... how can he conclude that the precious metals which are currently stuck in a pretty narrow trading range are not a safe haven investment in a deflationary depression? In the current environment a $1600 or $5000 gold price is obviously way beyond wealth preservation. I don't expect to make money on my gold holdings I expect the purchasing power of one ounce of gold to stay about the same.

He loses a lot of credibility with this inconsistency in my book. It's just flat out wrong that he counts this as a check mark in his favor. Higher gold prices can only be expected when the US dollar takes a serious beating. Still think this will happen but hopefully fairly gradual. Not that this really impacts me all that much since I don't live in the US any more but until the world economy is more decoupled from the US all major currencies are going to be tied to the US $ to a large degree.

its also the fact that the political debate hasnt changed. the noises coming from both the left and the right really havent shifted at all as far as I can tell, and there doesnt seem to be any real fact based debate about the direction we need to go in the future. As far as Obama being a leader with a vision of a new and better America, Im sorry but I dont see it. He doesnt seem to be out in front leading major health care change, or on any other issues. Great rhetoric, yes Ill grant you he had that during the campaign, but I am not seeing the sort of visionary leadership I was hoping for. It worries me, things are liable to get alot worse before they get better, and at this point I expect some kind of right wing populist ( but probably not a republican) to be president in 4 or 8 years.

"Stock market has not bottomed yet" says the clueless guy.

_{--Sell Texas to China!}

(paraphrased--this applies to you, me, Denninger and anyone else with an opinion about future events).

I beseech you to consider the possibility that you could be wrong.

I did inhale.

Yeah, happiness isn't the emotion of joy - that's different, and unsustainable except for flashes.

Happiness is an art form, it resides in the practitioner. It's far less affected by circumstances than it is by attitude.

... just fine. Doesn't mean that his disappointment isn't well founded. Fact is the US media as well as the general political discourse is just as dysfunctional as ever if not worse. After such a historic land slide election there was every reason to hope for more.

... compact form to state that no king, government or religious authority shall constrain an individual's decision what to with his or her live. After all the phrase was coined long before behavioral science popularized the concept of motivation. I think these days a modern formulation would be that it is a basic human right to follow your own intrinsic motivations.

also shows our intrinsic motivations are often in conflict with one another and it's a cognitive process of sorting them out.

There likely was a very libertarian motivation to the idea, but there was also lots of space for everyone to have a piece of it, which was likely the basis of their concept of happiness, having emigrated from a world where all the land was long claimed and fought over.

"Go forth and multiply" was also a logical philosophy when it was first stated, many thousands of years ago, but times have changed and our freedom to grow is reaching another set of limits, which, like any obstacle, we have to figure out how to respond.

Suffice to say, we have a hangover and the hair of the dog that bit us isn't going to solve it.

... but I don't want any government, king or religion help me figure mine out. Perfectly capable of doing that myself.

that as a culture we seem to have profound difficulties distiguishing between the concepts of "happiness" and "pleasure".

Since they really can't package and sell happiness, marketing folks have long pursued the blurring of the two concepts. They've been successful beyond their wildest dreams.

And now we're pretty much governed by marketing - to the extent that administrations openly roll out wars as "products".

I think we've got a lot of people on our hands that actually wouldn't know happiness if it bit them in the ass.

The worst possible recommendation.

When do I get to thank him personally for his efforts in Pretoria in 1974? Where he screwed over possibly the most beautiful country on Earth, which is now a living hell?

Kissinger went to instruct the leadership there that their vision of white rule could not continue. That the United States was supporting local rule by the population was laudable at the time. Things have gone badly but to argue the US should have continued in support of white rule is very problematic.

You think Mugabe might have had anything to do with intervening events. And I ask, has anyone solved any of the vexing problems afflicting African countries???