Breathtaking Stupidity
About the AuthorDan Denning is the author of 2005's best-selling The Bull Hunter (John Wiley & Sons). He began his financial publishing career in 1997 and has covered financial markets form Baltimore, Paris, London and, beginning in 2005 Melbourne. He’s the editor of The Daily Reckoning Australia and the Publisher of Port Phillip Publishing.
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--All of our two eyes are now on the Aussie dollar. Europe's slow-motion fiscal meltdown ought to be a negative for "risk assets" like the Aussie dollar. And then yesterday the Reserve Bank of Australia revised its growth forecast for the economy lower. Traders are now betting there's a greater chance of an interest rate cut by next year than an interest rate rise.
--If "risk assets" are off and interest rates aren't headed up any time soon, that takes two legs out from underneath the Aussie. It will make an even more attractive target for those foreign short sellers and speculators we spoke about earlier this week. So what's the silver lining?
--It's gold actually. An ounce of gold in Aussie dollars will cost you about $1411.80, not including dealer premiums, especially if you're buying a coin. The chart below shows that the strong Aussie dollar has put a lid on the price of gold here. We're still about $100 below the high set in 2010.
--The Aussie dollar is strong now, relative to the absolutely feeble U.S. dollar. But let's remember one important thing: paper money not backed by precious metals is not really sound money. Precious metals ARE money. Owning bullion is a way of owning money that can't be produced by a central bank.
--Of course bullion doesn't give you much leverage. And it pays no interest. But we like to buy it on weakness anyway. We leave the leveraged gold stock plays to Alex Cowie at Diggers and Drillers .
--The economic stupidity of Australia's government is truly breathtaking. We say this with all due respect as an American citizen whose own government (of both parties) is taking economic sabotage and vandalism to new lows. But the brazen wealth destruction by Australia's current government is pretty impressive, at least inasmuch as it's impressive to watch someone punch their own face for no good reason.
--We're writing, of course, about the carbon tax. It's apparently slated to come in at $23-25 per tonne. In order to secure support for this, the government has basically had to bribe various constituencies and interest groups with a cut of the loot garnered from the tax. Someone get Julia Gillard a Robin Hood costume. If you had any doubts about the underlying goal of the tax - a new source of wealth to rob and redistribute - those should be laid to rest.
Muscle Car Prices - News
About half of Mustangs and two-thirds of Camaros are rolling onto the street with efficient, but strikingly powerful V6 engines, as consumers hedge against high gas prices. Today's muscle cars also come with airbags, stability control and robust brakes
Why you should go: Cruise downtown this Saturday for one of the largest car shows in Kansas. The Automobilia Moonlight Car Show will be featuring muscle cars, hot rods, motorcycles, sports cars, vintage & antique vehicles, classic cars, and much more.
--While we're sure to cop it in the mail for being an energy-industry shill, we copped it from the rev-heads yesterdaymostly for our exclusion of any Fords from our muscle car listand our inclusion of the '66 Impala. Here's some of the mail.
The 2012 Camaro lead muscle car sales in May 2011, with the introduction of the convertible model, selling 9451 units. This is a gain of 5% over May 2010, however 10000 Camaros were sold in April, so there was a slight decline from the previous month.
"One of the by-products of the mining boom has been the rise of the Cashed-Up Bogan (CUB) – young men with plenty of cash to splash on muscle cars, beer and drugs," the travel bible said. "A spate of fights and glassings in bars has caused many venues,
Muscle Cars, No Midlife Crisis Required | Only Cars
For the first time in decades, Detroit’s three big brands, Ford, Chevy and Dodge, all are offering rear-wheel drive coupes that provide a distinctively American blend of in-your-face styling and big horsepower. Joe White explains.
Detroit muscle-car mania is back.
For the first time since the Carter administration, three big Detroit brands, Ford, Chevrolet and Dodge, all offer rear-wheel-drive coupes that boast a distinctively American blend of in-your-face styling and big horsepower numbers.
How big? Try a 444-horsepower Ford Mustang Boss 302, which can be ordered with a special “Laguna Seca” package that essentially makes it a street-legal race car. Or consider the forthcoming 2012 Chevy Camaro ZL1 that will deliver 550 horsepower from its supercharged V8. Meanwhile, Chrysler LLC offers a Dodge Challenger model with a 470-horsepower Hemi engine that can run from 0 to 60 miles per hour in under five seconds.
These monster engines are shoehorned into back-to-the-future body styles that telegraph the core target market for the cars: baby boomers who lusted for these cars in their teens and 20s, but settled for Japanese compacts, minivans and sport-utility vehicles. Equally important to Detroit marketers, though, is capturing the imagination of car enthusiasts who don’t remember the ’60s and ’70s—they weren’t born yet.
“It’s the attitude of the customer,” less than demographics, says Mustang brand manager Jim Owens , who has a customized Mustang of his own that packs 650 horsepower under the hood. It is an attitude that says, “Hey, look at me!” he adds.
For Detroit car makers that were struggling to survive just two years ago, the buzz generated by muscle cars provides a much-needed shot in the arm for their brands. The official Mustang Facebook page, for instance, has more than 1.5 million followers—about twice as many as the Ford Motor Co. Facebook page.
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The 2011 Ford Mustang
But similar to the mid-1970s, when fuel prices soared and new regulations forced auto makers to shift strategies, a cloud is gathering over the muscle-car party just as it is revs up. Amid gyrating gas prices, the Obama administration is pushing a proposal that could boost fuel-economy standards to 56 or 60 mpg by 2025, leaving muscle-car makers with some tough choices down the road.
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