against all odds

'Der Todestrieb strebt nach Zurückführung des Lebens in den anorganischen Zustand des Unbelebten, der Starre und des Todes. So begreift Freud auch den Wiederholungszwang als Äußerung des Todestriebs, überhaupt das Bestreben des Subjekts nach Erhaltung und Stillstand, wie es unter anderem im ritualisierten Handeln der Zwangsneurose zum Ausdruck kommt  Der Wunsch nach Vernichtung des Lebendigen kann sowohl auf das Subjekt selbst als auch auf andere Personen gerichtet sein. Im ersten Fall nimmt der Todestrieb die Form der Autoaggression oder der Regression an, idealtypisch als Wunsch nach einer Rückkehr in den Mutterleib usw..'

Während hierzulande die Untergangssehnsucht ('schafft sich ab') zB in sogenannten Bärenthreads für rechtspopulistische und neonationalistische Positionen mobilisiert, wird in den US wie selbstverständlich ein neuer Markt kreiert - die Untergangsindustrie bietet hier Broschüren, Survival Kits und Fonds an, die in Wetten gegen die Fake-Ökonomie Bernankes das Anlegergeld regelmässig vernichten ('negative Bestätigung')... 

Dear Anxious Citizen, You know that something"s very wrong with our economy and with our country. That we simply cannot continue along the path we"re on… And that something big and life-changing is coming down the pipeline… That"s why you took the time today to listen to my interview with Harry Dent today. You know dark days lie ahead. The government has gambled and mismanaged our economy to the very brink of destructions and there isn"t much time left before the dominos start to fall. You need the real story. More importantly you need the full story… and sound guidance on what steps to take to protect your finances… your lifestyle… your retirement… through the dramatic evolutionary changes ahead as America and the world goes through a complete reset.

And that"s why Dent Research has prepared The Great American Reset Survival Kit for you. This includes… The Great American Reset Survival Kit Part #1

https://orders.boomandbustinvestor.com/...Q206/index.htm?pageNumber=2

Die Schwäche der Gewerkschaften korreliert mit Deindustrialisierung und Global Outsourcing. Ein nicht unmassgeblicher Faktor dafür, dass in den US Consuming auf private Kreditexpansion angewiesen bleibt anstatt auf Einkommen. Damit gleichzeitig ein Faktor für die Schärfe der letzten Recession. Ironie an der Sache in Tennessee ist, dass VW im Gegensatz zu den meisten amerikanischen Produzenten nichts gegen Gewerkschaften einzuwenden hatte. Zudem ist VW zum Global Player mit voll integriertem gewerkschaftlichen Einfluss aufgestiegen und nicht etwa gegen diesen...

'The UAW suffered a devastating defeat at Volkswagen's plant here as workers rejected union representation by a 712-626 margin...

Corker (Sen) and Haslam (Gov) urged Volkswagen workers to reject the UAW. One leader of the Republican-controlled Tennessee state Senate threatened this week to block any incentives for future Volkswagen investment in Chattanooga if a majority of workers voted for the union.

Unlike previous failed UAW campaigns at Nissan and Honda plants, Volkswagen did not resisted the union here.

"Volkswagen has been really good about it," said Craig Snyder, 42, of Chattanooga. "They just want people to vote the way they feel."

Volkswagen has said it favors the creation of a German-style "works council," which gives workers a voice on a variety of product and other decisions. Under U.S. law, a union must represent employees for a company to form a works council.

But Snyder voted against the UAW because, he said, Volkswagen is the best employer he's ever worked for...'

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2014/02/...inst-uaw/5500897/

kann man sicher merkwürdige Exemplare beobachten;-)

Einen "Todestrieb" kann ich bei der Mehrzahl aber nicht erkennen.

Eher Skepsis gegnüber einer immer komplexeren und damit anfälligeren Umwelt.
Damit verbunden der Wunsch, für Krisen vorzusorgen, kurz unabhängig zu sein.

Also eher ein "Überlebenstrieb", der sich auch in der Beliebtheit der ganzen
Survival-Literarur- und Lehrgänge zeigt. Der Wunsch nach einem einfachen, ursprünglichen, selbstbestimmten Leben spiegelt sich auch in der aufblühenden "outdoor"-Industrie.
   

Die Steuerlast der oberen 0.01% massiv zu schrumpfen erzeugt einen Multiplikatoreffekt gegen 0, weil die so gewonnene Ersparnis weder in Consuming noch Investing eingeht, sondern Kredit- bzw Assetblasen finanziert. Der Multiplikatoreffekt verhält sich eben umgekehrt proportional zur Einkommenshöhe - je weniger einer hat, um so grösser der Anteil des Consumings am Einkommen. ..

oben handelt es sich um freudianische Analyse im besten Sinne: Nichts ist, als was es scheint. Im günstigsten Fall das Gegenteil...

Short term debt cycle (5-8 yrs) When we are in an expansion, spending increases faster than the capacity to produce goods and services. However, prices will start to rise resulting in what we understand as inflation. The government will then raise interest rates in an attempt to lower prices. Thereby fewer people will be able to borrow money and prices will eventually fall resulting in deflation. When the rate of spending can no longer be sustained by the available money or credit a recession occurs. Recessions end when the central banks lower interest rates to stimulate demand for goods and services.

Long term debt cycle (75-100 yrs) Debts rise faster than both income and money until it can no longer be sustained because debt servicing costs have become too excessive. This is similar to the recession in the short term debt cycle. The difference is that interest rates can not be reduced any more to raise spending. They are already at or close to 0%. When this happens a deleveraging occurs. Borrows can't borrow -> Sell assets to pay loans -> Real estate & stock markets plummet -> Poor credit -> Less borrowing -> Less spending -> Less income Remember your spending is someone else's income.

Schöne Kausalkette von Ray Dalio, die allerdings den von der NB dominierten kurzen Zins zum Trigger macht und damit den funktionalen Zusammenhang zwischen Geldpolitik und den Kreditbewegungen des Privatsektors ähnlich wie Zan auf den Kopf stellt. Die Differenzierung der Credit Cycles selbst ist hingegen von hohem Gebrauchstwert, auch für den strategischen Trader. Wer dieses Modell drauf hat, weiss zB, dass der nächste Bärenmarkt die Korrektur eines Short Debt Credit Cycles darstellt und deswegen die Hoffnungen auf ein Drama wie 08 ff oder schlimeres notwendig enttäuschen wird...

'..One of the biggest ironies in investing is that while almost everyone thinks they are a contrarian, almost no one actually is. I remember 2007, right before the market peaked. Just about everybody I knew thought they were a value investor, zigging where others zagged. But at investing conferences, you found out that all these guys were basically buying the same stocks. What people thought was a contrarian view was actually rampant groupthink. It felt great when you, the "contrarian," had your views confirmed by another "contrarian." But contrarianism isn't supposed to feel good, and you're not supposed to have it confirmed by others. That's why so few can actually do it. It's rare -- not impossible, but rare -- that someone can remain blissfully content when everyone else around them thinks they're crazy. One of the nastiest tricks our minds play is convincing nearly all of us that we can be that person...'

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/02/14/groupthink.aspx

Man sieht, real ist die Inflation unter 10 % gefallen. Banken, die zur Primerate (3,5 %) verleihen, machen also real mit jedem vergebenen Kredit kaum mehr als 6 % Nasse im Jahr, T-Bill Käufer kaum mehr als 8 % minus. Umgekehrt macht jeder, der Kredit aufnimmt, wie zB das Federal Treasury, real einen identischen Zinsgewinn. Jedenfalls in der investigativen Welt der Schattenstatistiker. Die vermutlich auch die Frage beantworten können, weshalb einer Kredit gibt, um damit todsichere Verluste einzufahren...  

Leider sind Momentum-Stocks unshortable. Keiner weiß, ob so ein Wert noch 10,20 oder 50% macht. Wobei das Maß der Beschleunigung nicht mehr gesteigert werden kann. Ob danach allerdings ein größerer Absturz droht?

Indikatoren können immer unterschiedlich Interpretiert werden. Im vorliegenden Fall sehen wir den Commodity Channel und das Momentum aus antizyklischer Sicht und bewerten diese kurzfristig bullisch.

Mittelfristig würde ich nach 5 Jahren Hausse und dem Anstieg in 2013 andere Schlüsse ziehen. Zudem waren die Analystenmeinungen für 2014 durch die Bank positiv, was aus antizyklischer Sicht zu Denken gibt.

A quarter of Americans surveyed could not correctly answer that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around, according to a report out Friday from the National Science Foundation.

1 In 4 Americans Thinks The Sun Goes Around The Earth, Survey Says (NPR)

You’re laughing, but these are the people who inhabit the securities markets with you. They believe all sorts of ridiculous mythology about investing also. They believe that a person can accurately pick 20 stocks a week and have the purchase prices for those stocks mentioned in a public forum be flawless. They believe that a process exists by which a market involving tens of millions of independent participants can be predicted consistently and on multiple timeframes.

About three in four Americans profess at least one paranormal belief, according to a recent Gallup survey. The most popular is extrasensory perception (ESP), mentioned by 41%, followed closely by belief in haunted houses (37%).

Source:

Three in Four Americans Believe in Paranormal (Gallup)

People watching or reading financial media actually believe that the pros are usually right about the exact timing of every investment, therefore when one is caught being wrong, early or late, it is somehow some sort of travesty. They howl like children for “accountability!” As though anyone can actually divine the perfect buy and sell prices for securities on a regular basis. This belief is as embarrassing as talking openly about haunted houses and telepathy with a straight face. We don’t bring up the supernatural in polite company so as not to be branded as “crazy” – but in a financial setting, we suspend any pretense of rationality and go right to the Ouija board.

7% of Americans in the survey believed the moon landing was faked, 14% believed in Bigfoot and 4% accepted that “shape-shifting alien reptilian people control our world by taking on human form”.

Source:

One in four Americans think Obama may be the antichrist, survey says (Guardian)

You’ve met at least one hundred other people who are currently investing in the markets, alongside of you and against you. Of that one hundred people, four of them believe the proceedings are being overseen by green men from space. Fourteen of them believe in Bigfoot. What else will they readily accept, contrary to all common sense and in the absence of any proof whatsoever? Will they believe that charting the lines of a previous era’s stock market sets up some sort of prophecy that is on the cusp of fulfillment?

A new poll shows more than 20% of Americans believe in witches, 32% believe in ghosts, and 25% think astrology is legit.

Source:

Way Too Many Americans Believe In Witches (Jezebel)

We mock astrology but bend our ears to any discussion about “signals” and “indicators” so long as the speaker looks and acts as though he or she knows more than we do. We believe that the current moment or the recent past is predictive of the future no matter how many times this is shown to be a fallacious cognitive defect in the way our brains work.

Over the years, Crawford found his predictions working out so well that, in 1977, he set up business as a full-time astrological adviser. He’s since been named “Wall Street’s best-known astrologer” by Barron’s.

Today around 2,000 traders from the United States, Britain, Australia and Japan pay $200 a year to receive his subscription newsletter. Although he’s duty-bound not to reveal their identities, he says, “I’ve got major traders from all the Wall Street companies. I’ve had big names since the beginning.” And Crawford’s not the only one. The newsletter of Michigan “astro-finance consultancy” MMA Cycles claims 7,000 subscribers. Commodities trader Henry Weingarten charges up to $1,000 a session at his New York Astrology Center.

Source:

Financial astrology: can the stars affect stocks? (Telegraph)

You are surrounded by people like this every day, to greater or lesser degree, and their views sometimes make it into the news. You may even have been influenced by them at times, unwittingly.

This is what’s out there. This is what we must endure each day as we attempt a rational course forward in our investing. Easier said than done – the charlatans and escaped mental patients rarely wear a sign around their necks.

http://www.thereformedbroker.com/

The velocity of money is the frequency at which one unit of currency is used to purchase domestically- produced goods and services within a given time period. In other words, it is the number of times one dollar is spent to buy goods and services per unit of time. If the velocity of money is increasing, then more transactions are occurring between individuals in an economy. The frequency of currency exchange can be used to determine the velocity of a given component of the money supply, providing some insight into whether consumers and businesses are saving or spending their money.

Wie man sieht, expandiert das Deficit recessiv und kontraktiert postrecessiv. Dies ist kein politisches Programm, sondern die Realität freier Märkte, in welchen der Staatssektor die Funktion des antizyklischen Counterparts des Privatsektors einnimmt...

Diese Betrachtung verstellt den Blick auf die total depts, die sich nach diesem Prozedere in der Relation zum Wachstum der Realwirtschaft immer weiter von diesem entfernt.

Was sich zyklisch anpasst ist nur die Geschwindigkeit dieses Fortschreitens, indem  in der boomphase weniger "neue" Schulden aufgenommen werden, als in der "rezessiven" Phase.

Das "mehr", das in dieser Phase aufgenommen wurde, wird allerdings hinterher nicht wieder abgebaut, sondern immer weiter in die Zukunft mitgetragen.
Das relative Verhältnis von depts zu GDP wird daher in der Folge immer größer.

So hatte sich Keynes das aber nicht vorgestellt.  

The chart below shows the average one-day change for all companies reporting earnings during each earnings season going back to 2003.  This quarter's average one-day gain of 0.74% would be the best earnings season in terms of stock performance since the third quarter of 2010.

 

'We will rise again' statt 'die Eliten haben uns verarscht'. Man beachte auch die Akteure in den Clips: Ordinary People, so manche jenseits der fünzig, so manch einer mit Rastalocken. Echte Working Class Promotion...

Wie Du siehst, ist Total Debt vs GDP von 1950 bis 1980 trotz Vietnam quasi stetig gesunken, bevor Reagan die Verschuldung wieder eskalierte. Auch unter Clinton wurde Total Debt abgebaut. ..

Fabrikarbeit. Das Gegenstück zu Caplins "Modern Times". Nur einen Sprung zur DDR-Propaganda entfernt. Die positive Wir-Krempeln-Die-Ärmel-Hoch-Und-Tun-Was-Mentalität das Sich-Nicht-Hängen-Lassen und Stolz und Würde der Working Class, sieht man darin allerdings auch.

Hier der passende Neil Young Kracher "Ordinary People":
 

Trigger dieser Entwicklung war die Abkehr vom Bretton Woods System (Goldtstandard) in den 70ern.

Dies hat diese Entwicklung überhaupt erst technisch ermöglicht!

Auch unter Clinton wurden keine total depts abgebaut. Er hatte mit seiner marktwirtschaftlichen Politik allerdings bei niedriger Neuaufnahme für höheres Wachstum
gesorgt, weshalb die depts im Verhältnis zum GDP relativ betrachtet zurückgegangen sind.

Danach kam dann der heißeste Kandidat für den Titel "schlechtester U.S.- Präsident aller Zeiten" ins Amt.

Deine Kritik an Reagan ist allerdings völlig berechtigt!
Er wird gerne für seine wirtschaftsliberalen Reformen gelobt (oder je nachdem auch kritisiert) Seine Haushaltspolitik steht allerdings alles andere als in liberaler Tradition.  

Du siehst a die Total Debt mit den Augen des Privatmannes, dessen Fähigkeit sich zu verschulden einkommensabhängig, also constrained ist. Und b verkennst Du die Bedeutung der nur unsicher zu prognostizierenden Variable GDP als einzig aussagefähiges Kriterium zur Bestimmung der Debt, im Gegensatz zum zB einer rein nominalen Zählweise - und nur die gibt den berüchtigten Kirchtum-Chart, auf den Deficit-Fetischisten sich typischerweise beziehen...

Hier mal der Wiki-Primer zur Total Debt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_debt

Government debt (also known as public debt and national debt)[1][2] is the debt owed by a central government. (In the U.S. and other federal states, "government debt" may also refer to the debt of a state or provincial government, municipal or local government.) By contrast, the annual "government deficit" refers to the difference between government receipts and spending in a single year, that is, the increase of debt over a particular year.

Government debt is one method of financing government operations, but it is not the only method. Governments can also create money to monetize their debts, thereby removing the need to pay interest. But this practice simply reduces government interest costs rather than truly canceling government debt,[3] and can result in hyperinflation if used unsparingly.

Governments may be Monetarily Sovereign or monetarily non-sovereign.[4] A Monetarily Sovereign (MS) government has created the laws that have created its sovereign currency. A monetarily non-sovereign government uses a currency over which it is not sovereign.

Examples of MS governments are the U.S., the UK, Canada, Japan, Australia, etc. Examples of monetarily non-sovereign governments are Greece, France, Italy, Illinois, California, Cook County and Chicago. The former use their sovereign currency. The latter use a currency over which they are not sovereign.

By its own laws, MS government can give itself the unlimited ability to create its sovereign currency and to give that currency any value it chooses. (Many nations intentionally have reduced the value of their currency, to stimulate exports.)

Thus, an MS government never can be forced into bankruptcy or to run short of its sovereign currency. It can pay any debt of any size, so long as that debt is denominated in its sovereign currency. It neither needs to borrow nor to tax, to service debts in its sovereign currency. It does have to impose taxes, though. Firstly, to create a demand for the currency and underpin its value. Secondly, to allow it to spend without inflating the currency. Spending by the domestic private sector and the overseas sector has an effect on both debt and inflation. Government can have a strong influence on both but is never in total control of either.