By this I mean a large injection of stabilizing cash to one or more parties, possibly related to the recent large bankruptcies.  Two of my friends, who have been actively trading for more than 20 years between them, threw in the towel this week, as their patterns and methods are no longer working.

Their conclusion is the same as mine; this market is not trading like it used to.  It is trading chaotically, counterintuitively, and as if there’s some sort of distorting influence involved.

First, we might just wonder if this isn’t the impact of a rogue firm with entirely too much power moving the market for its own benefit.

When we examine the results of Goldman’s latest quarterly trading results, obviously we have a strong suspect.

He quotes from a piece discussing how Goldman Benefits from Trading Bonanza and concludes:

Only one day with trading losses out of the entire quarter?  A 98.5% win-rate?  Sorry folks, this is so far beyond the realm of statistically possible that we must search for other reasons.  There can be no doubt that Goldman is enjoying an advantage not shared by the rest of the market.

He has a chart up which shows some of the shenaigans in the market following certain data reports.  But there’s one market move in particular that seems to have resulted from perhaps a bit of advance knowledge?

We see the volatility as the market first surged on the GDP report and then slumped the day after.  Then there was a spike on the ISM (mfg) data that also gave up the gains shortly thereafter.  Then we had the FOMC follies where the market looked like an EKG of a heart attack victim for a while before finally slumping away all the day’s gains.Today’s [Friday, November 6] 200 point Dow spree was said to be due to favorable unemployment data and excellent productivity gains, but if you were watching the overnight futures, you noticed that the lift-off actually began at 3:00 a.m.  As a trader, I am quite familiar with this pattern.  When large futures gains are recorded beginning at 3:00, you can nearly always count on those gains holding through the day.

Inquiring minds would like to know how the future traders seemingly know about the excellent economic news that has not yet been released.  Hello, SEC?  I have a job for you.

Well, apparently, part of doing God’s work involves getting a nice leg-up so that markets can move in miraculous ways.

It’s clear that while Goldman Sachs is apparently the OTHER “chosen one” (with Barack Obama the one placed in the White House), the rest of us who are trying to restore our personal wealth so that we’ll be able to eat during our golden years are plainly stuck somewhere near hell…

Hedging Our Bets…Hedging Our Futures

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

I have a load of interesting things to write about, but no time.  But it’s not the usual daily chores and appointments.

Lately I’ve been wracking my brains about what to do with all the cash I raised as I eased out of the market after last year’s crash.

I’ve take some small steps, but most of the time I’ve been reading a lot and worrying.

Now, I’m REALLY worrying…I stumbled upon this link a couple of days ago…

Now, we’ve all see those little “how much you need to survive during your retirement years” calculators, some of which seem to think we’re going to be having normal economic conditions in the foreseeable future.

But it’s apparent now that our dollar is going to sink.  The hope is that it will do so gracefully, but there’s always the chance that things will get chaotic.

The unsuspecting public doesn’t have a clue about all this.  But retirees who are facing another 20-30 years on the planet are shaking in their boots if they have any knowledge of what’s going on.

Of course, I’m one who is totally immersed in this, so the calculator I found really lit even more of a fire under me.  This calculator is painfully detailed and will probably make you faint if you fill it out with some seriousness.

You’ll learn a bit about some of the parameters as you go along since every field is explained below  the tool. (Note: this is an online calculator, nothing to download.) And, here’s how this in-depth tool is described:

The Advantages of a Return on Investment Calculator

Return on investment calculator is a handy software tool that helps a layperson comb through the cobwebs of financial and investment planning. Most of the people feel genuinely sick when adjusting the tax deductions and effects of inflation on the actual investment returns.

Be brave.  Check it out:

RETURN ON INVESTMENT CALCULATOR

I can honestly say that not only did I feel sick, but I felt scared to death.

But, it’s something to confront, NOW!~

And, if you want to see what some smart folks are talking about how to cope with our situation today and in the future, do check out the links on the sidebar under the “Economic News/Analysis/Contrarian Blogs.” One of my absolute favorite hangouts is ChrisMartenson.com.   The Daily Digest is a must read for stories are ignored by the mass media and the discussions are full of informative links and insight. Do make sure to visit that site if you only have time to check out one site…It’s right at the top of the list…