Buffett Warns on Dollar
Avoid long-term bonds, as the dollars you are paid in may have reached par with toilet paper by that time.
Mr. Buffett gave in New Dehli today. Via Bloomberg:
I would recommend against buying long-term fixed-dollar investments.
I would much rather own businesses [stocks].
If you ask me if the U.S. dollar is going to hold its purchasing power fully at the level of 2011, 5 years, 10 years or 20 years from now, I would tell you it will not.
Translation: Avoid long-term bonds, as dollars you are paid in the future will be worth a lot less. Possibly a lot less, as in par with toilet paper, in outlier scenarios.
"Paper money always returns to its intrinsic value -- zero"
-Voltaire
The language Buffett used in this part was a little odd: "It』s very easy to take away the value of fixed-dollar investments." Take away. That's what some think the Fed is doing. Taking wealth through inflation. Even Alan Greenspan acknowledged this, before he became The Maestro
Well, if the US Treasury is to believed, the United States owns 261.5 million troy ounces of gold.
And according to the Federal Reserve, as of April 7, 2011, there are 8.891 trillion dollars in existence.
So in the event that we want to use the nation』s supply of gold as a backstop for the dollar, you』d have to divide the number of dollars (M2) by the number of troy ounces to come to a true valuation for gold.
Doing so gives you $34,000 an ounce gold. Whoa is right.
That』s if we』re being honest with ourselves and we expect the same kind of honesty from our money. It also means that the dollar has lost 99.99% of its value over just the past 40 years.
Even if you don』t revalue gold according to the outstanding number of FRNs, and instead, you used the current market price of $1,470 an ounce, the dollar has still lost 97% of its value in the past 40 years.
You used to be able to buy 1/42 of an ounce of gold with $1. Today, $1 only buys you 1/1470 of an ounce.
At what point do you think a dollar will buy no gold? At what point will FRNs be seen for what they are by the world: an abstraction based on theft and lies.
Gold-Paper Moneys
IMF警告:美國國債可能淪為垃圾債券 國際貨幣基金組織(IMF)周三表示,美國已成為全球財政赤字水平最高的發達經濟體,並敦促未來的兩年中需要進行歷來最大規模的削赤行動調整。IMF還警告稱,美國對債務的處理方法缺乏「可信度」,債務不斷增長可能再度引發新一輪全球經濟危機。
IMF指出,由於美國財政整頓計劃推遲,預計美國今年赤字佔GDP的比例將與去年10.8%的水平基本持平。相較之下,日本2011年財政赤字佔GDP比例將從2010年的9.5%上升至10%。相反,歐洲赤字比率將下降,歐元區2011年赤字佔GDP比例將從2010年的6%大幅降至4.4%,得益於歐洲退出經濟刺激計劃等舉措。
美國總統奧巴馬將於美國時間周三宣布新的政府預算案。IMF預計,奧巴馬需要在下兩個財年減赤5%,才能在他任期第四年底,實現他遏制財赤的競選承諾。美國政府在當地時間周二公布了最新的財政赤字,三月份錄得1882億美元(約14679.6億港元),比去年同期的金額大得多。去年同期的美國財政赤字為654億美元。
上周,民主共和兩黨就預算案達成協議,同意從本財年預算當中削減385億美元開支,使聯邦政府免於關門窘境。但實際上,兩黨並未正視財政赤字問題。
IMF在半年度《財政監測》(Fiscal Monitor)中指出,根據現有計劃,到2016年,美國將成為除日本以外公共債務還在增長的唯一一個發達國家,這將給全球經濟帶來風險。IMF財政事務主管科塔雷利(Carlo Cottarelli)表示,這個風險如果成為現實,將給全球其它地區帶來非常慘重的影響。因此,美國整頓財政宜早不宜遲,這一點十分重要。
IMF還在報告中建議,美國需要更大規模地削減中期赤字,也需要實施更大範圍的改革,包括社會保障改革和稅收改革。美國經濟非常強勁,「看起來足以」承受更大幅度的緊縮和增稅措施。
美國即將觸及14.3萬億美元的債務上限,國會財政政策之爭預計將在未來幾周甚至幾月進入白熱化狀態。如果議員不同意提高債務上限,美國最早將在7月面臨違約危機。截至目前,民主共和兩黨就此仍存在很大分歧。
全球最大債券基金太平洋投資管理公司(Pimco)創始人兼聯席投資長、債券大王格羅斯(Bill Gross)表示,美國財赤預計將在下一財年達到1.5萬億美元,這是美國領導人的失敗。他還預言,若政府不改革社會保險和社會福利等權益計劃,還將產生1萬億美元赤字。格羅斯不斷做空美國政府相關債券及美國國債,他對美國政府債務前景感到相當悲觀,擔憂美國失去「AAA」主權信用評級,甚至直斥美國債券為「垃圾債券」。
