We as a society have gone insane. This
insanity expresses itself in little ways, like in the importation of
fruit from China for American consumption, and in not so little ways
like in the prosecution of multiple voluntary wars on the other side
of the planet. But our normatively rational minds are repelled by
straightforward descriptions of such obvious insanity on our part, so
intellectuals have devised rationalized frameworks for the
self-destructive tendencies that we consistently engage in. Two of
these imagination-based frameworks are known as
economics
and
finance.
In this column I'll not be concerned
with giving you stock tips—and in fact anyone who tells you to buy
a certain stock or industry because she knows what the future will
bring is a liar. Instead I'll direct your attention towards bigger
issues in finance and economics that move beneath the surface of
events so that you'll have a better handle on how to make your own
investment decisions. It's not complicated. And the more you learn,
and learn to disregard, the more you'll realize just how
uncomplicated it really is.
Some groundwork that you probably
haven't been exposed hitherto if your only source of information has
been the corporate media:
Economics (or more precisely
neoclassical economics) is empirically and provably a pseudoscience.
The word of economists should always be taken with a large rock of
salt as economists are generally only slightly less clueless than
the average turkey.
Energy is the fundamental driver
of human society and its growing complexity. Without energy our
fancy technologies would be useless and we would all be back to
living in caves in short order. Energy is the stumbling block that
imposes crude reality on the beautiful, if vapid, theories of
economists and on the mechanistic risk reduction strategies of
modern finance.
Finance is the method whereby
humans have imposed mathematical rigor on the process of collecting
and distributing resources, and in the last few decades (supposedly)
of curtailing risk. It's a semiotic procedure, a matter of
manipulating signs and symbols, and it may or may not bear any
actual relationship whatsoever to the physical world.
With these premises in mind I will
endeavor to provide you with a different way of looking at markets,
as well as the world around you. I will show that there is more to
finance than just crossing your fingers and hoping your broker or
CNBC is right about that hot stock tip you just got. I will do my
best to make complex concepts easily digestible, and to direct your
reading towards people who have something valuable to say that
contributes to a greater understanding of finance—and life.
This Week in Finance:
Greece will default soon and I'm
finding the hopium peddled by the corporate media regarding the
“uncertainty” of this eventuality to be utterly depressing. It
will dwarf Lehman, and MF Global is an informative precursor as to
how individuals will be treated in the aftermath. Hat tip to Reggie
Middle of Boombustblog fame for calling the bankruptcy of Greece
two
years ago. He's welcome to his inflated ego.
Trading volume is (still) thin. The
only ones left in the markets are the interminable suckers and the
HFTs—probably because everyone else who used to trade lost her
high-paying job pushing papers across a desk and could only replace
it with a part time minimum wage gig waving signs out front the
latest “We Buy Gold” storefront. Look for volume to pick up just
prior to the next crash when every HFT rushes the exit at once. Tyler
Durden of Zerohedge always has something interesting to say on this
topic. Plus he's got
good
charts.
I finally got around to listening to
the c-realm podcast episode 293,
Infinite
Rehypothecation, with interviewee Nicole Foss. Highly recommended
for anyone who cares to understand why financial fraud and outright
theft is now the fastest growing state-supported enterprise in
America. God help you if you do business with any of these crooks.