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.Good Morning Friends,
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today is Wednesday December 2, 2009
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Got back from my truck servicing yesterday friends and then I just jumped into the Miata and went for a spin. That is how excited I was about life and the sunshine and everything else. And, the everything else is of course, mainly speaking, the stock market. We are just so close to breaking even from the calamity of 2008 that I can feel it in my bones. There really is some kind of an upward momentum trend here. I don't know how viable it is necessarily, but I think there is enough muscle there to propel me over the top. And, what is this top? Well, it is the simple matter of about .22%, that is what the top is for me. I was down just over 12% at the end of 2008 and I am now positive 13.42% year to date for 2009. Recently, I shifted some modest amounts of cash into Emerging Markets and Canadian Equity. And, I am 41.37% equity in my overall portfolio. The gold or precious metals component now sits at 5.36%.
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Now, it is certainly fun being ahead of the game as it were, but you must always remember that there is risk out there. The gains in the market to my mind are still tenuous at best. The U.S. is a sick thing when you think about it. The consumer is still down and hurting. Sure, there is modest recovery but there are still a lot of problems going on in that economy. There is horrendous debt and deficits with which they must contend. And, as I stated recently, they still have those wars to deal with as well. The Middle class were really hurt as a function of the recent financial crisis, and they might not ever recover when you consider the big picture. And, the picture is the fact that the manufacturing jobs have been shipped over seas and that the U.S. is basically now just a war economy that must learn to survive on ever increasing jobs that will pay less and less. Taxes will have to increase and people will have to learn to accept a lower standard of living. But, it is the banks that survive and will continue to survive. They are the key to the whole thing and they maintain their power. Their wealth continues to be concentrated and they pose great risk to the economies of the world. Many of these banks are too big to fail, that is the current mantra. But, they must be confronted, for if they are not we will continue to live under the conditions that we are currently experiencing. The depreciated American dollar and the rise in the price of gold is symptomatic of the new paradigm, in my humble opinion. So, just how happy do you think I am with the recent gains in my portfolio?
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P.S. If you are left wing, progressive thinking American then you will appreciate very much this interview with Dennis Kucinich. He talks about Obama's recent surge in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the state of the economy. Dennis Kucinich is a man that I greatly respect. He fights the fight for the little guy in America and he does not stop. He knows that the wars are wrong and he is not afraid to say so. He thinks that Cheney and Bush should be taken to task for their false and misleading war in Iraq. Iraq should be compensated for this great injustice that was inflicted upon them, and I agree. A great interview and terrific thoughts. If you are a clear thinking person you will fall in love with a politician like Dennis Kucinich. Interview below:
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