Harry S. Dent Jr.'s Blog, page 155
April 23, 2015
The U.S. Dollar: Our Safe Haven Currency
Reuters recently reported that 26 publicly-traded corporations filed for bankruptcy in the first quarter of 2015. RadioShack, Wet Seal, Caesar Entertainment Group… all kaput. Compare that to the 54 that filed in 2014… we’re already at half that!
What’s worse is that the fundamentals driving these bankruptcies aren’t anywhere near letting up, so this trend will only continue throughout the rest of the year.
One of the largest headwinds to growth — not just for corporations, but also for the whole economy — has been and
“In Sickness and in Health…” Get Married, Save the Economy.
Let me ask you a question: Do you think being married makes you more or less economically stable? Or if you’re not married, do you think it would?
Marriage can be a great reason for two people who join their lives together to save, prepare for retirement, and become more financially stable… but it also brings a lot of its own expenses — kids, bigger homes, more cars. And getting married itself ain’t cheap, either!
April 22, 2015
Old (Investing) Habits Die Hard. Time To Change Your Investment Strategy
Let’s face it: Humans are creatures of habit.
Knowing a bit about biology (my undergrad major), I realize there are evolutionary advantages to creating and executing habitual behaviors. This M.O. allows us to be more efficient with routine tasks, even paving the way for multi-tasking. Doing things we’ve done many times before helps us operate with confidence, which is
Rush Hour! A Bond Market Traffic Jam
In the early 1990s I was a young bond trader with a Wall Street firm.
The business was not exactly like the movies, but it wasn’t too far off, either. We got to work by 7:00 a.m., set the strategy for the day — “Are we buying more or selling more?” — and then got on the phones.
The job was basically poker over the phone, trying to outbid or slightly underbid the competition, depending on the marching orders. We committed millions of dollars with no contract, no signatures, no documents… just a short statement of: “You’re done!”
At the end of the day, we’d often retire across the street to a small bar that catered to our business. We’d swap war stories of who got stuck with what bonds, or who stole inventory from whom, and then after a few rounds we’d start to slip away, back to our apartments or homes.
The next morning, we’d be at our desks by 7:00 a.m. sharp to do it all over again.
Those days are long gone for me, and now they are fading away in general. Even though there are more bonds outstanding than ever, not only are traders disappearing, but so are trades. When interest rates
April 21, 2015
Governments Take Note: Innovation & Diversity Go Hand in Hand
If you haven’t seen the film The Imitation Game with Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, go watch it this week.
The film is about Alan Turing, the mastermind behind the “Turing Machine,” the device which was able to decode secret German messages during World War II.
The German communication system, “Enigma,” was seen as impenetrable before Turing and his team tackled it. For months, nobody understood what Turing was doing — let alone his colleagues. He simply asked them to trust him.
But he wasn’t what you’d call “normal.” Turing was a highly eccentric man who didn’t understand basic social cues. That made trusting him with such an enormous task difficult… but his genius prevailed.
It’s estimated that Turing’s invention ended the war two to four years earlier than it otherwise would have, saving about 14 million lives. And how did they thank him for it? (Spoiler alert ahead)
They drove him to suicide.
Turing was a homosexual. Back in 1952 when he was found “guilty” of committing homosexual acts, homosexuality was still criminalized. So they gave him a choice: Prison or two years on hormone therapy. Not much of a choice at all, really. Ultimately the “treatment” completely unraveled his personality and his mind.
How messed up is that?
The man who quite literally saved the world didn’t receive any thanks (although the Queen posthumously pardoned him in 2013). Instead, he was ostracized! That’s not only short-sighted, but devastating to the innovative process.
Innovation can only come from diverse and eccentric views and diverse and eccentric people — those who reject the status quo and press mankind forward!
This has almost always been the case. Just look at Steve Jobs and Einstein and Galileo and Jesus. Each of these men challenged the mainstream views of their times. And what happened to them?
Steve Jobs was fired.
Galileo was damn near burned at the stake for daring to suggest the world revolved around the Sun and not vice versa.
Jesus was crucified at age 33 for his radical views.
But just look at how much each of these men shaped the world just by being in it!
We all want to be liked and associated with people around us. It’s natural and it’s human. But it’s diversity — those random mutations from the norm — that spawns innovations in evolution and history, just like Darwin proved… and by the way, he wasn’t normal, either!
April 20, 2015
Why Children and Retirees Have More in Common Than You’d Think…
A few weeks ago my lovely wife and younger daughter, who is still in high school, traveled to Texas for a birthday party. It wasn’t just any party, it was the centennial celebration for my wife’s great aunt.
More amazing than this lady’s longevity is the fact she’s not alone. She and her two sisters (my wife’s grandmother and her two great aunts) all live together, ranging in age from 91 to 100. We call it “the house of little old ladies.”
Funny enough, despite their age and circumstances, these three women are considered part of the civilian non-institutional population, which is the potential labor force. In addition to these little old ladies, the definition also includes my high school-age daughter and her siblings, who are still in college.
That’s the odd thing about the potential labor force: It includes people who have no interest in working, at least not at this stage in their lives.
