Hugh Hendry And The Deflationary Zeitgeist
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Jack Delano Colored drivers entrance, U.S. 1, NY Avenue, Washington, DC Jun 1940 It’s funny how things roll at times. When I wrote yesterday’s Making
[See the full post at: Hugh Hendry And The Deflationary Zeitgeist]“If an economy stops growing, the only profit opportunities left involve taking something away from someone.”
Is that really all so different from when the economy is growing? For example, you’ve often referred to our grandchildren.
No Steve, I know, but it becomes a more direct transaction. All our growth has always been based on eating someone’s kids, but now it’s our own, because no-one has enough kids anymore to satisfy our greed.
As a tenet of our society, and now increasingly the rest of the world, we worship the accumulation of wealth. It doesn’t seem to matter if it is ill-gotten, just shady, or from hard work and good luck. Although hard work and good luck seem to be the hardest way to get there, if at all. As long as this love of wealth is instilled in everyone’s way of thinking there’ll be little to no debate on whether it is ethical to profit on others misery. It used to be religion’s role to bring up uncomfortable things, but that is the exception to the rule now. We now worship money-and power. Until a lot more people are suffering and the blinders come off there will be little debate.
Hendry’s fiduciary responsibility is to his clients. That’s just the nature of the business he’s in.
That said, all this dovetails with the grand finale coming up, that is “The Crackup Boom.” He seems to understand that, and is simply making lemonade from lemons.
It serves no purpose to go broke in a Centrally Planned disaster, over which one has no control. To the contrary, one should preserve capital with which to contribute to rebuilding the mess later.
Reminds of the old adage, “I love my country, it’s my government I can’t stand.”
@ Ilargi,
“I’m just less focused on the short term, and the potential financial profits involved, than Hugh is. As I said yesterday, I think about the 50% increase in homeless kids in the States and the 50%+ jobless rates in southern Europe, and wonder if that justifies the drive for monetary profits.”
Further to my devil’s advocate views on your Hugh Hendry post the other day, I look at your comments and find myself asking why you’d think it was a question of long-term vs. short-term?
You see, if it wasn’t Hugh Hendry, it would be someone else pushing for those monetary profits. Those homeless kids and the higher jobless rates are baked into the cake – whether by human nature or by the fact we’re too far down the road to stop it from happening – and the only questions are who’s gonna book those monetary profits, and whatever will they do with them (i.e. spend it on)?
Personally, I find it a shame that you’re not a billionaire-investor with the short-term in mindset; perhaps you would be the one booking those monetary profits and reinvesting them into helpful solutions like transition towns, public education/awareness on the virtues of preparedness and the ills of over-consumption, buying up land to turn into conservation areas, and buying up politicians to prevent them from changing the laws to allow pipelines to be run through said conservation areas.
But, alas, you are not a billionaire-investor. Those who Hugh Hendry works for will gladly see children become homeless and good people lose their jobs to ensure the cash flow that sustains their ultra-lux / over-consumption based lives continues on uninterrupted. If Hugh Hendry has a problem with that, he will be quickly replaced by someone with less moral reservations and a greater dedication to customer satisfaction.
C’est la vie.
Cheers,
-GBVCorrect me if I’m wrong but isn’t it the job of fund managers to make money from money? If that’s true, then I think it’s perfectly OK to judge them. It’s a useless profession offering nothing to society except misery down the line.
One thing I learned during my last marriage to the daughter of a wealthy high ranking politico was that the wealthy are also a slave to money, perhaps even more so than the average person because they have more of it to tend to. They just have better slave quarters.
The universal fear of the wealthy (after the fear of death which is actually connected) is that their wealth will go away, and with good reason because it constantly does. FACT: If your money is not becoming more money it is becoming less money and there is a list a mile long of things that can happen that will make your money disappear in a blink.
The underlying problem is the fact that every dollar MUST become a dollar twenty-five. NOTHING else matters not people, not property, not laws, not the environment, NOTHING.
This post seems odd for TAE. When I first came here, I scoured all of the archives reading up on the coming storm. I was most impressed with the idea of building a “lifeboat” to prepare for the coming deflation and social unrest. As a result, I began a serious effort to eliminate debt from my life. I stopped contributing to my 401(k) at work and used the money saved to purchase 30 acres of property in the forest. I plan to build a 12 x 12 cabin on that property as a safe house for when the SHTF. I took the bulk of my 401(k) out of stocks about 6 months ago, thinking we were about to crash. I feel much like Hugh, in that I’ve missed a chance to come closer to paying all my debt.
I have a goal to reach a “crossover” point. That is the point at which my retirement savings are greater than my remaining debt. I’m about $95,000 short. So if the SHTF now, I’ll simply have to default on my home mortgage and use my 401(k) to finish the cabin in the woods and live off of what I have saved (if I can get to it).
One comment I recall vividly from Nicole was that she wasn’t spreading her word to try and save the world, she was doing it to help us “save our asses.” I intend to save my ass and my family’s. Anyone else who can contribute labor to clearing my forest land and growing crops and raising livestock is welcome to join me, within reason. So, I figure if I’m prepared, I can at least help some others who aren’t.
@ Lawfish,
If your property were anywhere in southern Ontario, I’d trade labour for knowledge/experience (and a good laugh or two). I’m a city slicker, and could benefit from building up some crop growing / land clearing skills (until the folks buy their retirement property, at which point I assume they’ll be getting all the free labour out of me they possibly can).
(please note, the quality of my labour may be slightly sub-par, given my sedentary office-working lifestyle… d’oh!)
Though given the fact you’re talking 401(k)’s and not RRSPs, I’m gonna go ahead and assume you’re a Yank and not a Canuck…
Cheers,
GBV
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