patrick.net

Thanks so far for your predictions...
Any more brave souls?

EBGuy says

I’m doubtful that unemployment will get any worse than it is right now
Do you think we’re near end of public sector cuts (I’ve always said that’s the last shoe to drop, along with the entertainment industrial complex)? Last months numbers were ugly.
The private sector added roughly 64,000 jobs, but that total was more than offset by a loss of almost 160,000 government jobs. My gut (due to California’s extend and pretend strategy) says one more year (but I certainly hope not).

As in the case of the past few months, the lost of government jobs were primarily 1M+ census hires, not core goverment workers.

Ughh... I should've caught that. Here's the net decrease (excluding the Census losses). I'm still concerned that we're not through with gov't rightsizing, yet.
Non-farm payroll employment decreased 18,000 in September ex-Census.

American in Japan says

Thanks so far for your predictions…

Any more brave souls?

Cannot predict those indices, but Americans will have to trade more labor for the things we require, and will feel poorer and worse for it.

Gold @ $2k seems very conservative compared to a lot of the other predictions I've heard...

However, it's betters to sell early, than to sell late :)

Ah so this is what the gold machine looks like:

12/31/10
S&P 500 (now 960.54)
US Unemployment (U6) (now 17.4%)
US Consumer confidence index (now 39.7)

06/30/11
S&P 500 (now 1080.32)
US Unemployment (U6) (now 15.8%)
US Consumer confidence index (now 42.3)

Thanks East Coast Bubble Boy and others
It will be interesting to see what happens next...

Eventually the world will come to it's senses and the old U.S. dollar will shine once again..

Simple reason for my Simple Mind works like this:

1) I work and work hard for a living, just like many of us do.

2) We all enjoy those fruits one way or another

3) If I work 40 hours and then exchange that work for all the things I buy to make my family and l generally happy, there is no where else that your work that makes the buck and pays the bills can be turned into as much as you get here..Remember, you have nothing more than your own work to turn into what make your life what it is..

What good is a dollar or any currently if it cannot be turned into what we want or need ?? Try buying a new flat screen, new digital camera, a new IPAD, a new fridge or washer, a gallon of gas, or a great cutp of coffee or most anything you may want or need in Europe, Japan, or ?? for your 40 hours week vs our 40 hours work week.. Sure we have a few things that are expensive in comparison to some other countries, but just look at the whole picture.. Am I too material ? Look around your house and then ask yourself if you could be too....

I have zero interest in the “whims of wall street” as to what to do with any extra cash.. I believe in our current leaders ( in general) as I just have to look at what they were handed from our past leaders just 2 years ago. Lehman Brothers was the start of bringing the world to it’s knees and Obama wasn’t there.. How we all forget so fast how we got to this junction in our lives.. If you take all of the politics out of our political parties, I also believe they all want the same thing—To better ourselves.. Too bad that it’s all hidden in the process..

Call it what you like, but I'm betting we'll shine even more in the following years and will run my life accordingly from here on until I’m put out to pasture..

Simple Mind

It looks like everything is right in the range I predicted, if not slightly better on the exchange rates.

Like I've said, the people on this forum are way too pessimistic.

Kevin says

Yen/US Dollar exchange rate (now 81.3 yen per $US)

75, 85

US Dollar/Euro exchange rate (now 138.9 $US per Euro)

That’s 138.9 US cents, not dollars. Only off by a few orders of magnitude though!
Anyway..
$1.47, $1.32

US Dollar/Aussie Dollar exchange rate (now 98.6 USD per AUS)

$1.03, $0.95

S&P 500 (now 1,184.71)

1215, 1308

US Unemployment (U6) (now 17.1%)

17.0%, 14.5%

US Consumer confidence index (now 48.5)

49, 53

If you take the advice of the non pessimistic people, you'll find they're doing quite well right now with their investments!

pkennedy says

If you take the advice of the non pessimistic people, you’ll find they’re doing quite well right now with their investments!

+1

IF I think gold is destined to have a bear market in the next year taking it down to at least $1000, does that make me an optimist or a pessimist ? Likewise with real estate, if I think it hasn't bottomed yet, does that make me an optimist or a pessimist ?

I find it difficult to reconcile this (specifically his bottom line):

http://www.resourceinvestor.com/News/2010/5/Pages/World-Gold-Production-2010.aspx

with this:

http://www.iom3.org/news/gold-production-costs

But, I acknowledge that I know nothing about gold, and that this was just from a quick google search, maybe either or both are propaganda.

marcus says

IF I think gold is destined to have a bear market in the next year taking it down to at least $1000, does that make me an optimist or a pessimist ? Likewise with real estate, if I think it hasn’t bottomed yet, does that make me an optimist or a pessimist ?

Dunno, but there were plenty of people predicting $300 gold on patrick.net 2 years ago. They are still around but conveniently stay clear of any gold thread these days.

Yeah so ? In my experience with trading and human nature, I find that to be far less surprising than your apparent need to repeatedly gloat about your luck with gold (or skill and brilliance if you prefer).

Where was the gloating? I simply stated that others were dead wrong. But that being said, yes, I know they read this thread, so I'm going to jab them as much as possible given their immaturity on the subject 2 years back. And I've said it before, identifying gold as a buy wasn't some brilliant play. It was overly simplistic and obvious. The fact that it supplanted the $1030 level (2008 high) after the full deleveraging crisis of October/November 2008 was a dead giveaway that it was going much higher.

I remember during the latter end of the housing bubble there were people (such as Peter Schiff for one) that were predicting a price correction for U.S. residential real estate along the lines of 30 - 40%. They were almost universally laughed to scorn. I also remember the majority of people laughing at the few that were predicting gold prices over $1,000 per ounce back when it was hovering around $400 ... today it's trading at over $1,400. Not too long ago (when it was trading at around $9.00), I remember hearing predictions that silver would be over $35 per ounce ... it briefly broke $30 today. More laughter. What's even funnier, is that most of these same people are predicting a complete economic collapse in the USA. I have never heard so much negativity about the economy coming from people representing a variety of economic classes. I personally knew this was going to happen because Keynesian economics is a proven fraud.
Economist Ludwig von Mises warned us decades ago: "There is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion. The alternative is only whether the crisis should come sooner as the result of a voluntary abandonment of further credit expansion, or later as a final and total catastrophe of the currency system involved." [Human Action, Regnery, 1966, p. 572.] READ that statement again! Is this not what is beginning to happen to our currency? The Fed’s “quantitative easing” is nothing other than debasing our currency via the dramatic expansion of the money supply. It is also a clear sign that we are nearing the end as an economic super power. Monetizing the debt is what the Fed is really doing. The 500 pound gorilla in the room question is: how long will it be before the rest of the world begins its flight from the Dollar? My prediction is that it won’t be long ... possibly by late 2011.

SohailStar1 says

Some analysts predict that Dow can reach 40,000pts in the coming years.

Sounds crazy, but artificially it can be done.

There are many factors that come in play in such a scenario.

"In the coming years" is vague. A 300% increase in the Dow is guaranteed, over a long enough period of time. It went up over 500% from 1939 to 1960, and over 10,000% from 1980 to 2000.

However, from 1960 to 1980 it was basically flat, and it's been basically flat since 2000 as well.

Almost at the first date of prediction now...

cheers.

xenogear3 says

I can predict the predictions.
The people on this message board are so negative.

Everyone will predict High Unemployment, US dollar tanked, Low Stock Market, Gold and Guns are the king.

All right, except the stock market.
Stock Market will be through the roof high.

- Lower value of dollar means higher stock market.

- Gold and guns are always king (thats how you collect rent in Oakland and Los Angeles)

- Unemployment only going to go up, why hire an american for 20/hour when a chinese/indian will do it for 50cents?

Negative prediction from me would be like this:
- China stops lending us money due to fears of national deficit and inflation.
- We print money zimbabwe style to pay the deficits (since we never cut spending).
- Inflation goes through the roof.
- You'll be trading houses for guns because guns keep you alive.

Chris_In_LosAngeles says

You’ll be trading houses for guns because guns keep you alive.

You forgot about planting potatoes

Chris_In_LosAngeles says

xenogear3 says

I can predict the predictions.

The people on this message board are so negative.
Everyone will predict High Unemployment, US dollar tanked, Low Stock Market, Gold and Guns are the king.

All right, except the stock market.

Stock Market will be through the roof high.
- Lower value of dollar means higher stock market.
- Gold and guns are always king (thats how you collect rent in Oakland and Los Angeles)
- Unemployment only going to go up, why hire an american for 20/hour when a chinese/indian will do it for 50cents?
Negative prediction from me would be like this:

- China stops lending us money due to fears of national deficit and inflation.

- We print money zimbabwe style to pay the deficits (since we never cut spending).

- Inflation goes through the roof.

- You’ll be trading houses for guns because guns keep you alive.

People invoking Zimbabwe in the US are idiots. 100% inflation over 5 years would eliminate the US debt entirely if we had a balanced budget.

If we don't have a balanced budget, no amount of inflation would touch the debt.

America's problems today are not the same as Zimbabwe's (a completely destabilized, chaotic country that underwent massive social change and was never wealthy to begin with) or Weimar Germany's (a country that owed debt in Gold to its neighbors).

Yes, there will be inflation. Yes, it will be significant. No, we won't be pushing around barrels of money to buy bread.

Kevin says

Chris_In_LosAngeles says

xenogear3 says

I can predict the predictions.
The people on this message board are so negative.

Everyone will predict High Unemployment, US dollar tanked, Low Stock Market, Gold and Guns are the king.

All right, except the stock market.
Stock Market will be through the roof high.

- Lower value of dollar means higher stock market.

- Gold and guns are always king (thats how you collect rent in Oakland and Los Angeles)

- Unemployment only going to go up, why hire an american for 20/hour when a chinese/indian will do it for 50cents?

Negative prediction from me would be like this:
- China stops lending us money due to fears of national deficit and inflation.
- We print money zimbabwe style to pay the deficits (since we never cut spending).
- Inflation goes through the roof.
- You’ll be trading houses for guns because guns keep you alive.

People invoking Zimbabwe in the US are idiots. 100% inflation over 5 years would eliminate the US debt entirely if we had a balanced budget.
If we don’t have a balanced budget, no amount of inflation would touch the debt.
America’s problems today are not the same as Zimbabwe’s (a completely destabilized, chaotic country that underwent massive social change and was never wealthy to begin with) or Weimar Germany’s (a country that owed debt in Gold to its neighbors).
Yes, there will be inflation. Yes, it will be significant. No, we won’t be pushing around barrels of money to buy bread.

Why would it eliminate the debt? It is right that it would eliminate past debt. but because we are not living within a balanced budget it would mean new debt would arise (and now under inflated value) faster than old debt would be paid off. We'd just be where we started off, except everyone would be very very poor.

Chris_In_LosAngeles says

Why would it eliminate the debt? It is right that it would eliminate past debt. but because we are not living within a balanced budget it would mean new debt would arise (and now under inflated value) faster than old debt would be paid off. We’d just be where we started off, except everyone would be very very poor.

Did you really only read the first sentence?

Well, it is the end of 2010.

Happy New Year!

Even I was overly pessimistic:

My guesses were:

75 Yen -> dollar
$1.47 US$ -> Euro
$1.03 USD -> AUD (close!)
1215 S&P (way too low)
17% U6 (nailed it)
49 CCI

What I'm utterly shocked by is just how much better things are now than I expected them to be, and I was the optimistic ones.

I don't think I'm going to revise my June 30th predictions though, except for the S&P. I'm predicting the S&P at 1400 in June.

Well I am really off so far on the S&P 500. Might go down as one of the dumbest things written ...

I was right on the stock market numbers overall. It was kind of obvious, rich people don't let their friends fail.

Gold at 10,000!

Halfway point between the two...

I am off on the S&P 500 but closer on the $A and ¥ exchange rates...

I wonder if high oil prices will pull the stock market down a bit...

Consumer confidence up at 64.4... (not sure why, though)
I wonder if they disproportionately ask those in the top 1%...

American in Japan says

Consumer confidence up at 64.4… (not sure why, though)

People are probably becoming more confident that they are spending all their money on food and gas these days...

American in Japan says

Consumer confidence up at 64.4… (not sure why, though)

I kind of wonder how they measure it too, and which areas where confidence is so well off. Last month couple more of my friends joined the unemployed ranks, for some of us confidence in this economy is very low.

Perhaps this gives a shade of info:

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/04/26/Consumer-Confidence-Edges-Up-Despite-Gloomy-Forecasts.aspx

Consumer confidence is 58.5 for June. More to come...

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Consumers-confidence-down-in-apf-4216578380.html

Higher than I thought at 58.5.
the Euro did better than I thought too ... looking for unemployment.

S&P 500 is 1313.9

USD/JPY = 80.4350
AUD/USD = 1.072
EUR/USD = 1.446

U6 unemployement (May 2011 is the latest) 17.4%

Thanks for your predictions everyone. Happy July 4th!

Thanks Thunderlips! I've wanted to close this post up!
I was really close on that one (over by 0.1%). My S&P 500 guesses were way under. I underestimed the power of easy money.
I didn't think the euro would stay as high either...
I prefer U6 to U3 or the other indices, but that is another discussion....

The participation (comments) was OK, but at least thousands looked at this...thanks again.