Thursday, March 13, 2008

Decoupling, I don't think so.

The value of the American dollar is in free fall. This is not a situation that is likely to be reversed, or even moderated any time soon. Because the Fed will continue to cut interest rates and the Treasury to print money, it will more likely accelerate.

All other things being equal, foreign stock markets should be skyrocketing in value, from our perspective, to reflect the increased valuation of the underlying assets, when expressed in American dollars. What's more, American stock markets should be increasing in value very rapidly, reflecting the worthlessness of our money, as opposed to the real worth of the asset base that stock certificates represent. Neither one of these things are true. Nearly all World markets are sinking in proportion to the decline in the dollar. American indexes are plunging in spite of the dollar's decline.

Foreign money may be holding up better than ours but the pessimism that is infecting investor confidence in this country is affecting the confidence of foreign investors as well.

The question you have to ask yourself, before investing in the hot commodities market is this. Since the price of commodities is driven directly by increased demand and since foreign investors are clearly worried about economic slowdowns abroad, as well as domestically and since commodity prices are historically the most volatile of investments, adversely affected by decreases in productivity, is an already hyper inflated commodities market where you want to park your money? Maybe not.

Jesus, I wish to God I knew what I was doing. My idea of a good investment has always been to bury my money in coffee cans in the backyard.

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