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Hi Joe, we got thoroughly shaken down by an underhand EA, or should I say an EA's member of staff. It was a very nasty sale, (show me one that is not) and this woman was giving both parties differing exchange and completion dates, our buyer nearly lost her mortgage offer due to her. The buyer turned up on our door step one day in bits and we compared notes. The EA was unblievably evil, so we just bypassed the EA and did our exchange/completion timings ourselves. The sad thing was that the EA had told me the new owners needed non of the gardening equipment at all. I was leaving everything for the upkeep of a wood and gardens and cleared the lot on the say of the EA. A lot of monies worth. Years' ago when my gran died she left my dad her house, he gave it to us three kids. Nothing was moving and we all wanted our inheritance for different things, i.e., I was buying a small holiday home business in Cornwall. In the end the agent 'took it off our hands', what fools we were. The trafford centre was build over my gran's property.

Frizzers expecting the £ to crash soon although he's often wrong.

It would make sense to move increasingly towards cash if one observed a 500 days ++ inverted yield curve and thought that might predict a 50% crash. Not by chance - I have sold nearly all my share holdings - still holding PMs, Miners, Oil, Emerging Markets and Gold.

Recently Ive found the EAs over here very hit and miss. Theres ones now we avoid completely, usually the fixed fee or no fee up front people. Big difference in different EA office of the same 'chain'. Very surprised your folks havent been blacklisted altogether by this stage with no option but to go the purplebricks or whatever route. The ones a lot of people avoid after one or two experiences.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mark-precious-metals-reports-fiscal-200500821.html It looks like retail buyers are selling whilst Central Banks are buying.

If one accepts that view then it should be that the debt is extinguished when the individual dies. Control of the assets that they have acquired during their lifetime can be passed on to whoever the individual decided but the debts owed to him can no longer be settled.

Clarkson's Farm is back on. A depressing edge to it this time. And highlighting fertiliser costs and alternatives.

Yes. The initial discussion was more interestingly about value and money's role.

No doubt. But, many people actually take the above as evidence that money is created by the state and that it must, therefore, be something other than debt that has to be repaid by the inspiration and perspiration of individuals. IMO, the distinction is important and far from merely academic because one has to understand what money is in order to use it properly and to avoid falling for sophistries, such as "MMT", which is really just fraud. It puts me in mind of something Rand said about economists always trying to remove the most important factor in any economy - the individuals within it, their motivations and capabilities - because they're too hard to model and often politically inconvenient, IIRC (it's in Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal but it's been a while since I read it).

oh I agree, money is first created by individuals; however in any human society worthy of the name, taxation determines what is 'money' pretty bloody fast. Trying paying your council tax in apples from your garden.

Indeed, one could characterise the particular form of debt that is money as one that has been suborned by the state and used as an instrument of coercion by them. However, I think it's important to emphasise that 'money', as a medium of exchange, is actually created by individuals and has existed without state interference. Otherwise, one runs the risk of accepting the thieves' paradigm that their extortion racket is a necessary evil.

The other driver for 'what is money' is whatever the state demands payment in for taxes. If you look at colonisation in the 19th and early 20th century, one well documented way of building complete control once you beat the existing king/prince was to demand taxes in your currency (silver coin, etc). That meant everyone needed to get your currency, and would trade away their other assets to get the coinage the taxman recognised.

I'm not sure I take your meaning but it's their debt now and they can buy whatever they want with it. A long, but not that long, time ago, people used to take debts that others owed them to banks to be 'factored', i.e. to be exchanged for the bank's own debt at a discount. Then the state decided that it would be an awfully good idea if local banks were banned from issuing their own banknotes - i.e. the evidence of debt - and had to, instead, issue notes from a central bank, their bank, which they could order to simply give them more notes to spend as they wished. They also declared these notes to be 'legal tender' and so people had to accept them in satisfaction of debt. The principle is similar, although not identical, with coins where the analogue of 'factoring' is called 'seigniorage'.

me too

I'm surprised at all the discussion of "what actually is money?" Surely anything is money. When I was a kid working class people who could not afford to gamble used to play cards for matchsticks. People have had stones with holes in, funny-looking seashells, dolphin teeth. I've heard that pot noodles are used as currency in prisons. All that matters is that Everyone agrees that the special stones or whatever are money. No good being a seashell millionaire if everyone believes that money is special stones. Vice versa. There is some sort of restriction and difficulty in being able to get new ones - you can't have something where people can just add as many as they like if they are running short. It's for keeping score. Anything will do.

I have been tempted into a small first ladder back into Yara...

Please explain how the small debt of someone who died long ago in the past enables someone in government to order the killing of hundreds of other people?

I dunno, would you say that, for example, a gambling debt that a loan-shark uses against someone has magically become another species of thing? TBH, I'd say that allowing those who issue it to claim that money is something transcendental and unknowable, as opposed to merely debt, is what actually gives them the "power and control".

@sancho panza have you been watching the agchem companies (MOS, YARA, etc) the last few days?

Have you sold all your share holdings recently, by any chance?

I’ve said this before …. “The yield curve has been inverted now for over 500 days ”. This has only happened three times in the past century, in 1929, 1974, and 2009, and that each time the market fell more than 50 percent. Just saying.

Sounds like you’ve got a solid plan and strategy. Just be warned kids are great but expensive! If you are investing over a 30 year timeframe then potentially do some research into global trackers. While I agree that the US seems over priced, I heard the same thing 10 years ago! Im a big fan of passive investing with a bit of active asset allocation. While I do actively manage about 10% my portfolio I’m not sure whether it’s worth all the effort, but I do find it fun. It’s certainly worth setting a world tracker as your base line. If you manage to beat it over a 10 year period that you’re better than 90% of active managers after their costs are removed.

I will add that my mate who is even more suspicious than I am of EA's says he think's there a small chance the EA is playing games with them and will phone them back in a day or two to let them know that the buyers will complete if they give them a hard date right now. We will see.

Its not automation, IT vacancies are usually the canary in the coal mine economically, it means that companies are not starting new projects and generally belt tightening.

Following on from coffee shop discussion ref falling revenues,rising wages.commodity cost look likely to rise as well