Welcome!

The purpose of this group is to discuss current economic crisis, its causes and primarily its possible near and long-term consequences from a personal finance perspective, including investment, while taking into the account the following:

- Monetary policy and the Federal Reserve (fundamental topic)
- Budget deficits, public and private debt, US Treasury market and interest rates (fundamental topic)
- Trade imbalances and international capital flows (fundamental topic)
- Economic indicators, including biased ones
- Significant domestic and global economic and financial news and events
- Wall Street influence on the government
- Political news and events influencing and influenced by the economic conditions
- Historical perspective, keeping in mind that history may not repeat itself and has a limited use in a personal finance decisions

This group is about taking a very pragmatic and non-static approach to this crisis, analyzing new developments and possibly adjusting opinion about its consequences or their timing. Anyone who analyzes current economic crisis from the perspective of all major participants in the global and domestic economy and markets, questioning their moves and motives all along, I hope, should find our discussions encouraging in this regard.

Intended motivation for this group is to make better informed investment decisions based on economic and broad market trends and to protect your wealth.

There's a lot of information on the Internet related to the current economic crisis. Some of this information may be more significant than other, some may be inaccurate or just misleading due to poor and paid-for journalism. Consequently, in forming an opinion about this crisis and how to handle it, I think, it is good to have some validation from others. For one's own financial sake, looking for early signs of deflation or inflation, including its flavors, is an important, yet difficult task without time and resources. My hope is that this group can fill in some gaps in its member's research and generate some ideas, when possible and applicable, based on current financial framework.

What this group is not about?

- While I recognize our system needs to be fixed, it is not the purpose of this group to consider solutions but merely follow and analyze "solutions" that government may implement or implements as they unfold. Why? Our system is corrupt beyond hope for orderly repair. With close to 40,000 registered lobbyist in Washington and gullible public, I think, only collapse can bring about real change.
- It is not about discussing technical analysis methods and formulas. Knowing basics like inverse relationship between bond price and yield helps though.

Recommended readings:

RGE Monitor web-site at http://www.rgemonitor.com
Very good source of economic news and analysis

"The Dollar Crisis: Causes, Consequences, Cures" by Richard Duncan
A good introduction to understanding of bubbles, trade imbalances and international capital flows.

"The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
This book is a very entertaining reading for skeptics.

Etiquette

(1) Please do not offer any financial or investment services during group meetings. (*)
(2) Please do not offer investment advice, especially unsolicited, where relevant economic and market trend has not been discussed yet. (*)
(3) Please do not justify investment advice primarily based on any of the following: someone else's opinion, your financial expertise or supposed insider information.
(4) Please refrain from discussing specific stocks unless entire group is interested. (*)

(*) Discussion can be arranged based on interest