Where to Invest

Sold 1,000 shares of JUPM at $6.86 today. Not sure where I should be invested in at the moment, but am all cash...which is brutal given the brutal value of the dollar.

A couple absurd points...

When the federal debt ceiling was lifted to $9 billion this year many people were bitching about Bush, as though the clown was anything more than a front man for the circuis which is our federal government.

The increased debt ceiling was an increase of $781 billion.

For some people saying Google is overpriced, the debt ceiling was increased by over 5 Googles (and the debt is now 60 Googles)...which is a lot!

Some people are wondering if we should discard the penny because it costs more to make than it is worth...yet nobody thinks anything of money that is worth more than it costs to make and the fact that most of it is made not by the government.

And how uncomfortable should it make you that the CEO of Nasdaq stated on record that he had no idea how to calculate gross profit margin? Is he ignorant to business? Or is our langague or legal system so screwed up that you can't admit to knowing anything?

Peter Thiel is a total bad ass investor. His current macroeconomic predictions:

Three Wagers - One is that the price of 30-year U.S. Treasury bonds will rise as the U.S. economy slows and deflation sets in. Another is that the dollar will strengthen against the euro as investors scale back investments in emerging markets funded by borrowing dollars. And the third is that energy stocks will keep climbing along with the price of crude as world oil production reaches its zenith.

And he puts his money where his mouth is:

Thiel has even more riding on Clarium than most of his clients. He says he's invested his entire liquid net worth in his fund. Unlike most hedge fund managers, Thiel doesn't charge his customers an annual management fee. Instead, he pockets 25 percent of Clarium's trading gains.

what is his philosophy? he is a libertarian who questions the abuse of authority and believes demand is inherited based upon the demands of others

Thiel's view of human behavior -- and the markets -- was shaped by French literary critic Rene Girard. Girard, now a Stanford professor emeritus, maintains that people essentially borrow their desires from others. To Girard, our longing for a certain object is provoked by the desire of another person for this same object. Girard calls this ``mimetic desire.''

I swear I read / wrote that sort of line of thinking somewhere before...maybe a past post on this sweet blog (though I can't find it at the moment)

Posted at December 5, 2006 2:15 AM