Readings From Last Week

I’m back from Chicago, and have a few pieces that are worth your time to read.

1) David Streitfeld, NYT – “In a race to out-rave, 5-star web reviews go for $5“  on the annoying trend of companies paying for “fake” positive reviews at online sites.

2) A triple shot of silver:

a) Eric Sprott is selling gold ($PHYS) to buy silver – Globe and Mail.  Of course, he’s not buying PSLV – he’s still selling PSLV.

b) Screwtape Files:  the reality behind the delivery of the initial purchase of silver for $PSLV.

c) Kedrosky with a quote from Steve Jobs on giving people what they want to hear (highly relevant for all the misinformation in the silver market, in case you can’t put 2 and 2 together):

““When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth.”
— Steve Jobs

3) Michael Pettis with a lesson on why China isn’t about to stop buying our Treasury bonds.

4) Cullen Roche on the real driver of gold prices lately:  China.  A Twitter commenter noted to me that CPI is a flawed measure of inflation, which I agree with.  I responded that although it’s flawed, it’s consistently flawed, which is why the correlation breakdown between US CPI and gold prices that Cullen illustrated in his post is important.

5) Fast fact: I was at an Indian wedding this weekend.  To symbolize prosperity, the bride and groom bind their scarves with not gold or silver, but copper…

6) Josh Brown on Fidelity’s poor advice to mutual fund holders

7) Asymco on decision making at $HPQ vs $AAPL

  • On September 3, 2001, HP announced that they would acquire Compaq.
  • On October 23, 2001, Apple announced the iPod.

The rest, as they say, is history.”

-KD

disclosure: no positions in $GLD $PHYS $SLV $PSLV $AAPL $HPQ or $TLT

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