Slope of Hope Blog Posts

Slope initially began as a blog, so this is where most of the website’s content resides. Here we have tens of thousands of posts dating back over a decade. These are listed in reverse chronological order. Click on any category icon below to see posts tagged with that particular subject, or click on a word in the category cloud on the right side of the screen for more specific choices.

Hellbound and Determined

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Perhaps you heard on the news yesterday that Charles Keating is now dead, having roamed the Earth for 90 years. I thought I’d take this opportunity to share a snippet from my Panic, Prosperity, and Progress book, which features a chapter on the S&L crisis in which Keating was so prominently featured. I think memories of Keating are absolutely charming, because it helps us remember a day long ago when financial criminals went to prison – – at least for a while. Of course, Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon, Ben Bernanke, Steve Cohen, and all the rest of them are cheerfully roaming free, wallowing in ill-gotten cash…………so welcome to the modern age! Anyway, here’s a tidbit: (more…)

Gold Contrary Indicators

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gold.barThe gold sector is peopled by a high concentration of contrary indicators because it is a relatively (to the vast world of equities and bonds) small market that offers refuge from some of the damaging aspects of the spectrum of investment products that are supported by the manipulation of interest rates and printed (and digitally created) money supplies. Thus, gold has moral high ground if an asset can be thought to have morality.

More accurately, the people bullish on and promoting gold take high moral ground and that is where the emotional power comes from in this market. This power feeds upon the desires of regular people to not suffer the consequences of the ‘evil’ actions of those running a system that many do not agree with. Readers of this site know of course that I certainly don’t agree with the setting and manipulation of interest rates by decree of man (and woman) in service to engineering desired outcomes in financial markets. (more…)