Year: 2010

Wine as currency

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During difficult economic times, it is often the case that hoarding becomes illegal.  It is punishable by severe fines. In Weimar Germany a law was even passed against gluttony.  Today, the USA faces a serious threat of hyperinflation.  During hyperinflation, paper money becomes worthless and unhelpful in exchange.  Therefore, people resort to bartering goods and services.  Bartering is a form of commerce that is frowned upon by government because it can’t be taxed.  If I fix your plumbing and you fix my roof in exchange, each of us spending three hours to do it, we’ve exchange services but there is no money,  no paper trail, and no receipt.  Two normally taxable events are reduced to zero tax.  So a doctor treats a lawyer’s son and the lawyer draws up the doctor’s will.  Neither reports the activity to the government and no money passes hands. It is just a friendly transaction in an underground economy.

I believe that hyperinflation is an inevitability in the US, and unfortunately here in Canada, there is going to be high inflation.  In such times, it is useful to build up a store of silver or gold.  But personally, I’ve decided to store up something that I could potentially barter.  I have been making wine from concentrated juice, grape juice and from grapes since 2004.  My wines are pretty good; I’d say the equivalent of at least a $10 CDN per bottle at our local provincially control liquor stores (called the LCBO-the Liquor Control Board of Ontario).  Wine is a controlled substance, and so I am not allowed to sell my product without a license.  But when times are desperate, and money is worth nothing, I figure that I should be able to barter bottles of wine for food or other goods and services that I might need.

So I’ve decided to stock up on wine kits.  These kits are $70 for two at Costco, or $45 for one at my local supplier. Each kit contains concentrated juice that will make 30 bottles. I know that the juice remains usable for at least two years maybe more. Once made into wine, the wine can be aged another two years.  It is not certain how long the wine will last after that.  So my minimum cost base will be $1.17 per bottle plus my labor (which isn’t worth anything). If I buy 10 kits at Costco at a price of $300, I’ll be able to hoard 300 bottles of wine in reserve.  This would give me $3000 worth worth of goods with which to barter, and the product itself has an indefinite shelf life.  I estimate that it would be about the same as buying two one-ounce coins of gold, at a cost of $300 CDN.

The great thing about alcoholic beverages is that they do not lose their “currency” in times of depression.  Indeed, people feel the need to celebrate or to drown their sorrows even more during economic hardship than during the good times.  If the economic crisis never comes to Canada, well I can consume my product or give it away as gifts.   Or if the crisis comes and I am unable to barter the product, my wife and I could consume the wine for the calories and it will stave off starvation for a moment.

Sarah Palin’s dead lake: her god-like ability to influence things before she was born

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N.B.:  I was having this discussion at City of God with Sarah-Palin detractor who has taking aim at Craig Carter, a friend and one of my favorite bloggers. I was doing some research and found this:

Gov. Sarah Palin, former mayor of Wasilla, killed Lake Lucille.  This is according to piece by Salon’s founder David Talbot, covering the 2008 presidential campaign, “Sarah Palin’s dead lake: By promoting runaway development in her hometown, say locals, Palin has “fouled her own nest” — and that goes for the lake where she lives“);  as evidence, he cites a local assembly member:

“Lake Lucille is basically a dead lake — it can’t support a fish population,” said Michelle Church, a Mat-Su Valley borough assembly member and environmentalist. “It’s a runway for floatplanes.”

I grew up in Anchorage.  We passed Lake Lucille hundreds of times on our way to our cabin at Crooked Lake which is only about 30 minutes from Wasilla on South Big Lake Rd.  Assembly woman Michelle Church describes an all-too familiar scenario, a lake with lousy fishing, and suggests that that it is directly caused by float planes.  Our own Crooked Lake 40 years ago was by no means crowded with float planes; but the couple dozen families with cabins there fished it regularly with hardly any success.  Some lakes just don’t have good fishing.  We also used to fish Upper Russian Lake near Cooper Landing.  Now that was heaven for Rainbow Trout fishing.  Upper Russian Lake, situated between mountains is deep, cold and rocky, with little vegetation.  It avoided over-fishing because its access was by float plane or by a 12-mile hike through grizzly country.  Crooked Lake is warm and shallow with a lot of vegetation and sticklebacks, but trout only thrive in cold, highly oxygenated water.  One summer at Ontario’s Lake Opeongo I caught a 2 pound trout from my canoe but only after letting out hundreds of feet of line–I’ve never repeated that again.  Most summer trout fishing south of Alaska requires special rigging which holds the line 90 or so feet below the surface where the water is sufficiently cold.

Did Sarah Palin foul her nest (a distinctly misogynist slight) and make it impossible for fish to live in the lake?  Here is an excerpt from a 2009 article that explores a little bit of the history of the lake (Anchorage Daily News):

The state Department of Environmental Conservation has for several years called Lake Lucille an impaired water body because vegetation chokes the shallow pool and its decomposition robs the lake of oxygen.[snip]

According to an account published as part of a 1993 study by Anchorage engineering firm Hattenburg, Dilley and Linnell, rotenone, a poison, was added to the water in 1955 and 1963 to kill stickleback that had invaded the lake.

The treatments killed an estimated 25 million stickleback, along with 80,000 suckers, 450 rainbow trout and 235 silver salmon. A fish weir was added in the late 1960s to stabilize the lake levels and keep the stickleback population in check.

Measures have been taken to improve the lake’s water quality as well… [snip] But the lake is still choked by vegetation and doesn’t have enough dissolved oxygen.

Sarah Palin was apparently born in 1964, and her family doesn’t seem to have moved to Wasilla until 1972.  So she could be the cause of Lake Lucille’s death only if she has god-like powers to influence:

(1) the structure and nature of Lake Lucille, i.e., shallow with a lot of vegetation;

(2) events that occur before her alleged date of birth.

Perhaps she is an immortal alien from another planet or an überterrestial.  But it seems more likely that Salon founder David Talbot is not a journalist but a propagandist.  It took me less than five minutes of internet research to debunk his tendentious article.

Krugman vs. Rogers

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Krugman and Rogers are publicly exchanging barbs.  Krugman says that Bernanke’s quantitative easing is necessary to stave off deflation.  Rogers says it will cause a collapse of the dollar and surge in commodity prices, i.e., inflation.  Who is right?  Krugman or Rogers, the deflationistas or the inflationistas?

Krugman writes:

I’ve seen Rogers in action; he seemed to me to be confused about issues like the difference between assets and liabilities. And please note that inflationistas like Rogers have been wrong about absolutely everything this cycle (and the last cycle, and the cycle before that). 

[Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/paul-krugman-jim-rogers-has-never-been-right-about-anything]

Now to be sure both men are rich.  But so far I’ve not heard that Krugman has made money investing–his money probably comes from his Nobel prize, writing, book royalties, and media appearances.  Rogers on the other hand is universally recognized as one of the world’s premier investors/traders, along with such names as Warren Buffet and the shady George Soros.  I would tend to accept the advice of a successful  investor over an egghead.

I first heard of Jim Roger’s and his advice to put money on commodities and shunning bonds on January 19, 2009.  I’ve maintained such a portfolio, and I think I’m doing very well thank you very much–not including some serious profit-taking along the way, our current DIY portfolio is 60% above book with mostly oil and gas and gold mining stocks; Rogers would approve.  Had I put my money in bonds, I’m afraid at the dismal interest rates, my portfolio would have slight nominal gains but would have lost some serious buying power.  Rogers is right, his recommendations have worked for investors.  Krugman may end up being one of the most ridiculed and mocked economists of all time.

The deflationista David Rosenberg said that there would be a double dip this Fall.  A friend of mine took his advice and sold some of his oil stocks and now regrets it.  It could still happen.  But my money is on Rogers not Krugman.

The US dollar: America’s greatest export, Jim Grant

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At 2:08 in the video below, Jim Grant makes the point that the dollar is America’s greatest export.  A few weeks ago, I argued this very thing as an explanation of the trade deficit: there is no trade deficit, I said, only countries who will trade their goods for US dollars as a commodity in and of itself.  I’m gratified that Grant would come to this conclusion too.  Now consider OPEC.  When OPEC sees the price of a barrel going down, they cut production in order to reduce the supply and get prices back up.  The US Federal Reserve bank with QE is doing the opposite; it is increasing the supply.  The natural result of that will be that the value of the dollar as a commodity will decline.  But we should be forewarned, when the value declines too much, it will  no longer be a useful export, and the world will stop being willing to trade for it.  Then, the US will be in big trouble.

hat tip:  Monty Pelerin

Petrobank spinoff: what happens to an option contract? (updated)

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Update 29 December 2010:  Please note that Montreal Stock Exchanged has clarified these issues in a PDF document:  the contracts are now trading under the ticker PBG1.  The value of each contract is essentially what I predicted in this post.  Each contract is now based upon the following:

100 common shares of Petrobank (PBG) and 61 common shares of New Petrominerales (PMG) and a cash portion equivalent to 0.5 common share of PMG

 

Original post:

I have sold some April puts on Petrobank.  Yesterday they announced the spinoff of their holdings in Petrominerales of which they own 60%.  According to the Globe and Mail, Petrobank holders will receive shares Petrominerales when the arrangement closes before December 31:

The subsidiary, which produces oil in Colombia, saw its shares climb by almost 7 per cent. Following the reorganization, Petrobank shareholders will receive approximately 0.62 shares of the former subsidiary, renamed New Petrominerales, for every share of Petrobank they currently own.

I’ve sold some put contracts of Petrobank, and I was wondering what happens to my options contracts in case they are in the money at expiration, since the new share price of Petrobank will obviously adjust to reflect its value after the spinoff.  I found this answer at the International Securities Commission:

Corporate actions such as mergers, acquisitions and spinoffs will often necessitate a change to the amount or name of security that is deliverable under the terms of the contract. When such adjustments occur, the short call position is responsible for delivering the adjusted security.

For example: The shareholders of company JKL Inc. have approved a takeover bid placed by Global Giant Co. As a result, holders of JKL stock will now be entitled to a 1/2 share of Global Giant for every share of JKL Inc. they own. Therefore, holders of JKL call options will now be entitled to a deliverable amount of 50 shares of Global Giant for every contract of JKL that they are long (100 shares per contract x .5 Global Giant). Investors with short positions in JKL call options would then be responsible for delivering 50 shares of Global Giant for every call option assigned.

If I am correct, if my shares are assigned, I will receive at the strike 100 shares of Petrobank for each April contract in the money; I would also receive 62 shares of New Petrominerales.  Those exercising a call contract would receive the same.  I don’t know how the  price would be calculated, but I assume the combined market price on expiry of 100 shares of Petrobank and of 62 shares of Petrominerales.  If anyone knows, please make a comment below.