Investing With my Eyes and Ears

I spend less time reading and watch less and less television each and every year the last 10 years.

I spend more and more of my WORK time on the web.

I don’t play ANYTHING on the web. I do play Scrabble, Monopoly, Risk, UNO, Rummikub, but have yet to invite a high school friend from Facebook or a twitter follower into the game.

The internet is working. My discovery abilities have gotten better and my filtering capabilities have taken on greater importance. I can focus, learn and move on.

As well as the internet works, it helps to walk around and ask questions. I had perfect weather in New York last week, so I walked quite a bit, asked hundreds of questions of merchants and salespeople and had a chance to really think about what I was hearing.

I see unsustainable spending for goods. The prices for our clothes and electronics continues to drop to unsustainable levels. Go check out an H&M. Kids can rewardrobe in a semi-stylish way each and every month. There are no margins. We are continuing to buy, because the prices are insane.

Foreigners can RENT the best of the best from our glut of real estate. That will go on a long time. It’s so damn cheap. Nobody is committing to anything. Sellers are still hanging on and buyers know this. Even the real estate agents have caught on…the real estate agents!

Americans should and will do the same…rent with their depreciating dollars.

There is very little pricing power left. Sure, a painting can sell for some ungodly amount and the ‘talking heads’ can chatter on about what this means, but that is noise and a meaningless data point vs. walking the streets.

The have’s will have more (Apple, Amazon, Google, Goldman Sachs, even Twitter) and the have not’s will have less.

Watching the stock market as this unfolds may be the best trick the media and government have played on the consumer of all time.

It’s a fantastic STOCK market rally and well played out in the media, but the distribution returns are extremely skewed to the few. If you are buying US government bonds, you are a lazy crackhead. If you are buying homes, I think you are spending your money in a dumb manner.

Stay light and mobile, hoard cash and pay as little as you can for goods and assets when you have to spend. Control the urges because we are in a marathon.