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Perils of addiction

Disclaimer - this blog is mostly meaningless drivel meant for the enjoyment of the blogger.  Do not consider this as sage advice.  In fact do not consider this as any advice.

There are many vices.  Have been since man started keeping count.  It is in the bible etc.

One vice is addiction.  To anything.  It translates to dependency in the extreme.   One popular addiction in today's world is for 'cheap money'.  As in borrowing at low cost.  To finance all manners of profligate hobbies.   Stationary bicycles to fast food and other oxymorons come to mind.

The world is awash in it.  Central banks have their hands tied.  The great economic collapse of 2007-08 triggered financial tsunamis that shook the foundations of economic theory and global banking.  Printing money was the only ticket.  Couple that with monetary policy that allowed interest rates to be held at all time low spurred the economic engines again.

Then the public got addicted.  Which also had other ripple effects.  The investor community wanted fat returns.  Unrealistic but they did.  So they had to put the money into something.  Ergo the equity markets took off.  The universally known metric that keeps score of equity performance is the Standard & Poor's index or the S&P.  It has effectively doubled since the last recession.  But while the index is just an absolute number the other metric of import, the PE ratio also has doubled.

Price to Earnings or Price to Book are canary in the investing coal mine and they are indicating a level of excitement not seen in years.  Chasing profits and outrageous gains the consumer is now on crack again.  No logic can explain how future pricing of a stock can be so optimistic based on raw data.  Where will new growth come from?

It is a dangerous curve in the road.  And it is raining.  Raining warnings.  And missiles.  More destructive projectiles seem to have been fired in the last 25 years since WWII.  Nationalism (euphemistic way of saying we don't give a shit about others) is on the rise.  Pollution is too.  Which is obvious since we have more people on the planet than anytime in the past.  And most of them have no electricity or running water.  So these are not your consumers with a Platinum line of credit.  What gives?

Something's gotta.  The smartphone ain't gonna save us.

If this scared you it is time to have a cookie and milk and go to bed.  Or whatever makes you sleepy.
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