Tuesday, January 26, 2010

On the other hand...

Came across a great contrarian view on inflation (or rather, the lack thereof) that we should expect in the near-future.

It's a long-ish article for those of you who aren't that interested in the economic outlook, or who have already parked your money in real estate. Everyone else who has cash to burn on the markets, pay attention.

Firstly, this particular article is super-calm and collected compared to several of the other more dramatic ones I referenced the other day. Secondly, it's both a quantitative and qualitative assessment, based on historical events. Where this article differs from the others is that the sources (skip down to the "Quarterly Review and Outlook" section half way down) take into account many other variables that affect the outcome - not just the mere fact that printing money = inflation.

Their conclusion is quite the opposite. Their prediction is that inflation in our circumstances should be benign and short lived, and we will ultimately enter a period of deflation. They finish with the disclosure that they put their money where their mouth is.

I don't know what to believe anymore.

-d

6 comments:

Simon said...

speculation is tough to believe right? I mean, in the end, economics is largely theoretical isn't it? You can predict only to a certain extent, but ultimately irrational happenings always occur.

As a Canadian, your inclination should probably just be to play it safe at all times and hedge all your bets, haha

Dust said...

But even traditional ways of hedging your bets is getting riskier. Let's say you buy GICs, and we end up in an inflationary situation - it gets bad enough, and your GICs will be worth literally nothing.

The new safe is real physical gold. But even then nobody bothers to question how safe it really is. Why is gold so valuable? Because it's a form of currency that you can't 'make more of?' In the end, it's still just a currency.

I dunno. I signed up to get my Firearms Certification in a couple of weekends. There is no proper subsitute for good ol' application of force.

-d

Dust said...

oh wow... that sounds really kooky.

-d

Simon said...

But what about the alien abductions?

Dust said...

I'm not too worried about that. I think most illegal immigrants end up as slaves. I'd be more worried about home-grown criminals abducting me.

-d

Simon said...

Touche.