The Great International Depression of 2008 & Beyond /

rockyracoon wrote:

Cactus, maybe after reading Hegel, others might want to explore Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan with regard to "leap" analysis and uncertainty in markets and the world in general. In my view, Taleb's thoughts in conjunction with Mandlebrot's theories on instabilities may be of a more relevant interest to others, given the environement in which we are living. (Dontcher just luuv the name dropping ).

As for Hendry, there's no doubt in my mind that he's one sharp cookie, as the Yanks would say. His analysis of the world financial markets is somewhat refreshing as opposed to the usual tripe written in print media and the broadcast by the likes of Bloomberg. However, he's strictly talking from a business viewpoint. His concerns are circumscribed, imo, by a strict narrative of wealth accumulation. The social and environmental considerations are secondary, if that. That which frees him to make money is good. That which hinders large accumulation of wealth is bad. It seems the rest can go hang. Although, I must say I do share his concerns with the continuing erosion of civil liberties.

Jesus how does anyone make head or tail of Hegel Cactus have you read the Phenomenology of Spirit? I think I might have got ten pages into it - it must be a record. Totally impenetrable (although I was only 20 and more interested in doing other stuff) If you can start on a thread about it it'd be mighty - I wouldn't mind exploring his ideas again - I know he was the basis for Marxism with the Dialectic - that's about all I remember.

rocky

How do we know your man Hendry isn't acting with the drama hysteria up there to get people into inflating the price of gold ? He knows he has a big audience - he's very sharp and is perhaps playing half of America with his tale of Doom. Ok the stock market is knackered at the moment but could the likes of him influence it through the media ? At first glance it sounds ridiculous but could the like of him literally talk it down ?

I'd say he's buying massive quantities of oil for his funds.

I had your thought too Auditor#9. He was well wrong footed when he had to admit he only talks about shares when they are on the way up and gets out fast when they are on the way down. I see gold being promoted in the Irish papers today. Clearly not a good sign. There is every chance that places like China and India might sell a lot to keep their economic growth going. Gold is a gamble.

It was telling that he considered a 10% fall in wealth over the coming year to be a good result.

Hugh Hendry on the January Stimulus Bill. - Euro will Collapse due to the PIIGS which need a 'lower' currency.


"The tragedy is that, owing to mistakes made, predominantly in the stock markets and in the political class, society has lost its confidence. The great revolution that emerged in the early 1980s with Thatcherism and the embracing of Milton-Friedman-like economic policies was that we shouldn't be fearful of mistakes and failure - that we should be proud of failure and get it behind us - recognise it and get it behind us.

And we've replaced in the last 30 years - we've replaced smoke stack industries in the UK and in America with cutting-edge businesses which have employed thousands of great people - that's what you get by embracing failure - allowing businesses, dinosaurs to fail. And the tragedy is we've lost that bravado. These businesses are failures, these businesses are a blight on the great character of American enterprise, their executives are a blight on the great character of previous great American executives and it'd be better for them to be replaced and I promise you that once we get a deal signed and there will be a deal signed then the stock market will go down because there's nothing bullish about preserving dinosaurs in your economy."