Could you all be mistaken or is this guy a loon?

[kjpliny]

Came across this in another forum...listened to the whole thing and found it a bit alarming, but interesting nonetheless:

Matrix Economy - Sat, July 28, 2007 Show (300+ Dow drop, Mortgage Resets & The Dollar Index Falling)

Click on the audio link at the top for discussion on the charts...it's kinda long, but worth considering some of the charts and points made.

[haha]

Trying to listen to the commentary caused my computer to freeze, so I am not sure what was said.

As to could we all be mistaken, the answer is yes, of course we could!

But likely if we should be found wrong, it will be in our various ways. It is easy to get the idea that everyone here believes the same thing, more or less Boglehead/Bernstein plus the 4% fixation.

We don't, it's just that any discussion group develops an outlook that becomes more or less its orthodoxy. Individuals who deviate too often in their postings are not really listened to. In fact, the largest threads have much in common with call and response group singing.

Bogle, Bogle, he's our man, if he can't do it nobody can!!

People get tired of having their assumptions called into question. If this is carried too far, especially by a a socially maladroit person the result may be ostracism.

Also, since many of us are retired or strongly committed to doing so, too much talk about risk is emotionally de-stabilizing. In America especially we tend to believe that anything emotionally uncomfortable is best avoided. After all, whatever risk is in question may well never happen, right?

I am sure that the more thoughtful and experienced posters realize that our "consensus" is more apparent than real.

Ha

[Helena]

Mistaken about what ?

[Arif]

Not to hijack this thread but to want to ER means (to me) that you are already in the minority. Similar to convincing someone that they should LBYM so is convincing others about a different strategy for ER.
My ER is not predicated on how many people I can get to agree with me. It's based on planning, analyzing and changing the plan if need be. I think ER is fluid in the sense that as much as we would like to think we can plan and forget it, it just does not work that way. For instance, you might plan to take a vacation every year but after 15 years of going to different locals even that might get old and thus a change is born.
I've invested largely (85% of networth) in real estate and so "taking" 4% of a rental doesn't really work for me. I limit my expenses (by moving to Panama)and live off of the rents and or sale of my properties. There's probably 2 or 3 posters here that live off of their rentals but other than that I'm on my own to figure it out. Again that doesn't bother me as I tend to go my own way most of the times anyway.

[Webzter]

I've been expecting a crisis for about a year now. "Everything's a bubble".

But, what can you reasonably do? If I decide that it's all hopeless and just spend now like a drunken sailor, then I'm screwed if I'm wrong. On the other hand, if I spend well below my means now, save and invest as fast as possible, only to find out that I'm right and proceed to watch all of my money disappear, then odds are that I'm in pretty good company. We can all be poor together at that point.

[jnojr]

Who the hell are "Steve" and "Ben", and why do I care

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Some of his information might be okay, but he's definitely a loon.

[ladelfina]

This sounds a lot like the "doom and gloom" books my dad read during the '70s.. How to Prepare for the Coming Economic Collapse / Stock Market Crash.. etc.

Result.. my mom has about a half-a-ton of wierdo coin sets (worth less now than when purchased even in nominal terms) along with bags of pennies, silver dollars, and a few handfuls of Kruggerands. Purchased in the mid-70s sometime let's say this gold was $150-$200/oz. That brings us to jessst about 5% annual increase. Coulda been a winner if sold at the most recent peak in 1980.. but no one happened to be rooting around in the basement at looking for stuff to sell at that partickularr point.

I guess there is an argument that adjusted for inflation gold is at that "low attractive" '70s price. Maybe so.

Whatever.. Of the five links offered us by the Matrix Economy site, two are where to buy gold, one is currency trading, one is money supply and the fifth is "Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse":

Quote:

There was some confusion about the various editions of the novel. Some people have written asking if Patriots is a sequel to Triple Ought or TEOTWAWKI. It isn't. Rather, it is a thoroughly fleshed-out edition of the same story line. There is a wealth of new technical detail in Patriots, and even some new characters. Much of the material was suggested by readers from all around the globe who had read one the draft shareware editions. To avoid any further confusion, we'll explain the various iterations of the novel... 1.) The Gray Nineties was the title of a 19 chapter draft edition of the novel. It was distributed as shareware via the Internet from 1995 to 1997. 2.) Triple Ought was a 27 chapter draft edition of the novel. It was distributed via the Internet from 1997 to early 1998. It was highly successful, with tens of thousands of downloads logged from the 11 mirror sites in North America and Europe. The various Triple Ought sites were linked by more than 150 web sites dedicated to Christian, patriotic, survival, and Y2K issues. It was reviewed in a variety of on-line publications as well as print publications such as American Survival Guide magazine, the Bo Gritz newsletter, and The Idaho Observer. 3.) TEOTWAWKI (an acronym for "The End of the World as We Know It") was a 33 chapter expanded self-published edition of the novel, printed and Velo bound in 8-1/2 x 11 format. It included six appendices. Note: TEOTWAWKI was never distributed as shareware. It was sold during 1997 and 1998. 4.) Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse was the title of a 31 chapter (352 page) abridged edition of the novel that was in trade paperback from Huntington House, with a color cover. It was in print from November of 1998 to January of 2005. 5.) Patriots: Surviving the Coming Collapse --Expanded Edition is the title of a 33 chapter (384 page) edition of the novel currently in trade paperback from Ex Libris, with a color cover. (There is not a hardback edition.) Printing commenced in November of 2006.

So.. yeah, check out the new technical Christian, patriotic, survival, and Y2K data (what's "new" is likely the editing-out of the Y2K stuff..).
I promise I won't come knockin' on your bunker door when the world ends, so stand down.



Peace, y'all!

If that table #3 is accurate, though, it is very eerie!