I was recently interviewed on equities.com, read the full interview – Financial Blogger Profile: John Hunter. Some quotes from the interview:
John Hunter: I look for good individual investments, but I also weigh my guesses about long term macroeconomic conditions in making investment commitments. I think there is much more risk to the drastic measures central banks have been making for the past few years than the market is factoring in. I think the poor job regulating risk in the financial system is also very risky at the macroeconomic level.
I don’t have any real idea of what the chance of massive economic failure is, but I am much more worried today than I have been. Pretty much, my worry has remained the same over the last few years. We did avoid an immediate meltdown, though we still had plenty of economic pain. Yet, in my opinion, the risk has remained very high for the last few years, but people seem to think central banks can continue this extraordinary behavior without consequences; I see a great deal of risk in the economy.
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Three macro-economic factors make healthcare an appealing investment. First, the aging population should provide a booming market. Second, the huge increase in rich people globally that can afford very expensive medicine again provides an ever-growing market. Third, the broken healthcare system in the USA results in exceedingly high-priced medical care in a very large and rich market.
I also close out the interview with some tips I have shared on this blog over the years
John Hunter: I can’t pick one, but I can pick a few short pieces of advice:
- Save 15%, or more, of your income and invest it wisely. If you want to buy more, then earn more, or save extra until you can pay for it with the extra savings.
- Minimize costs on investments, use Vanguard or similar low fee funds. Buying individual stocks reduces even the costs of Vanguard. There are tradeoffs to diversity of your portfolio when buying individual stocks.
- Pay attention to the overall risk of the portfolio, and even beyond that, your entire financial picture. For example, in the USA we have extra healthcare expense risk that is outside our portfolio risk, but is part of our entire financial picture. Building your portfolio with extra-portfolio risks in mind is wise. Don’t get fooled into thinking about the risks of investments taken individually, even though that is what you will continually be bombarded with.
I think those that find this blog worthwhile will also enjoy the interview so I hope you read the full interview.
Related: more interviews with John Hunter – Investment Options Are Much Less Comforting Than Normal These Days – How to Protect Your Financial Health
One thing for investors consulting historical data to remember is we may have had fundamental changes in stock valuations over the decades (and I suspect they have). Just to over simplify the idea if lets say the market valued the average stock at a PE of 11 and everyone found stocks a wonderful investment. And so more and more people buy stocks and with everyone finding stocks wonderful they keep buying and after awhile the market is valuing the average stock at a PE of 14.
Within the market there is tons of variation those things of course are not nearly that simple, but the idea I think holds. Well if you look back at historical data the returns will include the adjustment of going from a PE of 11 to a PE of 14. Now maybe the new few decades would adjust from PE of 14 to PE of 17 but maybe not. At some point that fundamental re-adjustment will stop.
And therefore future returns would be expected to be lower than historically due to this one factor. Now maybe other factors will increase returns to compensate but if not the historical returns may well provide an overly optimistic view.
And if there is a short term bubble that lets say pushes the PR to 16 while the “fair” long term value is 14, then there will be a negative impact on the returns going forward bringing the PE from 16 to 14. That isn’t necessarily a drop (though it could be) in stock prices, it could just be very slow increases as earning growth slowly pushes PE back to 14.
Monument to the People’s Heroes with the Shanghai skyline in the background. See more photos by John Hunter
Another thing to consider is another long term macro-economic factor may also be giving long term historical returns an extra boost. The type of economic growth from the end of World War I to 1973 (just to pick a specific time, there was a big economic slowdown after OPEC drastically increased the price of oil). While that period includes the great depression and World War II, which massively distorts figures, from the end of WW I through the 1960s Europe and the USA went through an amazing amount of economic growth.
A reasonable amount of government debt is not a problem in a strong economy. If countries take on debt wisely and grow their economy paying the interest on that debt isn’t a problem. But as that debt grows as a portion of GDP risks grow.
Debt borrowed in other currencies is extremely risky, for substantial amounts. When things go bad they snowball. So if your economy suffers, your currency often suffers and then the repayment terms drastically become more difficult (you have to pay back the debt with your lower valued currency). And the economy was already suffering which is why the currency decreased and this makes it worse and they feed on each other and defaults have resulted in small economies over and over from this pattern.
If a government borrows in their currency they can always pay it back as the government can just print money. They may pay back money not worth very much but they can pay it back. Of course investors see this risk and depending on your economy and history demand high interest to compensate for this risk (of being paid back worthless currency). And so countries are tempted to borrow in another currency where rates are often much lower.
If you owe debts to other countries you have to pay that money outside the system. So it takes a certain percentage of production (GDP) and pays the benefit of that production to people in other countries. This is what has been going on in the USA for a long time (paying benefits to those holding our debt). Ironically the economic mess created by central banks and too-big-to-fail banks has resulted in a super low interest rate environment which is lousy for lenders and great for debtors (of which the USA and Japanese government are likely the 2 largest in the world).
The benefits to the USA and Japan government of super low interest rates is huge. It makes tolerating huge debt loads much easier. When interest rates rise it is going to create great problems for their economies if they haven’t grown their economies enough to reduce the debt to GDP levels (the USA is doing much better in this regard than Japan).
Japan has a much bigger debt problem than the USA in percentage terms. Nearly all their debt is owed to those in Japan so when it is paid it merely redistributes wealth (rather than losing it to those overseas). It is much better to redistribute wealth within your country than lose it to others (you can always change the laws to redistribute it again, if needed, as long as it is within your economy).
Monsters Inc received power from children’s screams. So the company hired monsters to go scare children to get more screams and create more power.
The current political parties in the USA (Republicans and Democrats) seek to scare their donors into providing cash “donations.” It is even worse, in many ways, than if those parties sold favors to get things done. At least then there would be an incentive for the parties to deliver successful prizes to those paying for influence.
But the parties have become like Monsters Inc. They only seek to increase suffering in order to get what they want (in the case of the Republican and Democrats, cash, and in the case of Monsters Inc, screams).
The damage to the economy from decades of two political parties seeking to increase fear so they can get more cash while neither cares about the damage they do is enormous. We really need to throw out those that have been destroying the country for their own petty interests.
Throwing out the parties that have proven they don’t care about the country won’t result in people that agree on tactics but at least we should elect people that seek to aid the country and refuse to destroy the country in order to hope in doing so they can hurt the other political party more than they are hurt. As long as we keep electing the type of people that don’t care about the damage they do we are going to keep paying a high price.
Occasionally (and much more than occasionally at the state level, it is harder to make excuses about failing to deliver on what people paid for at the state and local level) they do give in and give those paying them lots of cash what those that paid thought they bought. But most of the time they try to avoid doing so as that slows down the flow of money.
Related: USA Congress Further Aids Those Giving Them Cash and Risks Economic Calamity Again – Adding More Bailouts for Politicians and Bankers is Not the Correct Strategy – Anti-Market Policies from Our Talking Heads and Politicians – We Need to be More Capitalist and Less Cronyist
In 2013, international migrants sent $413 billion home to families and friends — three times more than the total of global foreign aid (about $135 billion). This money, known as remittances, makes a significant difference in the lives of those receiving it and plays a major role in the economies of many countries.
India received $72 billion and Egypt $18 billion in 2013.
I liked an interesting point he made. These remittences often include business advice to those relatives in the home country.
This is a great talk if you are interested in economics and global development. It is very important to understand the issues we face in helping billions living in poverty. As he says regulation of small remittences must be reduced. Policies forced by countries like the USA have damaged poor people’s lives worldwide with extremely onerous regulation.
Web site of the speaker: Dilip Ratha
Related: International Development Fair: The Human Factor – Creating a World Without Poverty – Supporting Virtual Workers – Solar Power Market Solutions For Hundreds of Millions Without Electricity
The article, What’s the Real U.S. Unemployment Rate? We Have No Idea, provides interesting information on the process for calculating the unemployment rate.
But it also misleads in saying “real US unemployment rate.”
As Dr. Deming said: “there is no true value” of any measured process. The results depend on the process which includes the operation definitions used.
Over time the value of a measure (as a proxy measure for some condition you care to monitor) can change.
It is important to update measures to avoid using proxies that lose value.
The unemployment rate certainly has proxy issues. But there is no “true unemployment rate.” There are ways to change the process to focus on different things (make the proxy better matched to certain issues). But also it seems to me, unemployment rate needs to have other related measures that are considered in concert with the unemployment rate (such as the labor force participation rate, perhaps some measure of under-employment etc.).
Those paying much attention do use other measures in concert but the last few years I read lots of different people complaining that the unemployment rate doesn’t capture various aspects of how the job market is poor (and often claiming the unemployment rate was “inaccurate” as though there was a platonic form of the actual rate divorced from the measure process.
Related: What Do Unemployment Stats Mean? – Economic Measurement Issues Arising from Globalization – Why China’s Economic Data is Questionable
This is a startling piece of data, from The nagging fear that QE itself may be causing deflation:
The situations have many differences, for example, China is a poor country growing rapidly, Japan was a rich country growing little (though in 1990 it showed more growth promise than today). Still this one of the more interesting pieces of data on how much a bubble China real estate has today. Japan suffered more than 2 decades of stagnation and one factor was the problems created by the real estate price bubble.
The global economic consequences of the extremely risky actions taken to bail out the failed too-big-too-fail banks including the massive quantitative easing are beyond anyones ability to really understand. We hope they won’t end badly that is all it amounts to. Noone can know how risky the actions to bail out the bankers is. The fact we not only bailed them out, but showered many billions of profit onto them (even after taking billions in fines for the numerous and continuing violations of law by those bailed out bankers), leaves me very worried.
It seems to me we have put enormous risk on and the main beneficiaries of the policies are the bankers that caused the mess and continue to violate laws without any consequences (other than taking a bit of the profit them make on illegal moves back sometimes).
The West ignored pleas for restraint at the time, then left these countries to fend for themselves. The lesson they have drawn is to tighten policy, hoard demand, hold down their currencies and keep building up foreign reserves as a safety buffer. The net effect is to perpetuate the “global savings glut” that has starved the world of demand, and that some say is the underlying of the cause of the long slump.
I hope things work out. But I fear the extremely risky behavior by the central banks and politicians could end more badly than we can even imagine.
Related: Continuing to Nurture the Too-Big-To-Fail Eco-system – The Risks of Too Big to Fail Financial Institutions Have Only Gotten Worse – USA Congress Further Aids The Bankers Giving Those Politicians Piles of Cash and Risks Economic Calamity Again – Investment Options Are Much Less Comforting Than Normal These Days
I like charity that provides leveraged impact. I like charity that is aimed at building long term improvement. I like entrepreneurship. I like people having work they enjoy and can be proud of. And I like people having enough money for necessities and some treats and luxuries.
I think sites like oDesk provide a potentially great way for people to lead productive and rewarding lives. They allow people far from rich countries to tap into the market demand in rich counties. They also allow people to have flexible work arrangements (if someone wants a part time job or to work from home that is fine).
These benefits are also true in the USA and other rich countries (even geography – there are many parts of the USA without great job markets, especially many rural areas). The biggest problem with rich country residents succeeding on something like oDesk is they need quite a bit more money than people from other countries to get by (especially in the USA with health care being so messed up). There are a great deal of very successful technology people on oDesk (and even just freelancing in other ways), but it is still a small group that is capable and lucky enough to pull in large paychecks (it isn’t only technology but that is the majority of high paying jobs I think on oDesk).
But in poor countries with still easily 2 billion and probably much more there is a huge supply of good workers. There is a demand for work to be done. oDesk does a decent job of matching these two but that process could use a great deal of improvement.
I think if I became mega rich one of the projects I would have would be to create an organization to help facilitate those interested in internet based jobs in poor countries to make a living. It takes hard work. Very good communication is one big key to success (I have repeatedly had problems with capable people just not really able to do what was expected in communications). I think a support structure to help with that and with project management would be very good. Also to help with building skills.
If I were in a different place financially (and I were good at marketing which I am not) I would think about creating a company to do this profitably. The hard part for someone in a rich country to do this is that either they have to take very little (basically do it as charity) or they have to take so much cash off the top that I think it makes it hard to build the business.
But building successful organizations that can grow and provide good jobs to those without many opportunities but who are willing to work is something I value. I did since I was a kid living in Nigeria (for a year). I didn’t see this solution then but the idea of economic well being and good jobs and a strong economy being the key driver to better lives has always been my vision.
This contrast to many that see giving cash and good to those in need as good charity. I realize sometimes that is what is needed – especially in emergencies. But the real powerful change comes from strong economy providing people the opportunity to have a great job.
I share Dr. Deming’s personal aim was to advance commerce, prosperity and peace.
Related: Commerce Takes More People Out of Poverty Than Aid – Investing in the Poorest of the Poor – I am a big fan of helping improve the economic lives of those in the world by harnessing appropriate technology and capitalism – A nonprofit in Queens taught people to write iPhone apps — and their incomes jumped from $15k to $72k
Based on my thoughts on killing the Goose laying golden eggs in Iskandar Malaysia posted on a discussion forum. The government has instituted several several policies to counteract a bubble in luxury real estate prices in the region (new taxes on short term capital gains in real estate [declining amounts through year 6]), increasing limits on purchases by foreigners, new transaction fees (2% of purchase price?) for real estate transactions, requirements for larger down-payments from purchasers…
Iskandar is 5 times the size of Singapore and is in the state of Johor in Malaysia. Johor Bahru is the city which makes up much of Iskandar but as borders are currently drawn Iskandar extends beyond the borders of Johor Bahru.
The prospects for economic growth in Iskandar Malaysia in the next 5, 10 and 15 years remain very strong. They are stronger than they were 5 years ago: investments that produce economic activity (theme parks, factories, hospitals, hotels, retail, film studio…) have come online and more on being built right now.
Cooperation with Singapore is the main advantage Iskandar has (Iskandar is next to the island of Singapore similar to those areas surrounding Manhattan). It provides Iskandar world class advantages that few other locations have (it is the same advantages offered by lower cost areas extremely close to world class cities – NYC, Hong Kong, London, San Francisco etc.). Transportation connections to Singapore are critical and have not been managed as well as they should have been (only 2 bridges exist now and massive delays are common). A 3rd link should be in place today (they haven’t even approved the location yet).
A MRT connection to Singapore (Singapore’s subway system) should be a top priority of anyone with power interested in the future economic well being of Iskandar and Johor. Johor Bahru doesn’t have a light rail system yet this would be the start of it. It has been “announced” as planned for 2018 but not officially designated or funded yet.
Congress gives Wall Street public backing for derivatives trading again: http://t.co/PtBePRGuhy Oh joy.
— John Robb (@johnrobb) November 11, 2013
It is no surprise those we elect that have shown there primary concern is providing favors to those giving them lots of cash have given the wall street crowd that showers them in cash what they want yet again. As long as we keep electing these people they will keep providing benefits to those giving lots of cash that the rest of society is stuck paying for.
Read more about this huge fiasco: Congress Sells Out To Wall Street, Again!
Even ill-informed politicians now can’t pretend they don’t know the risks they run by providing these favors. But they figure they won’t have to be accountable – they haven’t been held accountable so far. So they are probably right that they won’t be held accountable when the taxpayers suffer huge losses and the taxpayers have to again bail out the too big to fail institutions and savers have to again bail out the too big to fail banks and…
As bad as the economy has been since the to-big-too-fail crowd created economic calamity it is amazing it hasn’t been much worse. The extraordinary efforts of the Fed have been amazingly successful. I worry they have put us in an extraordinarily risky place but so far the results have been remarkable. Hoping such slights of hand (plus huge transfers of wealth from middle class savers to to-big-too-fail speculators – in the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars – so it isn’t like there are not huge suffering by millions of people – even those that were not thrown out of work) will allow continued reckless giveaways to those paying politicians is a very bad idea.
But it is no surprise those we elect have chosen that course of action. It seems we are very unlikely to learn without a real depression being forced by decades of extremely foolish behavior by our elected officials in Washington DC.
Related: Continuing to Nurture the Too-Big-To-Fail Eco-system – The Risks of Too Big to Fail Financial Institutions Have Only Gotten Worse – Adding More Banker and Politician Bailouts is not the Answer – Failure to Regulate Financial Markets Leads to Predictable Consequences (as does letting big contributors create “regulations” that are nothing more than government granted favors to huge organizations) – Congress Eases Bank Laws, 1999, while risks were stated by those not willing to lie down for Wall Street Lobbyists (few though they were)