Saturday, February 19, 2011

Satiric Buying Trends

April 16, 1997
The Onion: 'Everything's $10,000' Chain Goes Out Of Business

WHEELING, WV—Citing "phenomenally poor sales," the retail chain Everything's $10,000 filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy Monday.

September 6, 2000
The Onion: Parents' Record Collection Deemed Hilarious

"We figured since we had this nice new stereophonic hi-fi, we should have some records to play on it," Donald said. "I've always been a real music lover, and I just started buying everything from Henry Mancini to Mitch Miller."

August 6, 2003
The Onion: Everything On Menu So Tempting

CHILLICOTHE, OH—Absolutely everything—everything—on the Cedar Tree Family Restaurant menu is so tempting that diners are going to be hard-pressed to stay on their diets, customers reported Monday.

February 18, 2011
Reuters: "Buy everything" sentiment continues on Wall Street

"I'm showing, by every technical and quantitative standard I have, this market is at extreme levels. But no matter where we start out in the morning, buyers come in."

Oops. That last one isn't satiric! Sorry about that.

6 comments:

EconomicDisconnect said...

Mark,

A long time ago you asked me when I would sell my metals. If I did not keep them in a locked away place both physical and in my mind I would say after Friday's moonshot on silver. As such, I am holding.

Stagflationary Mark said...

GYSC,

Gold and silver certainly make up some of the "buy everything" mindset.

I wish I could do a long-term silver to Progresso canned soup ratio.

I just bought 16 cans of soup at Costco using a Costco coupon. Not only were the cans a mere $9.45 per 8-pack, but the coupon knocked off another $2.75 (per 8-pack).

That brought the cost per can down to just 83.75 cents per can. Amazing. Where are my fellow canned soup speculators?

In sharp contrast, silver is 4x its long-term inflation adjusted price. That's far higher than even the housing bubble went.

August 24, 2008
A Rough Projection of Gold and Silver Prices

Note that the "optimistic" and "wildly bullish" projections are/were well above the "fair value" line. Note that the fair value line uses data that starts in 1970. It is considerably lower if a full century's worth of data is included (as seen in my own chart above).

Also note the "increasing CPI up to 7% by 2013" assumption within the charts. That assumption was seriously tested and continues to be. The price of silver has exploded higher anyway.

nanute said...

I read that Carlos Slim is hedging on silver. That should count for something.
And how did you miss this story?http://www.theonion.com/audio/pope-wins-hosteating-contest,19174/

Stagflationary Mark said...

nanute,

Better still, how did I miss this one? ;)

nanute said...

Yes. I'd did see that. I expect the Tea Party to sign on to the idea post haste. What's not to like about collateralizing the National parks to the Chinese?

Stagflationary Mark said...

nanute,

"Old Faithful" is the global economy's perfect collateral!

Yellowstone: Pristine National Park, Ticking Nature-Bomb?

Sure, it’s only a matter of time before Yellowstone will explode again, covering most of the Midwest in 2 feet of ash, killing everything in sight, and plunging our Earth into years-upon-years of winter. But it’s not likely to happen in our lifetime.