Money Sage (archive)

Imagine the following scenario. You are the principal decision-maker of a gigantic pot of foreign money. (Asian, Middle Eastern, sovereign, or private money pool). You are seeking investments for your vast -- and constantly growing -- pile of money. There are certain characteristics for investments you prize greatly, and are willing to pay a hefty premium to market prices for. These characteristics are:
--safety;
--political, financial, and economic stability in the nation of investment choice;
--solidity of the individual investments in the country of prime desirability.

What, in your fondest dreams, would you wish for?

We would opine that you would wish to acquire these incomparably appealing premium assets AT A DISCOUNT. A discount beyond that offered by a temporarily depressed currency in the investment target country.

And what would you be willing to pay to get a discount, which could save you countless billions, in purchasing assets you desperately desire and would purchase in any event, almost irrespective of the size of the mark-up obtainable by sellers of said uniquely desirable assets?

A lot, we would guess.

And suppose -- just suppose -- that you were able to achieve this discount by spreading a relatively small amount of money around among molders of opinion and generators of panic, with the effect of driving down the price of assets you covet and are willing to pay a sizable premium for?

And how would you feel if you could achieve this WITHOUT PAYING ANYTHING AT ALL?

The foreign money pools are deeply indebted to the piranha-like behavior of the American financial media, who are doing their work for them, WITHOUT PAYMENT, in their frantic effort to increase readership/viewership, by sowing panic among the mass of American investors.

Can we say about the American financial media what Talleyrand said about a remarkably incompetent foreign diplomat with whom he had to deal?

"The man," he said, "is worse than a scoundrel. He is a fool."