Posting this is probably a bad move, but oh well:

For Australia, this is not the worst downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s - it is not as bad as the recession of 1991 or 1982, and is comparable with the downturn in 2000 [where we DIDN'T follow the US into recession]. In fact this is only a modest downturn by historical standards. How much of Australia's resilience is due to China and how much to domestic economic stimulus is debatable. The point is now that this stimulus needs to be unwound - the only question is whether it will be unwound by Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens or Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

emphasis in italics/square brackets is mine.

The odds are shortening that we have just experienced another episode in Australia's unhappy history of policy over-reaction to perceived crises. Paul Keating's infamous "recession we had to have" in 1991 was caused by policy failure - interest rates were too high for too long at the end of the 1980s. And earlier, the stock market boom and bust of 1987 was due to the opposite - interest rates being too low.

source: Guest, R 2009, 'Economic Recipe Far Too Hot', Courier Mail, 16 Sep, p. 30. (can't find a link so far)

Ross Guest is a professor of economics @ Griffith.

THE Reserve Bank has challenged Wayne Swan's account of the success of his economic stimulus measures, with several board members declaring that it is hard to know how much credit belongs to them and how much to its own cuts in interest rates and the economic resurgence of China.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/reserve-questions-swans-stimulus-story-20090915-fpol.html

The federal government has again rejected opposition calls to withdraw its stimulus, insisting the measures will remain until economic growth returns to pre-crisis levels.

http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/stimulus-here-till-growth-recovers-swan-20090906-fcb2.html





So without resorting to too much partisan bulls***, do you think the fiscal stimulus has gone too far?

mods: can all stupid posts like pave's please be deleted? i don't want retards s***ting in my srs thread please :(

I think it's a mixed bag and it's pretty hard to know how cause and effect will operate

If you were to say (as the govt) that the stimulus will be rolled back because it's no longer needed what you might well find is that business/consumer confidence was largely based on expectations of future govt support/spending and we'd have a related recession/downturn in 3 months time as business cuts back as well.

I think the short term deficit is necessary and at the most the govt should (quietly) cut the longer term expenditure which hasn't already been initiated.

In the medium term a gradual shift to a balanced budget is desirable and in the future a small surplus should become the goal. Note that theoretically I'm not adverse to deficit spending however this needs to be based on realistic assumptions re: GDP growth causing the spending to be neutral.

I think Australia's long term outlook is a bit darker because China/India won't be consuming at a frenetic pace forever and largely it's the pace of consumption which has caused the unrealistic resource prices.

yay stimulus

I think Rudd should give out more ca$h.

Look at the one first world country that has been through this in recent history.

Japan.

Depression, stimulus after stimulus after stimulus after stimulus, 0% interest rates and what ? their economy is full of banks that 'are too big to fail', the largest government debt in the world and their economy is still f***ed.

The whole idea of booms and busts is to let the strong survive and the weak fall by the way side. It would've been like our government bailing out Ansett because they were 50% of the airline market. Would that have been the right thing to do ?

wow, what a beautifully unbiased position you've taken in the OP

my grand kids are going to be paying this stimulus back
from them, I say - f*** YOU RUDDY DUDDY

The whole idea of booms and busts is to let the strong survive and the weak fall by the way side. It would've been like our government bailing out Ansett because they were 50% of the airline market. Would that have been the right thing to do ?

Except that Ansett isn't an integral part of the economy. Ansett isn't where everyone keeps their money. I think you've failed to appreciate just how dangerous a bank failure is. It's through banks that most economic growth is facilitated.

That aside which bank-bailout are you complaining about in Australia? We haven't had any. the government (quite properly) has guaranteed deposits (which everyone assumed they were doing all along) but that's a very different thing to a "bail-out"

my grand kids are going to be paying this stimulus back
from them, I say - f*** YOU RUDDY DUDDY

This is certainly true based on the following assumptions:

1. Australia fails to grow at a rate larger than our deficit, if we grow faster than the money borrowed it's a prudent investment

2. You presume that the spending is inherently wasteful. I'll concede some of it certainly will be. Single-student schools aside (as the anomoly) you did want to continue maintaining the nation's public schools right? So what better time to do it than when a) the State Govt's are broke/in the red and b) the Fed govt has the ability to borrow and c) you need to do something marginally productive to keep people employed.

wow, what a beautifully unbiased position you've taken in the OP

yeah, it's not hard to work out my stance - but i'm interested in other people's opinions :) also, i don't really look at it from a liberal/labor perspective - policymakers in general f*** up most of the time. i have little confidence that a liberal solution to the GFC would have been much better. though i prefer the politician i think is a retard to the politician i know is a retard.

cainer: good point, while the japanese economy has some pretty drastic differences to most free market western economies it is easy to draw some parallels between their lost decades and this crisis/response.

take *every cent* away from private schools and give it to public schools
if rich people want to send their kids to private schools, let them
but for the *majority* of people who send their kids to public schools, give them all the money they need to run a public school properly

sif we didn't mostly waste our rudbux
s***, I can't even remember what I bought - it was probably something for my car

Pretty much agree with the points your were drawing light on, taggs.

My main gripe with the whole issue (party politics aside) is that once Labor put the various legislation through the house of reps, the decision of whether to pass it through the Senate ultimately came down to the small group of independent senators.

I realise that they were effectively voted in by the people of Australia, but it just seems absurd to me that the final decision about if the policies came into play was dependent on a few select individuals (Xenophon, Fielding, etc) who probably have a somewhat limited capacity to understand the full implications of the economic policies they voted for. I guess this is one of the failings of Westminster based Parliament systems.

These stimulus packages were pushed out waaaaay too quickly, a little bit more time should have been spent planning & debating over the specifics instead of trying to run some kind of 'scare campaign' to get it rushed through Parliament as quickly as possible.

Weren't you on your high horse about giving it to the fire victims?

i agree with cainer. assets need to be revalued, and weak companies need to be allowed to fold.

you can't have a boom without a bust.

These stimulus packages were pushed out waaaaay too quickly

Yep, that's why lazy bums like me got $1850 ($900 worker, $950 student) :D

Sup loophole!

Except that Ansett isn't an integral part of the economy. Ansett isn't where everyone keeps their money. I think you've failed to appreciate just how dangerous a bank failure is. It's through banks that most economic growth is facilitated.

Why has it come to the point in this world that there are a handful of major banks in the world, australia has 'the big 4'. Of course its totally banking self interest to make themselves totally 100% integral in this world, its a survival mechanism but it only serves to benefit the banks at the end of the day. Lack of competition, state/worldwide protection because theyre too big to fail.

What the governments should've done, if they had the balls, and weren't totally reliant on keeping the big banks on their side, is yes, bail them out, then split those f***en leeches on society up into multiple smaller banks. What we would have then is diminished risk across society, more choice, more competition. Thats the rationale for doing it to telstra isn't it ?

But of course that won't happen..

It could also be suggested that the whole fractional reserve banking system should be totally wound back. If there were a fixed amount of money in the system we wouldn't have credit/asset bubbles, we wouldn't have inflation, we would have fiscally responsible governments and we'd probably have a sustainable world economy, not one which just uses everything it possibly can until its all gone

teq it doesn't work like that. if you gave all the money to public schools you'd end up with the kids worse off than they already are, because private schools actually save the govt money. just like private health insurance saves the govt money rather than everyone leaning on the public health system, thats why there's the 30% rebate.

The cash splash was a severe waste of tax payers money. The stimulus packages should have all been put on infrastructure (roads, schools, health, etc) as the long term benefits are significantly better than me using my free money to have a holiday to Tas with wifey.

teq, your post doesn't make any sense. You already have rich people paying 47% tax and you want to discriminate them further by not allowing any of that money that was taxed off them go into funding for their kids schooling?

Not to mention rich people buy expensive cars (stamp duty) and properties (land taxes, more stamp duty) and more taxes everywhere they bloody well spend money.

Please, never enter politics at any level.

TicMan stated exactly my point of view.

wow, what a beautifully unbiased position you've taken in the OP

my grand kids are going to be paying this stimulus back
from them, I say - f*** YOU RUDDY DUDDY

Heh, all the crazy s*** that's happened in the last few yrs is why I'm not having kids.

vasectomy is your friend.

You're not having kids because we had a recession?

better than me using my free money to have a holiday to Tas with wifey.

You and your mrs had an interstate holiday too on krudd's dollars? Hi 5!

No because I dont have any confidence in things getting better. Rudd's cash splash debt bomb only cements this.

You and your mrs had an interstate holiday too on krudd's dollars? Hi 5!

Was a great holiday too, glad I didn't have to pay for it with my money and used Kevvys money instead that my great-grand kids will pay off with interest!

OH SNAPPLES!

That would have to be the wierdest reason I've ever heard for not having kids :/

im only sad that i didnt have more kids so they could have seen our great leadering giving mummy and daddy all that cash

slaps doesn't realise that he's supposed to have kids so they can pay off krudd's debt for him.

i just find the whole concept of money for nothing offensive. in a normal economic bargain, one person promises to do something or sell something to another person for an agreed value.

in the stimulus case, people have to do nothing to receive money. how is that in any sense of the word good for the nation's productivity?

secondly, banks are parasites, they thrive off econmic activity because they are charging a % of it as interest, whether it be through credit card fees, eftpos machine charges, ATM charges, interest on loans, buying commonwealth bonds.

of course they support the bailouts and stimulus because they are the one financing the government, the stimulus contractors and the consumers. after they bought a truckload of toxic assets (noT so many in aus), they ran out of capital to leverage up their lending, so there is one kind of lending which has ZERO capital backing requirement... guess which kind of lending that is under the Basel II banking convention?

GOVERNMENT DEBT

last edited by infi at 11:31:40 16/Sep/09

That would have to be the wierdest reason I've ever heard for not having kids :/

Granted, letting Rudd's stupidity influence my decision is a bit silly but I stand by my decision not to bring kids into the world when the future is not looking to bright. Seems a fairly rational way to look at it if you ask me.

I'm intrigued, why isn't it looking bright?

We just went, or are still going through, a 'tough time'. We still have running water, sewage, cars, TV, internet. We aren't a starving community in Africa.

While it's your decision not to have kids, your reasoning just seams to be a really weak cover for other issues.

There's plenty of other breeders out there to make up for him.

yeah unfortunately most of the other breeders are braindead and don't think about having a kid or not, it just 'happens'

September 30
Shock and Awe

what happens when september 30 goes by and nothing out of the ordinary happens?

will you leave qgl or something?

do you mean the invasion of iran, Faceman?

illusions infi
a trick is something a whore does for money

or candy!

oh, i always thought that was sex

I've got to laugh. We're pretty much, if not the, only developed economy which has avoided a recession and the idiots in the cheap seats turn around and get angry about the measures the govt took to help avoid recession.

You can't win can you. As I said, govt debt and inflation are legitimate concerns at any other time but now is not the time to prioritise them.

infi: how do you feel about chicks for free?

that i have no problem with, especially for a needy soul such as yourself.

See now if I were you I'd make a mum joke right about here.

measures the govt took to help avoid recession

lol

He used up his daily mum joke allowance in the petrol thread.

It was awesome.

If we had guns we could shoot the government!

Yeah. Shoot them right in the stimulus package!@!@!@

measures the govt took to help avoid recession

lol

no lol

WE STARED INTO THE ABYSS

I try not to look directly at it.

hey obes i think you can use that 'joke' at least 4 or 5 more times. seriously, it's still funny.

Spoiler:
no it's not


oh s***, i wasted my 3000th post on obes-tard :(

last edited by taggs at 17:42:11 16/Sep/09

I've got to laugh. We're pretty much, if not the, only developed economy which has avoided a recession and the idiots in the cheap seats turn around and get angry about the measures the govt took to help avoid recession.

You can't win can you. As I said, govt debt and inflation are legitimate concerns at any other time but now is not the time to prioritise them.

i suppose everyone is questioning the price paid to avoid the technical definition of a recession. that is making the (somewhat quesionable) assumption that the stimulus packages had a significant effect in that regard. i posted a graph in the previous thread showing that the 2nd round of stimulus payments had a pretty weak effect on consumer spending, the 1st round had a somewhat stronger effect.

so i guess people are also questioning how much effect the government stimulus package had, compared to exogenous factors such as demand for exports from china.

government debt and inflation should always be concerns, no matter what point in the cycle we are at. the situation in australia was nothing like the climate in UK/USA, so to say that we should spend 'whatever it takes' and then worry about the debt later is completely unethical, imo.

'Economic nationalism has no place in the Eu'

heh, thats a pretty ominous statement coming out Europe over the last few days..

spook :D

I've got to laugh. We're pretty much, if not the, only developed economy which has avoided a recession and the idiots in the cheap seats turn around and get angry about the measures the govt took to help avoid recession.

With that statement you have naïvely assumed that it is all thanks to the Government that we avoided 'recession'. While I don't deny that the stimulus would have had some effect, there are many other factors at play. Also, you have to question if they could have achieved the same result for a lesser cost to taxpayers.

It is not correct to try and compare Australia directly to other developed countries. Australia is one of the smallest countries in the OECD, and as such, operates quite differently in some respects at the macroeconomic level.

Consider that:
-We were extremely well positioned leading into the GFC with no debt and strong surpluses in preceding years
-Our banking sector was one of the strongest in the world. As a whole, they had limited direct exposure to subprime. The public maintained faith in the system, thus we had no major bank runs like UK with Northern Rock.
-Australia was very lucky to be such a small country that has a floating currency, the ability to borrow in it's own currency, and current account deficits. These three factors basically meant the brunt of the damage would only be a temporary decline in our currency while things were at their worst (ie the fall in the USD from 98c to 60c)
-Finally, Australia is somewhat independent from other countries. The United States Economy is somewhat tied to China, for example. All the European countries are linked. This obviously makes it a lot easier for the nation to rebuild, and external factors will cause less of a shock to our economy.

So, I hope this helps you begin to realise that there are an enormous amount of factors at play, and it would be foolish to not question the Government.

last edited by Alt_F4 at 18:10:40 16/Sep/09

that's far too logical, it was swan the economical muthaf***en genius.

wtf ? Its not over yet.

lets turn this into a calling out faceman on his bulls*** thread.

September 30
Shock and Awe

so faceman, what is going to happen on september 30?

i will be bumping this thread on sep 30 so i hope your crystal ball isn't broken!

Look forward to talking to you then.

lol 'talking'
for you that just means more smoke and mirrors and never actually answering anything

Thanks for caring.

from todays paper

THE Federal Government's stimulus package has protected jobs from the fallout of the global financial crisis, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) says. The OECD believes 150,000 to 200,000 Australian jobs would have been shed in 2009.

But its employment outlook report for 2009 says the Australian Government's $42 billion stimulus package had minimised job losses.

^^ So it's official, the Labor government's stimulus packages did their job. Thanks Kev!

But I don't trust kev to look after something that doesn't need fixing... or his foney smile for that matter.

spooky old bean, noone is disputing that a government throwing money around willy nilly isn't going to protect jobs. what we are questioning is the price paid to keep those jobs:

ECONOMISTS say Kevin Rudd has traded off long-term value for money for short-term economic gain with his stimulus package, amid revelations his government has spent about $160,000 for each job saved.

http://m.theaustralian.com.au/Economics/pg/0/fi8079.htm

they could have given every worker made redundant an $80,000 cash payment for half the money :P

edit: above comment is a little tongue-in-cheek, obviously not that simplistic. needs to be weighed up against long-term costs of u/e that would have occurred without the stimulus. my thoughts are, though, that the stimulus had a far less significant effect compared to our terms of trade effect.

last edited by taggs at 09:42:15 17/Sep/09

it was already official once you made your recent thread on it saint!

interesting point taggs

ill give you that big kev isnt as efficient as he could have been, but hes still out there trying and isnt that really what matters? (well, trying and me getting free money)

ECONOMISTS say Kevin Rudd has traded off long-term value for money for short-term economic gain with his stimulus package, amid revelations his government has spent about $160,000 for each job saved.

Economists are always full of s*** everyone knows that. Its a stupid statement to say stimulus spent/jobs saved = $ value for each job.

i have a report somewhere from Michael Knox, ABN Amro, which rates the wastage on the stimulus program at oveer 30%.

Economists are always full of s*** everyone knows that. Its a stupid statement to say stimulus spent/jobs saved = $ value for each job.

so you obviously had serious objections to rudd/swan claiming that the budget would protect 200,000 jobs back in May?

http://www.smh.com.au/business/billions-blown-to-bail-out-workers-20090511-b0lb.html

how do you propose the effectiveness of the stimulus package should be measured? presumably you have a more appropriate metric we could use, o wise one?

We should rate it in beans.

taggs, it was the Govt's responsibility to demonstrate that the stimulus was the correct move before it was implemented.

A drastic move like that hasn't been tested before. They should have therefore stated that yes, it's somewhat of a gamble but we believe this this this. Not the way they did which was it WILL do this, it WILL do this.

And then they should have set up their own method for assessing the success. A method which should have been tabled in parliament and agreed on as the official way to measure the impact.

There are massive gaps in all of this. Certainly the true widespread impact of any large scale stimulus is impossible to measure.

The crappy, amateurish way that the stimulus was brought in and implemented is what I don't approve of. It's just the usual, sloppy day to day work of the Labor Party.

A drastic move like that hasn't been tested before. They should have therefore stated that yes, it's somewhat of a gamble but we believe this this this. Not the way they did which was it WILL do this, it WILL do this.

of course it has. there have been several stimulus packages in the US over the last 5-10 years, and several more in Japan over the last 2 decades that i can think of off the top of my head.

there have been studies done in regards to the effectiveness of those packages in terms of marginal propensities to consume (MPC) and other metrics.

in the previous thread i posted such a study on the australian packages from an economist from ANU, but i felt it wasn't overly robust as it was based on survey data.

i was just calling out viper on his comment because i bet he's happy to listen to economists if their views coincide with his own! cognitive dissonance is a bitch.

edit: spellinglols

last edited by taggs at 10:20:42 17/Sep/09

referring back to cainer's statement. japan has had the s*** stimulated out of it for nigh on 20 years. it now has debt to GDP of close to 100% and is still in the doldrums.

stimulus does not provide any long term benefits to an economy, it's just to make the pollies look good and whack a bunch of "building the nation" signs up around all the schools for next election day.

i was just calling out viper on his comment because i bet he's happy to listen to economists if their views coincide with his own! cognitive dissonance is a bitch.

Huh, yeah probably. I was more just saying that with such a huge thing like the econimic stimulus, its a bit silly to divide one figure by another and say thats the result, its way more complex than that, way to complex for a normal person like me to figure out.

A 100 page report on the effect of the stimulus isnt as good for a headline or quote as "Rudds job's cost $160k each"

I cant say 100% that the stimulus was completely a good thing and that they spent the exact right amount of money. I think some stimulus was needed, makes sense to me that the government steps in when there is a decline by the private industry. Maybe some if the stimulus money wasnt spent in the best way, who knows, spending money on schools seems like a good idea, the insulation rebate and solar hot water rebate are a good idea.

The IMF just called...
They want to enslave your country.

The IMF just called...

The people from mission impossible?

I can feel a Job appearance coming!

i have a report somewhere from Michael Knox, ABN Amro, which rates the wastage on the stimulus program at oveer 30%.

**RBS Morgans

The stimulus package will be BAD for Australia in the long run. This is because there is now 42billion (times that by roughly 10, so 420billion due to the fractional reserve banking principle ALL banks engage in) injected into the economy that was created out of NOTHING by the Reserve Bank. This means that the government is now 42billion in debt to the bank, and the interest payments on this are filled by INCREASING INCOME TAX. So, expect that lovely $900 stimulus package to go straight into income tax hikes in the next few years.

The Federal Reserve in America engineered the crash, to plunge the world as a whole into even MORE debt than they are already in. There is not one single government in the western world that is not in debt to their PRIVATE central bank, who also happens to be their currency provider. Neat system.

The Federal Reserve in America engineered the crash, to plunge the world as a whole into even MORE debt than they are already in.

Have u meet faceman, you two would get along.

Is that you Faceman?




Edit: beaten by that much

The IMF just called...
They want to enslave your country.

http://brianseay.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/arrested_development_gob_magic.jpg

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2009/09/the_japan_syndrome.cfm

it's seemed appropriate

i have a report somewhere from Michael Knox, ABN Amro, which rates the wastage on the stimulus program at oveer 30%.


**RBS Morgans

we just changed over all their mailing work

Oh yeah! For mine, every time Faceman makes a magical unreferenced statement he's getting the Job treatment.

i have a report somewhere from Michael Knox, ABN Amro, which rates the wastage on the stimulus program at oveer 30%.

100% HERE!

i have a report somewhere that says malcolm turnball eats babys

wmp firefox plugin

last edited by ara at 17:15:16 17/Sep/09

I finally managed to track down that newsletter from economist Michael Knox, 4 Feb 2009:

To assess the benefit of this package, we will purely look at the economic modelling provided in the document. Page 3 of the document tells us that ‘the economic impact of the Plan is that GDP growth is expected to be around half a percent higher than 2008/09 and around three quarter percent to one percent higher in 2009-10 than it would have been without the Plan’. How much has the government spent to achieve these results? On page 42 in Table 4.3, we are told that the total policy decisions impact on the fiscal balance in 2008/09 is $19.643 billion. In 2009/10 it is $19.747 billion. Taken in the context of the other information in the table, this appears to be slightly less than 1.7% of GDP in 2008/09 and slightly less than 1.7% of GDP in 2009/10. This means that in 2008/09 we are spending 1.7% of GDP in stimulus to get an increase in GDP of 0.5%. This means we are spending $1.00 in stimulus to get only 30c in GDP. This is an amazingly low multiplier of 0.3. This is very low by international comparison it is even low by the standards of the Treasury’s own commentary on page 15. The situation improves slightly in 2009/10. In that year we are spending 1.7% of GDP stimulus to get an increase in GDP of 0.75% to 1%. This means we are spending $1.00 in stimulus to get between 45c and 60c in GDP. This is a low multiplier of 0.45 to 0.6. We conclude that by emphasising social infrastructure over economic infrastructure, the ‘bang for the buck’ achieved is so soft it might better be described as a ‘dull thud’.

last edited by infi at 16:47:32 18/Sep/09

Was talking to a friend yesterday who is no dummy with money.
He'd invested $270 000 with City Pacific and the company locked up just after the Financial Crisis hit. Its likely he will get nothing back yet the Owner and his Wife has managed to build a $32 million property portfolio.

It hasn't wiped him out but theres a lot of other people that have lost everything. Its prolly going to be popping up in the media very soon. Sounds similar to that Storm Financial.

Stick with Gold.

Whats with the ActiveX thing that wants to run ?

faceman, anyone who is friends with you is by default a dummy in every possible sense of the word.

September 30
Shock and Awe

hi faceman,

just letting you know i haven't forgot about this! what's going to happen? i'm very excited!!

regards,

taggs

taggs, I love you

In the only way a man can love another man

(EDIT: Turned mean post into nice post)

taggs, clearly you don't understand time differences, it's still 29th/Sep in the US. He still got at least 24 hours before the prediction will come to fruition.

haha, what have i done!? i just freaked out thinking i'd noobed the date up or something.

yep, i'm willing to give him until 30/09 has finished elsewhere in the world. hence why i'm so excited to see what's going to happen!

it is kind of exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. this build up in the index is highly reminiscent of 2007, and we all know what happened then.

Ive still got tonight before i get hung.

Did any of you check that Baltic Shipping index thing i posted in the other thread ?
I tell you what its going to happen very soon.

http://investmenttools.com/futures/bdi_baltic_dry_index.htm

last edited by FaceMan at 16:28:25 30/Sep/09

Was talking to a friend yesterday who is no dummy with money.
He'd invested $270 000 with City Pacific and the company locked up just after the Financial Crisis hit

Your friend is either very rich (multi-millionaire) or he is a dummy with money for dropping that much cash into a single entity.

Ask any dickwit in the street and they'll tell you to diversify.

what do all those charts tell you, faceman? make a logical statement.

Like i said it didnt clean him out.

Lets wait and see later tonight.

but still... where'd the lighter fluid come from?

SHOCK AND AWE

Is the world still going? I can't tell

ive taken all my money out of the bank and stocked up on baked beans and blankets, just in case;

from aldi?

it's still only 8pm on the other side of the date line

The world seems like it's still going so, it makes me wonder if he's going by some ancient Mayan or Aztec calendar or something? Maybe he's meant 30/9/2010 ?

You've done the right thing, Spook. Leaving for the bank now. Will stop by Forty Winks to pick up a mattress to stash my loot in.

You got to wait for the Lag...

haha dropped a little last night
can i get a an extension ?

S&P500 down 2.58% last night. Sizeable but not quite shock and awe.

you should make more predictions like this faceman, they are good for a laugh

And if he makes enough, some will probably turn out true!

is it safe to come out yet?

there is a pretty big correction, the usd has made a major u-turn meaning people are chasing cash and bonds over equities. the latest bond issues in both the UK and US have had strong support.

my long usd position got closed out overnight because i lucikly has a stop sell in place. it fell over half a cent in hours. so now i am shorting it as the momentum builds. when the herd changes sentiment, you would be a fool to try and fight it.

something is brewing...