June 2019 - Independent Investment Advice Blog | Investment Planning

Will The U.S. Become a Bankrupt Banana Republic?

Looking 30 years ahead the growing federal deficit as forecast by a Congressional agency implies the U.S. will become a Banana republic with high interest rates and an unaffordable gigantic budget deficit. Since people may become alert to this and take steps ahead of time to overcome the problem then I expect the following things to occur: * Defense spending greatly reduced, resulting in less global stability and greater flight capital into the US and similar countries. The increased flight capital puts downward pressure on interest rates. * Social Security starting age raised to 72, forcing more workers to delay their retirement, creating a surplus of job seekers, which is deflationary. * Medicare and Medicaid spending reduced through new

Don Martin2019-06-26T17:52:47-07:00June 26th, 2019|mayflowercapital blog|Comments Off

Complex Theories May Confuse You About The Stock Market’s Hidden Risk

In the 1997-2007 mortgage housing bubble the enablers of the bubble tried to rationalize using the Gaussian Copula theory that a Mortgage Backed Security holding mortgages from different states would act diversify the risk of a default. But that rationale was wrong because it was assumed that the successful borrowers would offset the damage caused by the losers. Instead the winners, who are borrowers, are not obligated to bail out the loser or to pay extra to the lender to make up for the loss caused by the defaulting borrower, so the “diversification” was bogus. A similar phenomenon is happening where financial experts assume the central banks can bail out the economy by cutting rates deeply. The problem is

Don Martin2019-06-19T17:06:19-07:00June 19th, 2019|mayflowercapital blog|Comments Off

Negativity About the U.S. Dollar Is Wrong

It seems a many financial advisors and financial commentators are making an increasing amount of negative comments about the U.S. dollar and U.S. Treasuries. I disagree with them. I remember the 1970’s when there were many scary headlines about the end of Bretton Woods monetary agreement, Watergate, Nixon’s resignation, the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, the two OPEC oil shortages of 1973 and 1979 that severely damaged the economy, and the US embassy hostage situation in 1979 in Iran, etc. The dollar went down in value and the economy performed poorly while inflation increased dramatically in the 1970’s. Gold went up from $43 in August, 1971 to a peak of $880 in January, 1980. The inflation-adjusted price return of the

Don Martin2019-06-14T17:25:55-07:00June 14th, 2019|mayflowercapital blog|Comments Off

Employment Market Weakens, Recession Coming Soon

The Employment report was released by the BLS today showing only 75,000 new jobs created, less than the 100,000 a month needed to keep up with population growth. Thus, on a relative population-adjusted basis, employment shrank by 25,000 jobs. Based on employment to population percentages before the GFC of 2008, the hidden unemployed are roughly 1.0% to 1.5% of the workforce, thus the unemployment rate is close to 5% instead of the official 3.6%. Many workers are labeled by the BLS as employed even though they have a speculative, high risk self-employment occupation with almost no income or they may have a waiter’s “job” with a $2.50 an hour minimum wage. The inverted yield curve of bond yields implies

Don Martin2019-06-07T14:57:58-07:00June 7th, 2019|mayflowercapital blog|Comments Off

Monthly Archives: June 2019