Iceland going through Alpha Strategy Blues in currency meltdown

Iceland always seemed like a wonderful place tucked into the middle of the N Atlantic, the people are friendly and until recently, life was cheap.

With an isolated location, and little food production capacity, our Icelandic Neighbors are no confronting empty store shelves and little food to purchase with a no worthless currency.

Alpha Strategy is relatively cheap to pursue while times are good, a family of four needs 3 meals a day, 7 days a week for at least 365 days, or 4,300 meals at about 2 pds of food per meal, give or take, or 8,000 pds of food or 160 bags of Beans and Corn or what have you.

Depending on how much your family consumes and how much food can be acquired via fishing or hunting or domestic production....

Icelanders, whose per capita gross domestic product is the fifth highest in the world, according to the United Nations 2007/2008 Human Development Index, will have to tighten their belts.

Shoppers are paying more for the goods they do get. The cost of fruits and vegetables, nearly all of which are imported, have gone up about 50 percent in recent months, said Steinunn Kristinsdottir, a 33-year-old Reykjavik resident who was leaving the Bonus store with her cart full.

``This situation really has been a bit troubling for people,'' she said. ``They don't know what's going to happen.

Stock market crash was forseeable, now comes Inflation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/08/inflation.banking



This is the "best case scenario"


Monetary authorities around the world are now focused on trying to ensure that we avoid the fate of the United States in the Great Depression of the 1930s, when output fell by over 30%. Instead, their hope is that the recession to come is more like the early 1970s, when western economies shrank by 5% to 10%. Painful but not catastrophic.

One of the benefits of the venerable strategy of stockpiling is such inflation is avoided, by buying in quantity now, the Alpha Strategist will miss the pain of losing 10 dollars on every 100 dollars.

The real irony of this is, people who are "savers" the few and far between people who put their money in the bank, are about to lose their shirts from both inflation driven loss of purchasing power AND the increase in Capital Gains taxes.

Truly, inflation is a Govt best friend, and "Joe or Jane Average" worst enemy.

And what is the largest tidal wave to hit, Seniors on fixed Social Security incomes will not have their benefits increased 10%, try 4% maximum, literally, Seniors and the Retired will face the hawk and buzzard for a couple of years.

Buy, Buy Now, Buy in Bulk, Avoid all of this by using the Alpha Strategy.

Never...never..take things for granted

As an Alpha Strategist, I'm afraid I let my gaurd down this week.

Hurricane Ike decimated the Houston Energy infrastructure, in response I filled the tank to the brim, the crisis seemed to pass, facilities were back and operational fairly quickly.

Alas, that is true, but not the whole truth, it would seem that my region was at the bottom of the list to have gasoline delivered to the pumps, after two weeks, I'm running on empty, there is no gas to be had without a 1 hour wait time.

Needless to say, I'd be out of gas long before I made it through the line, so in a counter move, it is shanks mare and a ten speed bike to make up the difference, if a real emergency hit, I'd be reduced to Fourth World level unable to transport to the hospital or the pharmacy.

The lesson from this one is, never trust what the media says, or what is "normal" that is a huge mistake in a crisis, and failure to forsee these sorts of things will cause inefficiency.

Fire! Death! Murder! Well...not exactly

The Wizards of Wall and Broad have finally cooked their own gooses, to many years of high risk, medium profits and bad loans...they got burned, AIG, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and a cavalcade of others, all no longer exist..

Hundreds of Billions in value....gone.

The Death of those Noble Houses of finances were no surprise, the effects will be felt for decades, centuries...eons...err...no it will not, the weak fail, that is one of the laws that cannot be legislated against, like gravity and God's Laws of personal behaviour, sure you can violate them, for a time, but the end result is...bowing to the inevitable (eww...grim...).

Murder! Which is what will happen to the average Go-Go 2000's family, their budgets are about to murdered in the contraction that will take place, we could see some minor deflation of commodities as losses in the US scare money out of the market and deflate prices.

Of course, as that money flees jobs go along with it, meaning if you have stocked the larder in your affordable dwelling and kept your bills low, the Alpha Strategy will pay dividends in the event of job loss/lowered income.

I see the Gurus on TV proclaming this a short term adjustment, they are quite wealthy enough to make that statement, but don't buy it for a second, this event will take time to be swallowed up in the rhythms of life, the easy credit Big Screen TV gas guzzling SUV life is about to face some attitude adjustments.

A bit of adivce though, if one is a Alpha Strategist, do not simply turn your back on Opportunity and gaze at your Alpha Savings Account, yes, it is nice security, now is the chance to go bargain shopping with that cash that is horded via bulk savings.

For myself, I can see some solid opportunities really solid ones, now that the preplanned Alpha Strategy is in effect, the next step is to look at one's own strategy for the next three years out in the face of Market that is cash strapped but value enhanced.

In 2002, I saw some historic lows, I still kick myself today for not dropping at least some money on companies that will not only pay a dividend, but also will appreciate.

Alpha's have won this round, it's the next round that should be looked forward to, don't fight the last war.

Consumer prices rise quickly

From the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumer prices shot up in July at twice the expected rate, pushed higher by surging energy and food costs. The latest surge left inflation running at the fastest pace in 17 years.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that consumer prices rose by 0.8 percent last month, twice the 0.4 percent gain that economists had been expecting.

It marked the third straight month of oversized inflation increases following jumps of 0.6 percent in May and 1.1 percent in June. And it leaves inflation rising by 5.6 percent over the past year, the biggest 12-month gain since January 1991.

Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, rose 0.3 percent in July, slightly higher than the 0.2 percent increase that economists had expected. For the past 12 months, core inflation has risen by 2.5 percent, the highest 12-month change since February.

The inflation surge presents a major problem for the Federal Reserve: Will inflation force it to start raising interest rates even as the economy struggles to avoid a recession?

Some economists said they believed this could be the last truly horrible inflation report, noting that energy prices have been falling since hitting a peak last month. Others worried that the July report could be a signal that inflation is not going to moderate as quickly as had been expected because the surge in energy prices is now starting to spread to other sectors of the economy.

So basically "core" inflation has risen, and the statistics do not track the costs of Alpha Strategy key items, food and fuel and the products made from oil, with a JIT inventory system, some makers of those products may only suffer a small rise in costs, manufacturers typically sign futures contracts for their raw materials, however once those contracts run out, the producers will have no choice but to raise prices on everything from Oatmeal to Toothpaste.

For myself, I hit on a mini gold mine of savings at a Industrial Paper Supplier, 200 rolls of generic Toilet paper for 40 bucks, a similar amount of a name brand toilet paper would cost 150 dollars plus taxes of 11 dollars, or about 25% of the cost for the 200 rolls.

It's small ball somewhat, but it reaffirms the saver mindset, and 200 rolls of TP will last almost two years at my home.

Dressed up ye old Blog with a Sykes Fairbairn

Decided to add one of my favorite knives as a header on the blog.

The Sykes Fairbairn is a beautiful knife with a controversial design, tested in combat, but if you abused it, the blade would fail at the tip.

The tip of the knife would just snap off if it was abused, and yet the WW2 paras and OSS used it throughout the war with good results, but like most things, the newest and latest "obsolesced" this fine blade.

After WW2 there were barrels full of issued Sykes Fairbairn knives exported to America and sold for 3 dollars or so, today they would be worth hundreds of dollars if they had been used in combat.

The lesson is, what is cast away if it has intrinsic design value will always be useful, if not currently sexy...

Beauty Supply stores as Alpha Strategy enablers.

Happened to be out and about in the heat of the day today, ran across a Discount Beauty Supply store of the type that author Pugsley mentioned in the Alpha Strategy.

I am a bit low on shampoo at the moment so I dropped in to see if Pugsley was correct, and not surprisingly he was quite correct, a 1 gallon bottle of professional shampoo concentrate sold for 8.99 which on it's face would seem steep, but the 1 gallon is a concentrate, it makes 5 gallons in total, or 2 dollars a gallon, the average bottle of shampoo is maybe a quart or less and costs 2.00 to 3.00 bucks.

5 gallons will make 20 quarts of shampoo if not more, or 2.00 x 20=40.00 and the concentrate avoids state sales taxes on the 20 or more bottles that you would normally buy over the course of time.

So a 5 minute visit to Beauty Supply shop has acquired enough shampoo to last for 2 years at least...