AirlinePilot wrote:I'd be interested to honestly hear your opinion on how the DJ could hit 15,000 given the current government fiscal landscape, the obvious global barriers to growth which we currently are just beginning to experience, and the lack of leadership both here and abroad when it comes to any ability to control greed and spendthrift politicians. I'm very interested in your scenario.
A.P.:
1). From the context of the discussion (argument), OF2 was clearly talking about in the longer term -- perhaps several or even many years, since he mentioned 20,000 as well.
2). As far as your ability to integrate facts vs. most people -- guess what? Just about EVERYONE believes they are smarter than a significant majority of people. Lake Woebegone for grownups (i.e. where everyone is above average)... I am not making this up. This is a well known and documented overconfidence fallacy recently documented in several books about behavioral economics.
3). As OF2 mentioned, the system is, and has been, pretty royally screwed up for a LONG TIME. If the stock markets are wildly distorted, then most likely, so are the commodity markets. Given the jobs problem, deflation, A,K.A. Japan, may yet be our primary danger. It's tough to say.
If the dollar blows up, I don't want to hold long dated bonds (and don't, in fact I am constantly short long dated treasuries via TBT for a hedge). However, whether gold or copper or oil or grains or a broad diversified portfolio of global stocks like the Vanguard Total International Stock Index Fund (VGTSX) - which basically holds everything ex-US ends up doing better -- frankly, I think it's tough to say. NONE OF US can say precisely what form the next big crash will take, when it will happen, etc.
And Buffett is in OF2's camp (long term). Buffett has EARNED respect through a long term WELL DOCUMENTED track record. When he turns doomer, then I WILL get scared.
....
But I forgot -- you, along with many of the doomers on this site know the future precisely. Yeah. Well, good luck with that.
Given the track record of the perma-doomer blogs, I wouldn't bet a fast crash doomer's money on their predictions.