Lots of great reading out there this week. We love it when we come across thought-provoking, well written interpretations of the financial world. I didn't want to lose the links, so I've written them here ...
1. The Turd Speaks - great observations on the current state of things, peeling back the covers of the financial matrix and hitting a home run in the process.
http://www.tfmetalsreport.com/blog/3367/ramblings-lets-talk-dollar-gold-silver-crude-and-freedom
2. The Many Values Of Gold - by Victor the Cleaner - nice summary of the role of gold including some sections on Freegold.
http://victorthecleaner.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/the-many-values-of-gold/
3. "Warren Buffett: Why stocks beat gold and bonds" - my namesake lets everyone know he doesn't like gold and trys to slip as many tulip bubble suggestions into his narrative, with some sage advice on why productive assets trump inactive ones (in normal business environments this is true).
http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/02/09/warren-buffett-berkshire-shareholder-letter/
4. (Via Zero Hedge): visual representation of debt (by 'demonocracy.info'): I simply love visuals like this.
http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/world_debt/world_debt.html
I wanted to tie them all in together - the main point is not to forget all that debt represents someone's asset, somewhere out there. That's a lot of assets - so in fact the world is very rich! But it's the quality of said assets that is the question, and whether the productivity of the folk making the regular payments, can keep up (like the Greeks, for example). And, that $160 billion eq. of new gold each year that Buffet complains about, doesn't look so bad when you consider how many $ are out there, swapping between asset classes. I was trying to figure out the comparative value of all the gold stock in the world, against these towers of money ... anywhere between 5-10 trillion, as a really lazy estimate. To be honest, the pile of debt didn't look so bad against all the gold in the world - it's similar to the assets:loan ratio that an average person might have on their house.
