Paul Legato

George Soros called an “ultimate bubble” in gold at Davos today, inflated by the ultra-low interest rates. I can’t say I disagree. The general economic malaise and uncertainty has pumped gold up bigtime, and it will steadily deflate as confidence returns (not to mention whatever machinations the central banks and IMF have going on in this area.)

In somewhat-related news, the Greek premier said the Euro is under attack by speculators. German economy minister Rainer Brüderler said that Germany will not be bailing Greece out, and that the Greek crisis may prove fatal for the Eurozone. This interview with Soros is also interesting.

I wrote about macro weakness in the Euro in April, where I advised shorting Euros against a basket of currencies with minimal emphasis on the dollar. The Euro is about the same versus USD now as it was then, gyrating wildly versus the yen, lower than the pound and the franc, much lower versus Aussie dollars, New Zealand dollars, and Canadian dollars. Anyone who took my advice then would be much richer today, and richer still if Greece goes bankrupt next week.

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The iPad is #1 on Reddit Programming right now: a curious piece by Alex Payne. Payne says he is “disturbed” because “it’s a device that does little to enable creativity”; thus, the “tragedy of the iPad is that it truly seems to offer a better model of computing for many people – perhaps the majority of people.”

Payne’s conception of humanity is somewhat more disturbing. He is saying that all people can be, or at least should be, “creative” (whatever that means), and those who are not are somehow deficient as human beings. Nonetheless, the iPad so far has not impressed me. Continue Reading »

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