Tag Archives: Jim Rogers

Why You Win or Lose

Wrong

 Jim Rogers, “Well in my new book, http://www.amazon.com/Street-Smarts-Adventures-Road-Markets/, I explain why many schools now are going to go bankrupt—why American education is going to see some starving, some shocking bankruptcies coming out of American tertiary education—and business school is certainly not much use, I was once a full professor in an Ivy League business school (Columbia GBS), and I will tell you, Jeff Macke, most of what goes on is not very useful at all, except to the professors. They charge huge amounts of money. They teach a lot of conventional wisdom, so the kids who come out, come out in the hole financially but also knowledge-wise; their peers who went to work are way ahead of them financially after two years, but secondly knowledge-wise, too, because a lot of what they teach in business school is flat-out wrong.

These poor kids have to unlearn it and start over. In my view, if you do your own work and teach yourself or start with what you know, you will come out way, way, way ahead of going to business school. I consider business school a complete waste of time, money, energy, and everything else. I’ll tell you what, Jeff, you go down and short soybeans one day, you will learn more in the first six weeks than you will learn in 10 years at any business school. The Internet and real life is a fast way to learn, if your are really interests (Source: pages 26-27 in http://www.amazon.com/Clash-Financial-Pundits-Influences-Investment/).

Why You Win or Lose: WHY_YOU_WIN_or_LOSE_Fred_Kelly (1)

A short synopsis of the 1930 contrarian classic.

Another new investing blog: http://glennchan.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/insider-ownership-is-overrated/#comment-1882

One of my favorites:

http://reminiscencesofastockblogger.com/2014/06/15/a-new-bet-on-hercules-offshore/   (Don’t be lazy–do thy own work)

Jim Rogers on Getting An MBA; Andrew Weiss–One of the Best

 

CAR on Hwy

Jim Rogers taught an investing class back in the late 1980s at Columbia Business School so he could play squash there. He had the students take a market cycle and study everything they could surrounding what made the market go up and down. Why did cotton boom and bust from 1860 to 1865? Railway shares in 1856? Soybeans in the 1970s?  He taught case studies.

Discovering more of Jim Rogers. 1987-1993 by a Jim Rogers Fan

Rich
Dallas, Texas

After I discovered Jim Rogers, through an incredible night lecture, while a student at Columbia University, I never expected to bump in to this guy again. I graduated in 1987, and began working as an architect in NY. My interest in the stock market was there, but I had very little training, little money, and nothing to go on, other than a few dull books, watching NPR, and an occasional effort to get my hands on some Value Lines. And I had the memory of Roger’s lecture, where he gave a lot of basic tips and advice, not all unlike the kinds of simple tips I would read about in Peter Lynch’s first book, One Up on Wall Street.

One day, probably around 1989 or 1990, as I walked past a newstand in the Union Square subway, I happened to look down at a stack of Barrons’, and I saw the words “Barrons Round Table” and “with Jim Rogers.” After a doubletake, I jumped on that copy. My buddy Rogers has showed up in my life again. And so began my worship of the Barrons Round Table. Not only was Jim Rogers there, but a few other names I had begun to get acquainted with over the years. . including Peter Lynch, John Neff and others. This was great for me – an education in the stock market by watching these guys predict the year. I had never heard of the Barrons Round Table before. Had I not seen Roger’s name, I might never had noticed it.

From that day on, my own investment strategy worked like this. I read the Barron’s Round Table, every January, during it’s 3 weeks of publication, to determine how the year would go. Then I would pick my favorite 3 or 4 ideas from the group, and invest. I was too busy with other things in my life to worry with stock analysis every day, or every month. And since I invested long term, this was good enough for me. To this very day, I wait patiently for the third week of January to roll around, so I can read what the famous group has to say about the coming year. It’s become a ritual that I can’t stop doing. I love it. And I’ve learned a lot just listening to these guys, observing how they think, and checking their results the following year.

And of course, I have to go with what fits my own senses. I never like the whole group. Not every idea appeals to me personally. Not every idea I can understand. Since my attitude is very black sheep, I quite naturally cozy up to the black sheep like Rogers. To Lynch’s credit, who is less black, his ideas often paid me well. I still remember his recommendation on British Steel. Good one. And Rogers’ ideas were often so weird, or foreign, I had no way to buy what he was recommending. I could not buy Botswana’s stock market. I couldn’t buy apple farms in New Zealand. But once I did buy a CD’s from a New Zealand bank and a Danish bank, indirectly following his advice on the currency — paid back nicely after 6 months. Roger’s pick on silver back then did not do me well at all. Big loser. One of my worst buys of all time. As he readily admits, he ain’t perfect. Couer D Alene Mines – what a haunting story that stock has been over the past 15 years. Of course, if you use this technique of annual buying, you are on your own in terms of figuring out when to sell.

This was all before Rogers showed up on cable TV. Before his books came out. Eventually, he disappeared from the Round Table for a while so he could travel the world on a motorcycle. But upon hearing that, it did force me to recall his words from back in 1987 at Columbia. He told the audience, which was 99% MBA students, that the biggest waste of time and money was getting an MBA. They all laughed, of course, since they were paying a fortune to be there, and Rogers was being paid to teach them. He said if they wanted to be successful, they would be better off traveling the world, working abroad, and getting to know another country. When I heard Rogers was circling the globe on a motorcycle, I figured he was practicing what he preached.

Note: We welcome our visitors to share with us stories related to Jim Rogers. Please email your stories to JimRogers.NoOffence@gmail.com

http://www.autopenhosting.org/futuresoptions/Jim-Rogers-experience-2.html

 

Andrew Weiss (economist)

From Wikipedia

Early Years and Education

Weiss was born in New York in 1947. He graduated with Honors from Williams College in 1968 with a BA in Political Economy. In 1977, he received his PhD in Economics from Stanford University.

Academic career

Weiss began his career in 1976 as an Assistant Professor at Columbia University, as well as a Research Economist in the Mathematics Center at Bell Laboratories. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank and the United States National Research Council, the research arm of the United States National Academy of Sciences. In 1989, Weiss was elected a Fellow[3] of the Econometric Society. The Nobel Prize in Economics to Joseph Stiglitz in 2001 cited Weiss’ research with Stiglitz as having had “a substantial impact in the domains of corporate finance, monetary theory and macroeconomics.”[4] As of October 2008, Weiss was ranked in the top 2 percent of published economists by the number of citations to his papers.[5]

Professional career

Andrew Weiss is the Founder and current Chief Executive Officer of Weiss Asset Management, a Boston-based investment firm. Weiss and the investment strategies of Weiss Asset Management have been the subject of numerous U.S. and European newspaper and magazine articles, including features in Forbes, Outstanding Investor Digest, Micropal, and The Motley Fool.[6]

In the Press

During a CNBC program, Michael Metz, the Chief Investment Strategist for Oppenheimer Holdings, proclaimed Weiss to be “one of the most brilliant money managers that I know.” Bruce Greenwald, the Robert Heilbrunn Professor of Finance and Asset Management at Columbia University and author of Value Investing, said of Weiss in an interview with The Motley Fool, “If I had one person to pick and one guy to put the money in, I would pick him.”[6] Robert Solow, a Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics and an Institute Professor at MIT, said at a press conference on March 15, 2005 “[Weiss] is a significant person among US economists. I have known him personally for 30 years and I have the highest respect for him.” Laurence Kotlikoff, Professor of Economics at Boston University, was quoted in The Boston Globe article Nighmare in Prague as saying Weiss is “a brilliant economist, and he’s an outstanding investor. He’s scrupulously honest, and I’d trust him with anything”.[7]

References

External links

Portfolio: http://whalewisdom.com/filer/weiss-capital-llc

Wow, he has some cheap mining stocks (THM and RIC)

 

 

Hitler’s SS and Investing; Jim Rogers’ Interview; What Is Inside Banks?

Snowman

Daniel Kahneman on Life and Investing (Interview)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveforbes/2013/01/24/nobel-prize-winner-daniel-kahneman-lessons-from-hitlers-ss-and-the-danger-in-trusting-your-gut/

Buffett’s Favorite Valuation Metric:

http://pragcap.com/buffetts-favorite-valuation-metric-surges-over-the-100-level

Quant. Value: http://abnormalreturns.com/qa-with-wesley-gray-co-author-of-quantitative-value/

 

What is Inside Banks? What is inside Americas Banks

An excellent article by The Atlantic. The article explains why some banks trade under tangible book value. Investors do not trust the balance sheets of the banks and therefore do not trust the reported earnings.  If the banks had truly cleansed themselves of rotten loans and assets, our economy would be growing faster but thanks to intervention, we slog on.

Yet, don’t let that stop you from studying WFC: Wells Fargo Notes

and visit The Brooklyn Investor

Legendary Jim Rogers: Brokers Going Broke, Farmers Will Become Rich – Very Rich!

Jim Rogers is a renowned international investor. In 1973, he co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros. After a fantastically successful decade, he retired to travel the world. He is the author of Investment Biker: On The Road With Jim Rogers and A Bull in China: Investing Profitably in the World’s Greatest Market, among other books. He also runs the Rogers Global Resources Equity Index. Recently Rogers sat down with Steve Forbes to talk about why the global economy is moving to Asia, where he’s putting his money and what the U.S. can do to right the ship. Video and a transcript of their conversation follows.

Steve Forbes: Jim Rogers, thank you for joining us.

CSInvesting Editor: I like his cantankerous, contrary nature.

Jim Rogers: My pleasure.

Forbes: Let’s go through a little bit of history. You teamed up in the early 1970s with George Soros. Had a great fund, got out in the early 1980s. Quickly recapture what you did and how you did it at such a young age.

Rogers: Well, we had a successful ten years. I didn’t want to wake up at 75 and still be looking at a computer screen. I’d always wanted to have more than one life, so off I set to have more than one life. And I’ve had more than one life. I retired. I was 37. And set off to have more than one life.

Forbes: Any motorcycle trips in the offing? Any more books on the exotic places of the world?

Rogers: No. I went around the world in a car, 1999 to 2001, and I really haven’t been on a motorcycle much since then. It grieves me that you ask, because some of the finest times of my life were on motorcycles, including the trip around the world on the motorcycle. But now I’m doing other things. I’ve got two little girls. I’m living in Singapore, which is not a great motorcycle place. Now I’m doing other things.

Forbes: I can’t imagine you speeding there.

Rogers: No, no. I mean, the speed limit is 90 kilometers an hour! It’s not a great motorcycle place.

Forbes: Not to be negotiated.

Rogers: Right, and not negotiable. You’re right. Exactly.

Forbes: Talking about Singapore, when you moved there you decided to have three dates:  1807, you’d move to London. 1907, you’ve got to go to New York. 2007, you’re in Asia, specifically Singapore. Why?

Rogers: Well, the 20th century was the century of the U.S. The 19th century was the century of the U.K. The 21st century will be the century of Asia, and it’s becoming more and more evident. And especially of China. I wanted my children to grow up knowing Asia and speaking Mandarin. I think the best skills that I can give two girls born in 2003 and 2008 is to know Asia and to know Mandarin. So there we are. I couldn’t do it in New York. I tried. I tried doing it in New York. But it was not possible. So there we are.

Forbes: What do you see as the problem with the U.S.?

Rogers: The main problem is the staggering debt. We are the largest debtor nation in the history of the world, Steve, as you undoubtedly know, because you probably read Forbes. It’s amazing how high the debt is, and it’s going up by leaps and bounds. It’s just mind boggling how fast it’s going up. Nobody seems to understand or care what the significance and the consequences will be. It’s not good. It’s not good news.

Forbes: In the past, we’ve had some rough periods – I remember the malaise of the 1970s – and the U.S. has come back. You don’t see that happening again? Are we just digging the hole so deep we’re not going to be able to get ourselves out?

Rogers: There will be rallies. The U.K. in 1918 was the richest, most powerful country in the world. There was no number two. In three generations, they were bankrupt. Now in that period of time, they had some rallies, as you well know. They won the Second World War, for instance. So they had some big rallies. But basically, they were in decline.

I would like to think that there’s something which is going to save us. I can think of some things which will give us rallies. But I cannot see anything – I mean, look at Japan. Japan has staggering internal debt. They still are externally a creditor nation. They still have a balance of trade surplus. We’re the largest external debtor nation in history and the largest internal debtor nation in history. We’ll have rallies. But Steve, I don’t see what can cause us to repeat, perhaps, the ’70s. We’re in relative decline. Maybe you would like to debate that. I don’t think so. I don’t see that that relative decline will stop.

Forbes: Now in terms of investing, commodities. You have the Rogers Global Resources Equity Index. You don’t see the dollar eventually getting strong again? Do you think commodities replace –

Rogers: I actually own the dollar. I actually own the dollar, as we stand here. I bought the dollar 15-16 months ago. 17.

Forbes: That’s just a bear market rally?

Rogers: It’s a bear market rally, yes, in my view. Although when I walk out of here, I may buy more. No, I don’t see it as anything more than a bear market rally. But I own several currencies around the world. There may be a time, Steve, in the foreseeable future, when all of us are going to be getting rid of our paper money, because it’s being debased all over the world. One reason I own the dollar is because everybody’s panicked about the debasement of these other currencies. Paper money is suspect.

Forbes: So it’s just the best house in a bad neighborhood?

Rogers: I’m not even sure it’s the best house in a bad neighborhood. But it’s a good house in the bad neighborhood, for the moment.

Forbes: Getting back to commodities, what makes you bullish on commodities?

Rogers: Well, there’s been a huge dearth of investment in productive capacity for 30 years now. The last lead smelter built in America was built in 1969. No gigantic elephant oil fields discovered since the 1960s. I could go to agriculture. Steve, you should start an agriculture magazine. Because the profits in agriculture –

Forbes: Share with us the observation you made about somebody majoring in public relations and agriculture.

Rogers: Well done. More people in America study public relations than study farming. We have no farmers. You went to Princeton; nobody you went to school with became a farmer. I went to Yale; nobody I went to Yale with became a farmer. The average age of farmers in America is 58 years old. In Japan, the average age is 66. In Australia, it’s 58. Hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers commit suicide every year. It’s a disastrous business. In the U.K., the highest rate of suicide is in agriculture. It’s been a horrible business for 30 years. Prices have to go up – have go to up a lot – or we’re not going to have any food at any price.

Unless you’re going to become a farmer.

Forbes: Then we truly starve. But you pointed out we have 200,000 PR graduates, 20,000 farmers coming out of our schools. And you have a wonderful phrase, “You can’t eat press releases.”

Rogers: That’s exactly right. You cannot eat press releases. It was actually 200,000 M.B.A.’s we have coming out. That’s even worse. We have more people doing M.B.A.’s than doing PR.

There’s going to be a huge shift in American society, American culture, in the places where one is going to get rich. The stock brokers are going to be driving taxis. The smart ones will learn to drive tractors so they can work for the smart farmers. The farmers are going to be driving Lamborghinis. I’m telling you. You should start Forbes Farming.

Forbes: In the 1970s, we heard the same thing, and it didn’t happen. Why?

Rogers: Well, farmers did make a lot of money in the 1970s.

Forbes: And then lost it all in the ’80s.

Rogers: Yeah, but it actually started before. That’s my point. These things go in cycles. There has never been any bull market which has lasted forever. No bull market in the history of the world has lasted forever. These commodity cycles come and go. On average, they’ve lasted 18 to 20 years in the past. I have no idea how long this will last. But it’s not over yet.

Forbes: Thoughts on gold? You were suspicious in the late 2011, not without reason. Where does that go from here?

Rogers: Well, I own gold. I’m not selling my gold. I’m not even hedging my gold, at the moment, although I’m thinking about it. Gold’s up 11 years in a row, which is extremely unusual, as you know, for any asset class. It’s correcting right now. I would suspect it’s going to continue to correct.

There are some things going on in the world. The Indians are coming down hard on gold, and they’re the largest consumer of gold in the world. So it may continue to correct. If so – if it goes down further – I hope I’m smart enough to buy more. To buy a lot more. The bull market in gold is not over yet, Steve.

Forbes: Now going back to Asia, China. You have not been a big fan of stocks. You are of the currency. How do you play China now?

Rogers: The best way to play China is commodities, because they have to buy commodities. If you’ve got cotton, they will take you to dinner, they will pay for your dinner and they’ll pay you on time. You don’t have to worry about corporate governance or any of that kind of stuff. They don’t care who the head of The Federal Reserve is if you have cotton. Because cotton is its own world. And many other commodities, as well.

I own the Renminbi, as well. It’s a good way to play China. I don’t buy Chinese shares, except when they collapse. They collapsed last in November of 2008. I bought more Chinese shares. If and when they collapse again, I’ll buy more. My Chinese shares are for my children. They’re not for me.

Forbes: Now looking at China itself, can they become (as the U.S. has been) an innovative economy instead of a catch up economy? Are they going to do the real value added stuff? Do you see the changes coming on that?

Rogers: The first time I went to China, 25 or 30 years ago, there was one radio, one TV, one newspaper, one way to dress, one everything. That’s changed dramatically, as you know. In China now, they produce something like, I don’t know, 20 times as many engineers every year as we do. They didn’t in the past. It was a very closed and traumatic society and autocratic society. That’s changing rapidly.

I suspect, yes, some of these engineers are going to turn out to be hotshot engineers. I don’t know when. I don’t know where. But China has a long history of entrepreneurship and capitalism. They’ve been disastrous, at times, in their history. But they’ve also been spectacularly successful, at some times in their history. So teach your children Mandarin, teach your grandchildren Mandarin.

Forbes: You’re not a fan of India?

Rogers: No, no, no. I’m short India as a matter of fact. I love to go there. If you can only visit one country in your life, Steve, for whatever reason, I would urge you to go to India. There’s nothing quite like it from a tourist point of view. But as far as a bureaucratic maze, it’s the worst bureaucracy in the world. They don’t like foreigners. They don’t like capitalists. They don’t like people making money. It’s a fabulous country to visit, but I wouldn’t try to do business there.

Forbes: So what’s happening in high tech is just an outlier?

Rogers: Yeah, very much so. You can probably name four or five companies – I doubt if you could name four or five, I could probably name two or three high technology companies. Steve, there are a billion people in India. We hope that somebody’s successful. And most of the outlying outliers that are the successful Indians that you know live in Europe or America. There are very few great success stories in India itself. There are. They exist. Out of a billion people, of course.

Forbes: Japan? Are they ever going to get out of this rut?

Rogers: I own the currency. And when they had the tsunami, I bought shares, as a matter of fact, as they collapsed. It’s always been a good thing to do when there’s a huge natural disaster. It’s usually a good thing to do, to buy into the market. I doubt in five years I will own them. I doubt if I’ll own the currency or the shares. Japan’s got staggering problems. They’ve got the highest internal debt in the world and they’ve got a declining population. They’ve got serious problems.

Forbes: Talking about debt, India’s piling on debt, too.

Rogers: I know. That’s why I’m short India. That’s one reason I’m short India – because they’ve got this huge debt. For some reason there are all these bulls walking around that don’t seem to understand that India has a debt to GDP ratio of 90%. They’re still bullish. They don’t do their homework.

Forbes: You going into Myanmar?

Rogers: I’m extremely optimistic. If I could put all of my money into Myanmar, I would. I cannot, because you and I are citizens of the land of the free. In the land of the free, we cannot invest in Myanmar. Everybody else can. The Japanese, everybody’s pouring into Myanmar, except all of us from the land of the free.

It is so exciting. It is like going to China in 1978; it’s exactly the same place. It might be more exciting, because it’s been such a disaster for 50 years and now they’re opening up. They’re right between India on the left, China on the right – huge natural resources, 60 million people, disciplined, hard work, educated. Oh my gosh, it’s such an exciting opportunity. But all you and I can do is I can read about it in Forbes. I can’t do anything.

Forbes: Where else are you doing things?

Rogers: Well, the other place that I see wildly exciting things is North Korea, but we can’t do anything there. There’s no market in North Korea either. But there’s going to be a merger soon of North and South Korea and that’s going to be a very, very exciting place. Then you’ll have a country of 75 million people, right on the border of China, huge labor pool, lots of natural resources in North Korea. They’re going to run circles around the Japanese. The reasons the Japanese don’t want it to happen is because they don’t want a huge new competitor. They got their own problems.

North Korea, I wish I could find – I’m looking for ways to invest. I have a couple of ways. But they’re not of great interest. These are the places that I find the most exciting. But as far as stocks, for the most part I’m short stocks. I don’t own many stocks in the world. I own commodities. I own currencies.

Forbes: Vineyards?

Rogers: Not in vineyards. No, that’s a good idea. I don’t own any. No, I don’t own any vineyards. No, I drink the stuff, I don’t grow it. It takes too long to grow it, so I’d rather drink it.

Forbes: So to sum up, the U.S. – long term, secular decline.

Rogers: Certainly relative secular decline. There’s no question about that. We may have a lot of oil. When the U.K. had a big rally, went bankrupt in the ’70s, it had a big rally because the North Sea oil started flowing. I know Margaret Thatcher takes credit for it – it was the North Sea. North Sea oil started flowing in 1979, the same year Margaret Thatcher came to power.

If you give me the largest oil field in the world, I’ll show you an extremely good time, as you can imagine. We may have the largest oilfield in the world, with all this oil shale and natural gas, shale gas if they can solve the environmental problems. That would cause a huge rally in the U.S. We’re very good at agriculture or have been. That could cause a big rally in the U.S.

So don’t give up on the U.S. I own the dollar. I’m a U.S. taxpayer, U.S. citizen. So don’t give up on the U.S. But I’m afraid it’s nothing more than a secular rally, because we’re the largest debtor nation in the world and nobody cares, except me and you. I know you care. But other than the two of us, nobody seems to care.

Forbes: So why aren’t you running for president?

Rogers: No, no, no.

Forbes: Might do better than I did.

Rogers: No, that’s why I’m not. Because I know I wouldn’t. And second of all, you think I want to spend my time being nice to people I don’t want to be nice to? You tried that. I can’t imagine it’s a lot of fun, going out day to day being nice to people you don’t want to be nice to. I don’t want to do that.

Forbes: Jimmy, thank you.

Rogers: Thank you, Steve. Good fun, as usual.

 

 

Free Courses on Mental Models, ValueX Vail, and More…..

Free Courses

Mental Models

Learn how to think better with a lattice-work of mental models: https://www.coursera.org/modelthinking/auth/welcome. This is a 10-week live video lecture series with quizzes and interaction with the professor.

Constitution 101: The Meaning and History of the Constitution

Live and archived lectures February 20, 2012 to April 30, 2012. You will be asked for a donation, but you can choose to decline and take the course.

www.hillsdaleoffer.com/constitution101

Interesting Links

www.simoleonsense.com

Jim Rogers: Don’t trust the government as an investor. http://lewrockwell.com/wenzel/wenzel160.html

The Superinvestor, Walter Schloss, dies. www.greenbackd.com

VALUEx Vail 2012

The Second Annual VALUEx Vail will be held in Vail, Colorado, June 20th through 22nd.  

VALUEx Vail is designed for serious investors to share ideas and learn from one another’s experiences, all while enjoying each other’s company and fun activities in the gorgeous Colorado mountains.

Here are my thoughts and pictures from VALUEx Vail 2011.

We’ll have about six brief presentations every evening (Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) for about two hours, followed by dinner (we’ll alternate restaurants every night).  In addition will have a “dessert speaker” who will do an informal talk and Q&A on an interesting subject.  To conclude each day, the more adventurous types are welcome to join us at the bar for drinks.

Success of VALUEx Vail depends on participants’ presentations.  Therefore, all attendees will be asked to share ideas, whether they will be shared in a 15-minute presentation, in a “dessert talk,” or more informally late at night in the bar.  We’ll only have time for about twenty 15-minute presentations; therefore, while everyone should be willing to present, we’ll chose only twenty presenters.  The presentation could be on any investment topic, including but not limited to stock ideas (long or short), geopolitical discussion, sector or industry analysis, insights into the investment process, etc.  Once we finalize the attendee list, we’ll contact you about your presentation.

In the morning, if you can get up after the night before (!), please join the group for breakfast.  Sometime after breakfast we’ll do a fun activity.  Last year we did ziplining, had lunch at a ranch, and took a gondola to the top of the mountain (and got rained out and had lunch on top of the mountain).  The location of the group lunch will depend on which fun activity we choose.

VALUEx is a perfect opportunity for a family vacation.  Family members, including children of all ages, are encouraged to participate in fun activities during the day.  I’ll bring my whole family.

My family has been going to Vail for almost twenty years.  We spend a few weeks there every summer, riding bikes, going for long walks, riding the gondola to the top of the mountain, or simply doing nothing.  Here are a few pictures I have taken in Vail over the years

Accommodations: In late April or early May we’ll send a list of recommended hotels.  Mid-June is fairly slow in Vail, hotel prices are very reasonable, and you should not have a problem (with a reasonable lead time) finding a decent room.  Almost everything in Vail is within walking distance.  There are no cars allowed in Vail Village or Lions Head (the western side of Vail), so you either walk, ride the free bus (which comes along every 10 minutes), or ride a bike, which you can also rent nearby.

Dress code: very casual, comfortable clothes

Cost: This is a not-for-profit event.  There will be a nominal fee ($200) to cover organizational/activity expenses.  You have until May 1st to change your mind and receive a full refund; it will not be refundable after that.

Attendees will be responsible for hotel, food, and activities.  It is important to note that we are not in the conference business.  All we are doing is taking your hard-earned money and transferring it to the even more hard-working service providers (restaurants, activity providers, etc.)  Last year the cost of exclusive use of the facility where presentations were held, plus food and drinks, averaged about $150 an evening per attendee.  As we get closer to the event we’ll send you a link where you’ll be able to prepay for dinners and activities.

How to apply: Since all content is attendee-generated, we are more concerned about the quality of attendees than about quantity (also, for best flow of ideas, we limit size to 40 attendees).  If you’d like to attend send me an email vk@imausa.com , and in a few paragraphs tell me about yourself, your experience, your areas of expertise, and a  topic/idea you’d like to discuss at the conference.  I understand that things may change in a few months, but this will give me a general idea.  It is important to note that you don’t have to be a professional value investor to apply.  Though we envision that the majority of attendees will be professional value investors, there is also value in a diversity of views, so if you are a die-hard nonprofessional value investor, please apply!

 Contact information: If you have questions, please feel free to contact Cristy Reid at cr@imausa.com or (303) 796-8333.

Free Resources on Value Investing; Kahneman Podcast on Uncertainty; Apple; Reader’s Questions

I’m sorry, if you were right, I’d agree with you.–Robin Williams

CAPATCOLUMBIA

Free Value Investing Course Work here: www.Capatcolumbia.com

Kahneman Podcast on Uncertainty

Professor Kahneman uses a variety of examples to discuss the inside/outside view, statistics and stories and prediction. (1:02:45). This radical pessimist says, “The world makes more sense to us than it really is.”  Excellent Podcast! http://www.thoughtleaderforum.com/default.asp?P=909655&S=945705

Other interesting lectures as well at www.thoughtleaderforum.com

Key takeaway: As a value investor when investing in a franchise with a winner take all market-BE PATIENT.

Federal Reserve Lectures

Bernanke Lectures on the Federal Reserve: http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/other/20120126a.htm

Counterpoint to Bernanke’s Lectures: http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/01/march-madness-bernanke-versus-rothbard.html

Austrian Value Investor, Jim Rogers

A value investor who incorporates “Austrian” economics into his investing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Rogers

The State of America Today

Oglala Sioux, Russell Means gives a State of the Union Address. http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/01/russell-means-endorses-ron-paul.html  More informative than Obama’s recent address to the nation last week. Forget the Paul endorsement and instead ask as an investor–if change occurs at the margin, does the Patriot Act and Obama’s recent rejection of the Keystone Pipeline (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-keystone-pipeline-rejection-is-hard-to-accept/2012/01/18/gIQAf9UG9P_story.html) raise the cost of capital for American companies in general (P/E multiples become compressed).

Russell Charles Means (born November 10, 1939) is an Oglala Sioux activist for the rights of Native American people. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) after joining the organisation in 1968, and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage. The organization split in 1993, in part over the 1975 murder of Anna Mae Aquash, the leading woman activist in AIM.[1]

Greenwald Student Discusses Apple’s Success

From his email: This is what Greenwald will probably say, which is partly true. But you can put anything to his framework (once successful), and say that is their core competency.

1. Apple’s core expertise is in design, and they extend this design to all products.

2. They don’t manufacture the hardware. They assemble them and wrap it in a much better design. Everything that goes into the hardware, CPU, Hard disks, Memory is not made by them.

3. They do software – some of it, like the OS, etc. They don’t do everything. Even steve jobs says, Focus, Focus, get rid of the things that we don’t want. He gave the Google guys the same advice. Don’t become like Microsoft – don’t try to do a lot of things. Stick to four or five things.

You can also think about Steve Jobs as someone who has come and reduced the inefficiencies. I mean when each person has three/four devices that he can access information from – it will be so much better if someone integrates the content. If you take a picture, and you can seamlessly see it on your iPad, Itouch, Mac, Apple TV (not yet released), customers would benefit. Same applies to email, contacts, etc. (rather than taking a usb stick and moving it around all the time).

They are creating products where there is a need like any entrepreneur.

Reader Question on Real Savings

In “Other Views on Inflation and Stocks” section from this post:http://wp.me/p1PgpH-kz, the Mises links talk about the pool of real savings. What is the author referring to? Does the real pool of savings track real changes in the exchange of goods and services?

My reply: Not exactly……see below. Savings is not the transfer of REAL goods and services being exchanged back and forth, but the postponement of present consumption for the future.

 Why Government Data on Saving is Misleading

The nature of the market economy is such that it allows various individuals to specialize. Some individuals engage in the production of final consumer goods, while other individuals engage in the maintenance and enhancement of the production structure that permits the production of final consumer goods.

We suggest that it is the producers of final consumer goods that fund — that is, sustain — the producers in the intermediary stages of production. Individuals who are employed in the intermediary stages are paid from the present output of consumer goods. The present effort of these individuals is likely to contribute to the future flow of consumer goods. Their present effort however, does not make any contribution to the present flow of the production of these goods.

The amount of consumer goods that an individual earns is his income. The earned consumer goods, or income, supports the individual’s life and well-being.

Observe that it is the producers of final consumer goods that pay the intermediary producers out of the existing production of final consumer goods. Hence, the income that intermediary producers receive shouldn’t be counted as part of overall national income — the only relevant income here is that which is produced by the producers of final consumer goods.

For instance, John the baker has produced ten loaves of bread and consumes two loaves. The income in this case is ten loaves of bread, and his savings are eight loaves. Now, he exchanges eight loaves of bread for the products of a toolmaker. John pays with his real savings — eight loaves of bread — for the products of the toolmaker.

One may be tempted to conclude that the overall income is the ten loaves that were produced by the baker, plus the eight loaves that were earned by the toolmaker. In reality, however, only ten loaves of bread were produced — and this is the total income.

The eight loaves are the savings of the baker, which were transferred to the toolmaker in return for the tools. Or, we can say that the baker has invested the eight loaves of bread. The tools, in turn, will assist at some point in the future to expand the production of bread. These tools, however, have nothing to do with the current stock of bread.

While the producers of final consumer goods determine the present flow of savings, other producers could have a say with respect to the use of real savings. For instance, the toolmaker can decide to consume only six loaves of bread and use the other two loaves to purchase some materials from material producers.

This additional exchange, however, will not alter the fact that the total income is still ten loaves of bread and the total savings are still eight loaves. These eight loaves support the toolmaker (six loaves) and the producer of materials (two loaves). Note that the decision of the toolmaker to allocate the two loaves of bread towards the purchase of materials is likely to have a positive contribution toward the production of future consumer goods.

The introduction of money will not alter what we have said. For instance, the baker exchanges his eight saved loaves of bread for eight dollars (under the assumption that the price of a loaf of bread is one dollar).

Now, the baker decides to exchange eight dollars for tools. This means that the baker transfers his eight dollars to the toolmaker. Again, what we have here is an investment in tools by the baker, which at some point in the future will contribute toward the production of bread. The eight dollars that the toolmaker receives are on account of the baker’s decision to make an investment in tools.

Note once more that the tools the toolmaker sold to the baker didn’t make any contribution toward the present income — that is, the production of the present ten loaves of bread. Likewise, there is no contribution to the total present income if the toolmaker exchanges two dollars for the materials of some other producer. All that we have here is another transfer of money to the producer of materials.

Obviously, then, counting the amount of dollars received by intermediary producers as part of the total national income provides a misleading picture as far as total income is concerned.

Yet this if precisely what the NIPA framework does. Consequently, savings data as calculated by the NIPA is highly questionable.

The NIPA Follows the Keynesian Model

The NIPA framework is based on the Keynesian view that spending by one individual becomes part of the earnings of another individual. Each payment transaction thus has two aspects: the spending of the purchaser is the income of the seller. From this it follows that spending equals income.

So, if people maintain their spending, they keep income levels from falling. And this is why consumer spending is viewed as the motor of an economy.

The total amount of money spent is driven by increases in the supply of money. The more money that is created out of thin air, the more of it will be spent — and therefore, the greater the NIPA’s national income will measure (see Figure 2). Thus, an increase in the money supply on account of central bank policies and fractional-reserve banking makes the entire calculation of the total income even more questionable.

Since this money was created out of thin air, it is not backed by any real goods; income in terms of dollars cannot reflect the true income. In fact, the more a central bank pumps additional money into the economy, the more damage is inflicted on the real income. As a result, money income rises while real income shrinks.

Real Savings mentioned http://mises.org/daily/3640

Is there a glut of real savings? Money is not savings: http://mises.org/daily/1882

Good and bad credit: http://mises.org/daily/3151

From Frank Shostak: Do People Save Money?

Is it true that individuals are saving a portion of their money income? Do people save money?

Out of a given money income, an individual can do the following:

he can exchange part of the money for consumer goods;

he can invest;

he can lend out the money (i.e., transfer his money to another party in return for interest);

he can also keep some of the money (i.e., exercise a demand for money).

At no stage, however, do individuals actually save money.

In its capacity as the medium of exchange, money facilitates the flow of real savings. The baker can now exchange his saved bread for money and then exchange the money for final or intermediary goods and services.

What is commonly called “saving” is nothing more than exercising demand for the medium of exchange (i.e., money). This means that people don’t actually save money but rather exercise demand for it. And, when an individual likewise exchanges his real savings for money, he in fact only increases demand for money. The money he receives is not income; it is a medium of exchange that enables the individual to secure goods. In the absence of final consumer goods, all of the money in the world would be of little help to anyone.

My reply: The extent to which an individual will save is explained by his time preference. Savings is deferred consumption. Deferred consumption allows for resources to be used for longer stages of production which should boost productivity.

Read chapter 14 in Capitalism especially pages: 622-651.

For a graphical discussion of real savings read Man, Economy and State pages: 367 to 451 and 517 to 521.

I will speak to a real Austrian economist this week and ask what are REAL savings and see if I can give you a more concise answer.

Another Reader Question:

Also, let’s say that we have a world currency (dollars) and a world Federal

Reserve. If money is dropped from a helicopter into a jungle and every dollar is picked up by a group of 10 individuals, then those 10 individuals would benefit from essentially receiving free money, correct? Their savings would increase and they could use their new found money to purchase capital goods. Society as a whole would lose because REAL savings and REAL capital goods and services exchange would not increase. There would be more money in circulation chasing the same amount of goods, which would cause prices to rise and/or the value of the currency to decline? Does that sound correct?

My reply: Yes, they would benefit as would any counterfeiter would benefit spending the money first before prices can adjust fully. The gain of the early beneficiaries is matched by the losses in real purchasing power of the people who are the last to receive the money AFTER prices have adjusted.  You are correct that real savings would NOT increase. In fact, the structure of production is thrown off which in the end hurts society (boom and bust) in addition to the unfairness of inflation. The money printing distorts production causing mal-investment which depletes REAL savings.

Frank Shostak comments: Consider the so-called helicopter money case: the Fed sends every individual a check for one thousand dollars. According to the NIPA accounting, this would be classified as a tremendous increase in personal income. It is commonly held that, for a given consumption expenditure, this would also increase personal savings.

However, we maintain that this has nothing to do with real income and thus with saving. The new money didn’t increase total real income.

What the new money has done is set in motion the diversion of real income from wealth generators to the holders of new money. The new money that the Fed has created out of thin air prompts exchanges of nothing for something. Consequently, wealth generators have less real wealth at their disposal — which means that the process of real wealth and savings formation has weakened.

In the helicopter example we have a situation in which, for a given pool of real savings, an increase in nonproductive consumption took place. (By nonproductive consumption we mean consumption that is not backed up by the production of real wealth.) This means that the real savings of wealth generators, rather than being employed in wealth generation, is now being squandered by nonproductive consumption.

From this, we can also infer that the policies aimed at boosting consumer spending do not produce real economic growth, but in fact weaken the bottom line of the economy.

In the NIPA framework, which is designed according to Keynesian economics, the more money people spend, all else being equal, the greater total income will be. Conversely, the less money is spent (which is labeled as savings), the lower the income is going to be. This means that savings is bad news for an economy.

We have, however, seen that it is precisely real savings that pays — i.e., that which supports the production of real wealth. Hence, the greater the real savings in an economy, the more are the activities that can be supported.

What keeps the real economic growth going, then, is not merely more money, but wealth generators — those who invest a part of their wealth in the expansion and the maintenance of the production structure. It is this that permits the increase in the production of consumer goods, which in turn makes it possible to increase the consumption of these goods.

Only out of a greater production can more be consumed.

Can the State of Savings be Quantified?

What matters for economic growth is the amount of total real savings. However, it is not possible to quantify this total.

To calculate a total, several data sets must be added together. This requires that the data sets have some unit in common. There is no unit of measurement common to refrigerators, cars, and shirts that makes it possible to derive a unified “total output.”

The statisticians’ technique of employing total monetary expenditure adjusted for prices simply won’t do. Why not? To answer this, we must ask: what is a price? A price is the amount of money asked per unit of a given good.

Suppose two transactions were conducted. In the first transaction, one TV set is exchanged for $1,000. In the second transaction, one shirt is exchanged for $40. The price, or the rate of exchange, in the first transaction is $1,000 per TV set. The price in the second transaction is $40 per shirt. In order to calculate the average price, we must add these two ratios and divide them by 2. However, it is conceptually meaningless to add $1,000 per TV set to $40 per shirt. The thought experiment fails.

The Real Culprit

Rather than attempting the impossible, as far as calculating real savings is concerned, one should instead focus on the factors that undermine real savings. We suggest that the key damaging factors are central bank’s and government’s loose monetary and fiscal policies.

These policies are instrumental in the weakening of the process of real savings formation through the diversion of real savings from wealth generators to non-wealth-generating activities.

The US economy has been subjected to massive monetary pumping since early 1980 via the introduction of financial deregulations. The ratio of our monetary measure AMS to its trend jumped from 1.17 in January 1980 to 3.5 in July 2009. (The trend values were calculated by a regression model, which was estimated for the period 1959 to 1979, the period prior the onset of financial deregulations).

Likewise, the US economy was subjected to massive government spending. For the fiscal year 2009, US federal government outlays are expected to stand at $3.5 trillion.

The outlays-to-trend ratio (the trend was estimated for the period 1955 to 1979) jumped to 4.1 in 2009, up from 3.5 in 2008 and 1.45 in 1980.

The ever-expanding government outlays are also depicted by the federal debt, which stands at $11.6 trillion thus far into 2009. Against the background of massive monetary pumping and ever-expanding government, we suggest that this raises the likelihood that the pool of real savings could be in serious trouble.

That this could be the case is also suggested by the private sector debt-to-its-trend ratio. This ratio stood at 5.8 in first quarter, against a similar figure from the previous quarter. The ever-rising ratio raises the likelihood that the increase in the private sector debt is on account of nonproductive debt. Real savings, instead of funding wealth generating activities, have been supporting non-wealth-generating activities. This weakens the ability of wealth-generating activities to grow the economy.

We can conclude that, given prolonged reckless fiscal and monetary policies, there is a growing likelihood that the pool of real savings is in trouble. If our assessment is valid, this means that US real economy is likely to struggle in the quarters ahead.

In addition, if the pool of real savings is under pressure, none of the government and central-bank policies to lift the economy is going to work. Note that as long as the pool of real savings is holding its ground, such policies appear to be effective. In reality, though, it is the expanding pool of real savings that drives the economy — and not various stimulus policies.

Conclusions

According to latest US government data, the personal saving rate jumped to 4.6% in June this year after settling at 0.4% in June last year. We suggest that on account of an erroneous methodology, the so-called “saving rate” that the government presents has nothing to do with true savings.

Since early 1980s, the ever-rising money supply and government outlays have severely undermined the process of real savings formation. As a result, it will not surprise us if the US pool of real savings is in serious trouble. If what we are saying is valid then it will be very hard for the US economy to grow, for it is a growing pool of real savings that makes economic growth possible.

Furthermore, the growing pool of real savings is the reason that loose monetary and fiscal policies appear to be working. In reality, however, all that these loose policies achieve is a further depletion of the pool of real savings — thus reducing prospects for a genuine economic recovery.

Study Break; Course on Money and Credit, J. Rogers on Rating Agencies

Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.–Steven Wright

Study Break

Let’s take a study break and return to the Coors case study this weekend.  You have a strong foundation of strategic logic to study the case. You learned from Wal-Mart that management did not expand from Arkansas into California or the Northeast back in 1985, but expanded at its periphery (like an amoeba), where it could readily establish the customer captivity and economies of scale that made it dominant. And it defended its base.  What did Coors do?

Mises Academy Course on Money and Credit

I mentioned the course with links to the books and study guide here: http://wp.me/p1PgpH-ix

This article by Professor Murphy discusses the course in more detail. I hope some of you join me in taking this rigorous tour of money and credit. http://mises.org/daily/5878/Mises-on-Money-and-Banking

“Is This Course Going to Be Really Hard?”

Let’s be frank. Mises’s writing at times can be difficult, especially his earlier work when he was writing for other economists, rather than the lay public. The amateur fan of Austrian economics who flips through The Theory of Money & Credit might recoil, thinking it is too hard and that anything important from the book would have been distilled by Rothbard in Man, Economy, and State.

If I’ve just described your view, I suggest doing the first week’s reading (the first two chapters from Mises) with my study guide as a companion. You might be pleasantly surprised to discover that Mises’s prose, though a bit formal, is still accessible to the layperson. If — using my study guide for help — you can get through the first week’s readings, then I believe you have what it takes to get through the whole class. It’s true, we will get into material that is more complicated than what Mises lays out in the opening chapters, but then again that’s what you have me for, to explain it for you.

Now if you determine that you are capable of digesting the material, I would urge you to take the plunge and sign up for the course. Yes, Rothbard and others have explained the Austrian theory of the business cycle in other venues. However, by exploring the Misesian framework of money and banking, you will walk away with a much deeper understanding of his theory of economic fluctuations. For example, the typical objection that “we had business cycles before the Fed, so the Austrians are obviously wrong” will seem quite ludicrous after studying Mises’s classic work.

 Jim Rogers Savages the Credit Rating Agencies

http://lewrockwell.com/rogers-j/rogers-j163.html

 

 

Readers’ Questions: Buffett Compounding $1 Mil. and Why Should an Investor Learn Austrian Economics

Readers’ Questions

Rather than email a reply, I thought sharing with other readers might be helpful.

A reader writes: Your emphasis on capital compounders raises a question in my mind. WEB (Buffett) famously said that if he was running a million bucks, he could get returns of 50% per year. If you reverse engineer this statement, you have to think he would be investing in the following: small caps, special situations, and catalysts.

I don’t think you can get those kinds of return with capital compounders. Thoughts?

My response: Good point. By the way, any future questions that you have for Warren can be answered here: http://buffettfaq.com/.  An organized web-site of all of Buffett’s articles, writings, and speeches organized by subject, source and date–an excellent resource for Buffaholics.  Buffett said he could compound a small amount of money at 50% as he mentions below:

Interviewer to Buffett: According to a business week report published in 1999, you were quoted as saying “it’s a huge structural advantage not to have a lot of money. I think I could make you 50% a year on $1 million. No, I know I could. I guarantee that.” First, would you say the same thing today? Second, since that statement infers that you would invest in smaller companies, other than investing in small-caps, what else would you do differently?

Buffett: Yes, I would still say the same thing today. In fact, we are still earning those types of returns on some of our smaller investments. The best decade was the 1950s; I was earning 50% plus returns with small amounts of capital. I could do the same thing today with smaller amounts. It would perhaps even be easier to make that much money in today’s environment because information is easier to access.

You have to turn over a lot of rocks to find those little anomalies. You have to find the companies that are off the map – way off the map. You may find local companies that have nothing wrong with them at all. A company that I found, Western Insurance Securities, was trading for $3/share when it was earning $20/share!! I tried to buy up as much of it as possible. No one will tell you about these businesses. You have to find them.

Other examples: Genesee Valley Gas, public utility trading at a P/E of 2, GEICO, Union Street Railway of New Bedford selling at $30 when $100/share is sitting in cash, high yield position in 2002. No one will tell you about these ideas, you have to find them.

The answer is still yes today that you can still earn extraordinary returns on smaller amounts of capital. For example, I wouldn’t have had to buy issue after issue of different high yield bonds. Having a lot of money to invest forced Berkshire to buy those that were less attractive. With less capital, I could have put all my money into the most attractive issues and really creamed it.

I know more about business and investing today, but my returns have continued to decline since the 50’s. Money gets to be an anchor on performance. At Berkshire’s size, there would be no more than 200 common stocks in the world that we could invest in if we were running a mutual fund or some other kind of investment business.

  • Source: Student Visit 2005
  • URL: http://boards.fool.com/buffettjayhawk-qa-22736469.aspx?sort=whole#22803680
  • Time: May 6, 2005

So the Wizard of Omaha agrees with you that returns are probably to be found in small caps where greater mis-pricing on the downside and upside can occur. The problem you have is paying higher taxes on short-term (less than one year and a day) gains and reinvestment risk.  Once you sell you have to be able to find other attractive opportunities to redeploy capital.  Special situations like liquidations may give you high annualized returns but the positions may only be held for four months until the investment is liquidated.

Investing in a Coca-Cola may give you high risk adjusted returns but not 50% annual returns because of its side and lack of reinvestment opportunities. Unless you find an emerging franchise which is quite difficult, then if you hold Coke for years, you will eventually earn the company’s return on equity.

This writer organizes his investment world into franchises and non-franchises. With non-franchises you are hoping to buy at enough of a discount to asset value and earnings power value to generate attractive returns. A catalyst like a special situation or corporate restructuring may increase the certainty and lessen the time needed to close the gap between price and your estimate of  intrinsic value. Often, with non-franchises you do not have time on your side. You must buy at a huge discount to have a chance at 50% returns.  These opportunities may be limited to micro-caps with large discounts  partially due to illiquidity issues.

By the way, I am a big fan of small cap special situations, and I plan to post my library for readers, but we have to go step-by-step in posting material.

The reasons I want to focus on franchises are the following:

  1. A study of franchises will teach us about investing in growth which is difficult to value.
  2. Studying competitive advantages will hone our skills in business analysis making us better investors.
  3. Knowing that a company is not a franchise is also important, because–then with no competitive advantage–the company must be managed efficiently. We know what to look for in management activity. Diversification would be a warning signal, for example.
  4. Investing in franchises can be quite profitable if bought at the right price. Say 3M (MMM) at $42 back in 2009 was purchased, then you would be receiving today about a 5.5% to 6% dividend with growth in cash flows of 8% to 10% or more, then in a few years you will have a 14% dividend yield leaving out any rise in share price. You compound at a low base while you defer taxes and reinvestment headaches. I think Buffett receives double in dividends each year more than the original purchase price of Washington Post.  MMM_35
  5.  The biggest gap today in industry and company research is the lack of interest or knowledge in analyzing competitive advantage. Rarely do you ever see an analyst focus on barriers to entry in their valuation work. My hat is off to Morningstar, Inc. because their stock research is geared toward franchises. Many managements have no idea what are structural competitive advantages are. Often, they say their company’s competitive advantage stems from “culture.”
  6. Finally, you want to avoid Hell. Hell is paying a premium for growth for a non-franchise company. Look at Salesforce.com (“CRM”) as an example for today. Full disclosure: I have held short positions in CRM.   Thanks again for your question.

Another reader:

First I would like to thank you for the quality work you are doing. I am new to Austrian economics and I would really appreciate if you can walk us on how to get started and how is it different from other Keynesian and mainstream economics. I, also, want to know why Austrian economics would be more valuable to value investors than other schools. I also wonder why we have not been taught about Austrian economics in school and why it’s not taught.

My reply: Oh boy, you are asking for an all-night discussion. I came out of school having studied Keynesian economics (Samuelson’s text-book, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Samuelson) because that is what American Universities taught back then and still do about economic theory. Imagine studying geography and being told that the world was flat, yet once in the real world ships were circling the globe.  What I experienced in real life (raging inflation with high unemployment in the late 1970s) completely contradicted Keynesian theory.  Also, the conceit of central planning, having the government intervene, made no sense. How could bureaucrats in Washington, DC allocate resources in Alaska better than an entrepreneur, say, in Alaska?  The only economists that predicted the Great Depression and the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe BEFORE the events occurred were the Austrians, von Mises and Hayek. So I read, Human Action by von Mises, and became hooked. The world of booms and busts, inflation, deflation and capital formation started to make sense. But I had to UNlearn a lot of nonsense.

See how flawed Keynesian prediction has been vs. American history: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XbG6aIUlog. Bernanke in 2005 discussing housing vs. the Austrian view. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=x2qr5cSln3Q. Bernanke’s confident ignorance is terrifying.

As an investor you must understand how man operates in an economy allocating scarce resources to better his condition or lesson his unease. Only Austrians–from what I know–have a coherent theory of the business cycle and the structure of production. But then you may ask, “If Keynesianism is such a repeated failure, then how come it is still prevalent today?” Think of human motivation. If you are a politician, what better cover to weld power than Keynesian theory?   Constant intervention to “help” is your guide.

Successful investors who are considered Austrians because they study/follow the precepts of Austrian Economics): http://www.dailystocks.com/forum/showtopic.php?tid/2623

Noted investors who use Austrian Economics:

George Soros is the legendary investor who started Quantum Fund in the 1960s and is a multi-billionaire as a result of some winning macro trades. Soros’ prescription for healing broken economies cannot be mistaken for Austrian Economics, but Soros’ analysis of markets as expressed in his books seems to borrow a lot of influence from the Austrian Economists.

Jim Rogers is acknowledged as one of the most successful investors of all time. Making an early start when he was in his twenties, he was able to build a huge fortune with an initial investment of just $600 by the time he was 37. A firm believer in Austrian economics, he advocates investing in China, Uruguay and Mongolia.

Marc Faber was born in Switzerland and received his PhD in Economics from the University of Zurich at age 24. He was Managing Director at Drexel Burnham Lambert from 1978-1990, and continues to reside in Hong Kong. He is famed for his insights into the Asian markets, and his timely warning about market crashes earned him the name of Dr.Doom. In 1987 he warned his clients to cash out before Black Monday hit Wall Street. In 1990 he predicted the bursting of the Japanese bubble. In 1993 he anticipated the collapse of U.S. gaming stocks and foretold the Asia Pacific Crisis of 1997-98. A contrarian at heart, his credo has always been: “Follow the course opposite to custom and you will almost always be right.”

James Grant, a newsletter writer who publishes “Grant’s Interest Rate Observer” is also a follower of Austrian Economics. He is a “Graham & Dodder” too. Go to www.grantspub.com

Ron Paul, a Republican Congressman for the Texas State, is also a believer of Austrian Economics.

Interestingly enough, Howard Buffett, the father of Warren Buffett is also an Austrian Economics follower. His son, Warren, however, seems to be more inclined to the Keynesian method of healing broken economies as opposed to the strict and rigid ones espoused by Austrian economists. Warren Buffett did acknowledge in a recent TV interview that one will have a hard time finding a paper based currency that appreciates in value over time. (All fiat currencies have been debased to worthlessness.)

Austrian Economics vs. Keynesianism

What is Austrian Economics http://mises.org/etexts/austrian.asp

http://mises.org/daily/4095   Hayek vs. Keynes Rap video and discussion. http://mises.org/daily/3465    The Austrian Recipe vs. Keynesian Fantasy.

A recent civil debate between an Austrian economist and a New Age Keynesian.  http://board.freedomainradio.com/forums/t/32178.aspx

Free School in Austrian Economics

If you REALLY want to learn Austrian economics, the lessons couldn’t be laid out better for you than here: http://www.tomwoods.com/learn-austrian-economics/.   Start with Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt.

And if you want to interact with professors you can go to the Mises Academy here: http://academy.mises.org/.   Don’t go by what I say, but by what YOU think after delving into the material. Does it make sense? Forget political labels of Right-wing, Democrat, Liberal, and Conservative; think of how the world works.  I hope that helps partially answer your question.

The same reader asks another question:

I have another question related to Bruce Greenwald book, Competition Demystified. In his book he mentioned that if the company has no competitive advantage then strategy is irrelevant and the course of action should be efficiency. However, following this argument, investors would have avoided many companies during the journey to become industry dominant player.

Correct me if mistaken, but I don’t think you have read the entire book yet. Greenwald will talk about entrant strategies from the point of view of the incumbent (crush an entrant) to an entrant (how to gain a foothold profitably against an incumbent). Greenwald will also talk about cooperation between incumbents.

If you want a more detailed description of emerging franchises–though I suggest you read it after Greenwald’s book–read Hidden Champions of the 21st Century by Hermann Simon.

I can promise you that one of the reasons for Buffett’s success is his amazing understanding of competitive advantages in his investments.  As a business person understanding strategy is critical.

Here is a question.  You own a chain of very profitable movie theaters within a 150 mile radius of a major city. These theatres are spread about 5 to 20 miles from each other and are nicely profitable. You have economies of scale in hiring, securing first-run films, buying condiments, etc.  You awake one morning to find that another large regional theater chain from 800 miles away wants to open a theatre near one of your 29 theatres.  What response might you offer to send a strong message not to enter this market?  A paragraph is enough.

Thanks for your questions, you make me work hard.