Post by unlawflcombatnt on Apr 24, 2007 3:39:00 GMT -6
Below is a link and excerpt from an article by Bill Bonner titled Money..money...money
"Published : Mon 23 Apr, 2007
Money...money...money... ...
We know it’s a rich man’s world, but how rich is the rich
man these days?
In other words, what’s happened in the world of money
since we’ve been away from it?
Well, on one hand, the Dow has gone up, up, and up...we
just hope someone is holding on to the string, or this
balloon might get away...or go pop! Right now, we’re
not sure.
When we checked on Friday, the Dow had risen almost to
13,000. The metals are soaring too, with many base metals
hitting new records and gold back up to nearly $700.
But, on the other hand, a fund manager who’d come to
South America to look for bargains (and whom, by an odd
coincidence, we know from London) had this to say:
“Bargains? Ha! There aren’t any. There’s so much money in
funds that the managers just have to take what they can
get. But the investors don’t seem to care. They’re
pouring cash in faster than the managers can put it to
work. And, of course, they all only want to invest in the
funds AFTER the funds have made a lot of money. The whole
thing is absurd.
“I travel all over the globe. When I was raising money in
about 2003, there were plenty of good investments around.
But then, I had a hard time getting investors to put in
any money. Now, the investments I had targeted are up
100%, 200% and more...and investors are still giving us
more money than we can handle. The only problem is we
can’t find investments that are bargains anymore.”"
Or maybe they can't find any productive investments that justify the prices paid.
"Hedge funds took in more than $60 billion in new money in
the first quarter. The International Herald Tribune
reports that that’s not only making hedge fund managers
rich, with all the legal work involved in the hedge
business, it’s making the lawyers rich too.
What a delightful, degenerate economy! AP reports that 3
million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the U.S.
since George W. Bush came into the White House, but who
cares about making anything anymore? Who cares about
actually creating the things that really make people
wealthier? The money is not in making things...but in
shuffling paper around. Everyone is getting rich -
providing financial services to everyone else, like
people on an island making their livings by taking in
each other’s laundry. Let’s see, we’ll lend you money to
buy a house. Then, you refinance the house with our
friendly rivals down the street...and then you place the
money with a Private Equity firm...that uses it to take a
company private...paying off the shareholders...who take
their loot and put it into a hedge fund that buys the
shares of the same company when it comes back onto the
public market! Whew!
What does it take to keep this grand machine money
machine spinning?
More credit (or cash)...and an incredible amount of
naïveté....not to say, dumbness...."
The full article can be found at:
www.dailyreckoning.co.uk/article/moneymoneymoney0164.html
"Published : Mon 23 Apr, 2007
Money...money...money... ...
We know it’s a rich man’s world, but how rich is the rich
man these days?
In other words, what’s happened in the world of money
since we’ve been away from it?
Well, on one hand, the Dow has gone up, up, and up...we
just hope someone is holding on to the string, or this
balloon might get away...or go pop! Right now, we’re
not sure.
When we checked on Friday, the Dow had risen almost to
13,000. The metals are soaring too, with many base metals
hitting new records and gold back up to nearly $700.
But, on the other hand, a fund manager who’d come to
South America to look for bargains (and whom, by an odd
coincidence, we know from London) had this to say:
“Bargains? Ha! There aren’t any. There’s so much money in
funds that the managers just have to take what they can
get. But the investors don’t seem to care. They’re
pouring cash in faster than the managers can put it to
work. And, of course, they all only want to invest in the
funds AFTER the funds have made a lot of money. The whole
thing is absurd.
“I travel all over the globe. When I was raising money in
about 2003, there were plenty of good investments around.
But then, I had a hard time getting investors to put in
any money. Now, the investments I had targeted are up
100%, 200% and more...and investors are still giving us
more money than we can handle. The only problem is we
can’t find investments that are bargains anymore.”"
Or maybe they can't find any productive investments that justify the prices paid.
"Hedge funds took in more than $60 billion in new money in
the first quarter. The International Herald Tribune
reports that that’s not only making hedge fund managers
rich, with all the legal work involved in the hedge
business, it’s making the lawyers rich too.
What a delightful, degenerate economy! AP reports that 3
million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the U.S.
since George W. Bush came into the White House, but who
cares about making anything anymore? Who cares about
actually creating the things that really make people
wealthier? The money is not in making things...but in
shuffling paper around. Everyone is getting rich -
providing financial services to everyone else, like
people on an island making their livings by taking in
each other’s laundry. Let’s see, we’ll lend you money to
buy a house. Then, you refinance the house with our
friendly rivals down the street...and then you place the
money with a Private Equity firm...that uses it to take a
company private...paying off the shareholders...who take
their loot and put it into a hedge fund that buys the
shares of the same company when it comes back onto the
public market! Whew!
What does it take to keep this grand machine money
machine spinning?
More credit (or cash)...and an incredible amount of
naïveté....not to say, dumbness...."
The full article can be found at:
www.dailyreckoning.co.uk/article/moneymoneymoney0164.html