Bloomberg: Bernanke has lost control of inflation

[ronnieraygun]

March 10 (Bloomberg) -- Bond investors have never been so sure that the Federal Reserve will lose control of inflation. They're so convinced that they're giving up yields just to buy debt securities that protect against rising consumer prices.

The yield on the five-year Treasury Inflation-Protected Security due in 2012 has been negative since Feb. 29, and traded today at minus 0.17 percent. The notes, which were first sold in 1997, have never before traded below zero. Even so, firms from Deutsche Asset Management to Vanguard Group Inc., the second- biggest U.S. mutual fund company, say TIPS are a bargain.

For the first time in a generation, money managers must come to grips with a central bank that's more intent on spurring the economy than restraining price increases. With oil above $100 a barrel, gold approaching $1,000 an ounce and the dollar at a record low against the euro, TIPS show investors aren't convinced Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke will be able to tame inflation once policy makers stop cutting interest rates.

``The way TIPS are trading now, investors believe headline inflation will stay lofty and are willing to give up the real yield for that,'' said Brian Brennan, a money manager who helps oversee $11 billion in fixed-income assets at T. Rowe Price Group Inc. based in Baltimore. Prices for the securities indicate ``a real concern of a recession and high headline inflation,'' he said.

Because TIPS pay a principal amount that rises in tandem with the consumer price index, buyers accept lower yields in a bet the inflation adjustment will make up the difference.

Volcker Fed

Investors typically determine what they are willing to receive in interest by deducting the rate of inflation expected over the life of the securities from the rate on a comparable Treasury. Investors can still earn money from TIPS with sub-zero rates because the principal rises with the CPI.
Five-year TIPS yielded 2.36 percentage points less than similar-maturity Treasuries as of 9:14 a.m. in New York. The so- called breakeven rate has risen from a four-and-a-half-month low of 1.89 percent on Jan. 23, the day after policy makers cut their target lending rate by three-quarters of a point to 3.50 percent in an emergency move.

The last time investors were so worried about faster inflation amid slowing growth, Paul A. Volcker presided over a Fed that would raise rates as high as 20 percent to end the stagflation crisis of the 1970s, according to Seth Plunkett, a bond fund manager at American Century Investment Management in Mountain View, California. The firm manages $20 billion.
Fed Forecast

Inflation ``is going to be higher than the Fed's targeted area,'' said Plunkett, whose fund owns a greater percentage of TIPS than contained in the index he uses to measure performance.
In forecasts released last month, the Fed said it expects inflation to accelerate 2.1 percent to 2.4 percent this year, and 1.7 percent to 2 percent in 2009.

TIPS have returned 6.2 percent this year, compared with 3.7 percent from regular Treasuries, according to indexes compiled by Merrill Lynch & Co. Mutual funds that specialize in inflation-linked debt attracted a net $2.87 billion in January, boosting their assets to $47.6 billion, according the latest data available from Financial Research Corp. in Boston. In all of 2007, the funds added a net $3.54 billion.

``TIPS are a really good buy,'' said Bill Chepolis, a money manager who helps oversee $9 billion at Deutsche Asset Management in New York. He bought five-year TIPS in the last six months. ``They're cheap with the Fed continuing to emphasize growth over inflation and inflation continuing to come in higher.''

Too Expensive

Investors seeking a haven from credit-market losses have pushed yields on all Treasuries lower, including TIPS. Five-year nominal note yields have dropped 1.03 percentage points this year to 2.41 percent.

``It's crazy,'' said Richard Schlanger, a portfolio manager at Boston-based Pioneer Asset Management, which oversees $44 billion in fixed income. ``You're paying the government to buy five-year TIPS. People are hiding in Treasuries for liquidity's sake because of a lack of liquidity in other markets. Eventually this will pass.''

Record-low TIPS yields also reflect bets on surging commodities. Crude oil futures rose to $106.54 last week and are up 70 percent in the past year.
Growth in countries such as China and India mean that rising prices for goods including wheat, gold, and oil ``may be a permanent thing,'' said Paul Samuelson, the second recipient of the Nobel Prize in economics who helped popularize the term ``stagflation.'' ``This time it's primarily not made-in-America inflation.''

Resumed Sales

The Treasury stopped selling five-year TIPS between 1998 and 2003, and resumed auctions in October 2004. In addition to the current five-year security, seven other inflation-indexed notes with up to four years to maturity currently yield less than zero.

Should five-year TIPS continue to have negative yields when the Treasury holds its next sale April 22, federal rules state investors would receive a coupon of zero percent, said Stephen Meyerhardt, a Bureau of Public Debt spokesman in Washington.

``TIPS have performed really well for the right reasons and they will continue to perform well for the right reason,'' said Kenneth Volpert, a fund manager overseeing $14.7 billion in inflation-linked debt at Vanguard in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

To contact the reporters on this story: Sandra Hernandez in New York at shernandez4@bloomberg.net; Deborah Finestone in New York at dfinestone@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 10, 2008 09:15 EDT


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aIbnAuYWv3A0&refer=exclusive

[Albatross]

Thank god the press is finally on this mess, a reputable source too. Bernake needs to GTFO. That guy is about as much good as a gay dude at a sorority sleep over.

[Solomin]

Bloomberg's has the largest ego in politics.

[Albatross]

Bloomberg's has the largest ego in politics.

What does this have to do with M. Bloomberg's ego? Are you paying attention to current inflation/stagflation?

[Zoomie]

What does this have to do with M. Bloomberg's ego? Are you paying attention to current inflation/stagflation?
Have you not heard the things he's proposed? Raising funds through "Crack Tax" where he'd place a tax on illegal drugs, where he expects drug dealers to be both honest about their earnings, and to actually pay it? rofl

[Albatross]

Have you not heard the things he's proposed? Raising funds through "Crack Tax" where he'd place a tax on illegal drugs, where he expects drug dealers to be both honest about their earnings, and to actually pay it? rofl

Bloomberg or Bernake?

[Solomin]

What does this have to do with M. Bloomberg's ego? Are you paying attention to current inflation/stagflation?

My point is there is always a great deal of factors influencing an economy. It's difficult to keep track of them all, that's the Fed's job. To publicly decree Bernanke has lost control is a gross exaggeration, abusive, and irresponsible of his position as Mayor of NYC. He makes these statements often and they have little constructive value. He is wealthy as hell because he does understand investment and business, however he is not a macroeconomic expert on the national or global economy.

PS: The term stagflation is pretty darn inaccurate for the current situation.

[Zoomie]

Bloomberg or Bernake?
It would be Bloomberg, he apparently worked with Spitzer on it.

[Albatross]

My point is there is always a great deal of factors influencing an economy. It's difficult to keep track of them all, that's the Fed's job. To publicly decree Bernanke has lost control is a gross exaggeration, abusive, and irresponsible of his position as Mayor of NYC. He makes these statements often and they have little constructive value. He is wealthy as hell because he does understand investment and business, however he is not a macroeconomic expert on the national or global economy.

PS: The term stagflation is pretty darn inaccurate for the current situation.

He knows economics, he built is wealth by studying it and recognizing trends.

Later he received his Master of Business Administration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Business_Administration) (MBA) degree from Harvard Business School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Business_School).



stagnation, is exactly what is going on by the definition of it:

Stagflation, a portmanteau (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau) of the words stagnation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_stagnation) and inflation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation), is a macroeconomics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroeconomics) term used to describe a period of inflation combined with stagnation (that is, slow economic growth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_growth) and rising unemployment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment), possibly including recession (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession)).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation#_note-blanchard) The term stagflation is generally attributed to United Kingdom Conservative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_%28UK%29) MP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_Parliament#United_Kingdom) and later Chancellor of the Exchequer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancellor_of_the_Exchequer) Iain Macleod (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Macleod), who coined the term in a speech to Parliament (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_the_United_Kingdom) in 1965.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation#_note-0)[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation#_note-1)[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation#_note-2)

[Solomin]

He knows economics, he built is wealth by studying it and recognizing trends.

Later he received his Master of Business Administration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Business_Administration) (MBA) degree from Harvard Business School (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Business_School).



stagnation, is exactly what is going on by the definition of it:

Stagflation, a portmanteau (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portmanteau) of the words stagnation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_stagnation) and inflation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation), is a macroeconomics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroeconomics) term used to describe a period of inflation combined with stagnation (that is, slow economic growth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_growth) and rising unemployment (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment), possibly including recession (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession)).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation#_note-blanchard) The term stagflation is generally attributed to United Kingdom Conservative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Party_%28UK%29) MP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_Parliament#United_Kingdom) and later Chancellor of the Exchequer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancellor_of_the_Exchequer) Iain Macleod (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_Macleod), who coined the term in a speech to Parliament (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_of_the_United_Kingdom) in 1965.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation#_note-0)[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation#_note-1)[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagflation#_note-2)

Yes, the article states inflation between 2.1 and 2.4%, in economics 2.5% inflation is considered healthy for a growing economy. If we are stagnating, our inflation rate is decreasing with our slower growth rate as would be expected. This is not stagflation. Especially looking at historical context of when economies have been considered in a state of stagflation, the Carter era in the US, inflation is much much higher than 2.5% and growth is much much lower than is current.

[jedisponge]

To publicly decree Bernanke has lost control is a gross exaggeration, abusive, and irresponsible of his position as Mayor of NYC.

PS: The term stagflation is pretty darn inaccurate for the current situation.

Umm...

I just want to point out to you guys one thing. Bloomberg in this case means the news corporation, started by Bloomberg.

It is not Bloomberg himself making these statements. It is the news organization. You can argue that Bloomberg has some hidden influence on the organization, but that's speculation at this point, and doesn't change the fact that this isn't Bloomberg himself saying it.

And the last time I heard, stagflation = a steady rise in inflation with a steady decline in growth rate. I don't know where you are getting your economics knowledge, but the economy seems to be doing just that right now or right on the cusp of doing just that, depending on how you view things.

Edit: just to point out, Bloomberg no longer owns the company. He sold it when he ran for mayor. As a New Yorker, it got the best of me and I forgot to include that.

[Igor01]

Yes, the article states inflation between 2.1 and 2.4%, in economics 2.5% inflation is considered healthy for a growing economy. If we are stagnating, our inflation rate is decreasing with our slower growth rate as would be expected. This is not stagflation. Especially looking at historical context of when economies have been considered in a state of stagflation, the Carter era in the US, inflation is much much higher than 2.5% and growth is much much lower than is current.

Once you've factored in real inflation, not the fancy births/deaths models and such, you'll see that the growth is not just contracting, it's negative, and the real inflation is quite a bit higher than the government CPI numbers would lead you to believe. There is a reason they have to resort to these models and why they stopped reporting vital economic data like M3. Remove the statistical trickery and you get a very different picture.

http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs_cpi_home.gif?m=Jan08b

Check out this CNN interview (http://money.cnn.com/video/#/video/news/2008/02/28/news.hunter.shadowstats.Feb28.cnnmoney) with John Williams, the guy who runs www.shadowstats.com (http://www.shadowstats.com).

[Solomin]

Umm...

I just want to point out to you guys one thing. Bloomberg in this case means the news corporation, started by Bloomberg.

It is not Bloomberg himself making these statements. It is the news organization. You can argue that Bloomberg has some hidden influence on the organization, but that's speculation at this point, and doesn't change the fact that this isn't Bloomberg himself saying it.

And the last time I heard, stagflation = a steady rise in inflation with a steady decline in growth rate. I don't know where you are getting your economics knowledge, but the economy seems to be doing just that right now or right on the cusp of doing just that, depending on how you view things.

Edit: just to point out, Bloomberg no longer owns the company. He sold it when he ran for mayor. As a New Yorker, it got the best of me and I forgot to include that.

Well I guess that settles the bloomberg-ego dispute for this headline, just on the stagflation definition, I do have a B.S. in Economics. I'll be the first to admit this doesn't make me able to predict the future of our economy or make me an expert by any means, but I can at least be sure that historical cases now considered in periods of stagflation have a much greater difference between inflation and growth than does the US currently. The term is thrown around a lot in the media, because, like the words quagmire and Iraq in a headline sell newspapers, so does the word stagflation. If you running a nightly news show, and you want 2 economists to debate over the future of the economy, you're going to pick the one who says we'll be fine and the guy who says **** is going hit the fan, not the guy who says we'll be fine against the guy says it will only be a slightly worse.

[Solomin]

Once you've factored in real inflation, not the fancy births/deaths models and such, you'll see that the growth is not just contracting, it's negative, and the real inflation is quite a bit higher than the government CPI numbers would lead you to believe. There is a reason they have to resort to these models and why they stopped reporting vital economic data like M3. Remove the statistical trickery and you get a very different picture.

http://www.shadowstats.com/imgs/sgs_cpi_home.gif?m=Jan08b

Check out this CNN interview (http://money.cnn.com/video/#/video/news/2008/02/28/news.hunter.shadowstats.Feb28.cnnmoney) with John Williams, the guy who runs www.shadowstats.com (http://www.shadowstats.com).

Ok, I approached this as objectively as possible. I watched the interview, read about the removal of the M3 statistic then began reading the website. First off, just prior to reading the website I thought "Gee, I bet this guys is selling something", and of course he sells private consulting off of his website. Anyways, I'm not going to play the "He's just in it for the money" card when all I have to do is show "this guy is one step away from telling you he works for an exiled Nigerian prince."

So, the Federal Reserve stopped reporting M3 in 2006 because they claim it was expensive and relatively meaningless in predicting inflation. This guy, John Williams is spinning a lie which becomes tangled in its own mess. He claims the removal of M3 is misleadingly falsifying the reporting of the 'real' value of inflation. This doesn't make sense at all. The CPI is not computed using any measure of money supply M0 through M3. The CPI is based on representative sampled prices.

What this guys website is offering is consulting and inflation prediction. Now this is where he might have a case worth defending. He could argue the exclusion of M3 inhibits the ability of the Fed to predict inflation (Even though the reason they got rid of it is because they say it was an insignificant predictor) HOWEVER, this would be relatively easy for him to prove. All he would have to do is run a comparison study of a foreign economy which parallels (paralleling though trade) the US's economy that still measures M3 and show a sharp divergence of inflation after the US stopped measuring M3.


Have you ever wondered why the CPI, GDP and employment numbers run counter to your personal and business experiences? The problem lies in biased and often-manipulated government reporting.

No, I haven't, because I recognize that the Consumer Price Index is a national average and may vary greatly from region or city to region or city. John Williams is a douche.

There is a great book written in 1948 called "How To Lie With Statistics", it's funny how all the graphs in this book look oddly similar to this guys graphs. Missing labels, citations, and definitions. I find it odd the Federal Reserve thought it was too expensive to collect data on M3, but this guy Williams and his "I can't afford to hire a decent web designer" company can do it.

[Igor01]

Ok, I approached this as objectively as possible. I watched the interview, read about the removal of the M3 statistic then began reading the website. First off, just prior to reading the website I thought "Gee, I bet this guys is selling something", and of course he sells private consulting off of his website. Anyways, I'm not going to play the "He's just in it for the money" card when all I have to do is show "this guy is one step away from telling you he works for an exiled Nigerian prince."

Granted, his website provides detail analysis and stats for subscribers only, but perhaps it is of significance that his subscribers are major corporations and not Sunday infomercial viewers of the Joe Sixpack variety.


So, the Federal Reserve stopped reporting M3 in 2006 because they claim it was expensive and relatively meaningless in predicting inflation. This guy, John Williams is spinning a lie which becomes tangled in its own mess. He claims the removal of M3 is misleadingly falsifying the reporting of the 'real' value of inflation. This doesn't make sense at all. The CPI is not computed using any measure of money supply M0 through M3. The CPI is based on representative sampled prices.

If he were to offer such a simplistic view to large corporate clients that pay him for his analysis, he would have to close up shop in a fairly short order. It is obvious that M3 data cannot be directly tied to calculating price inflation (or "falsifying" it for that matter), but it's hard to deny that increasing money supply at such an astonishing rate (17% of late) would lead to increasing price inflation as the money filters its way down through the system. Williams argues (on the basis of independently monitoring key economic data) that the real price inflation is much higher than the the official CPI numbers.

It is a well-known fact that the Bureau of Statistics constantly "ajustst" various factors in their CPI calculations, like the basket of goods. For example, they still refer to the "core CPI" effectively stripping out the food and energy components as if these numbers don't matter. A few of years ago they removed the cost of a home from the basket and substituted it for rents, which had a grossly understating effect on the CPI during the prolonged period of housing booming prices. Even with the presently declining housing prices, the rents are still much cheaper than house payments. Such methods alone make the official inflations calculations outmoded to say the least.

Even if Williams were to be suspected of being in the business of selling tinfoil hats, consider the fact that if we use Government's own the pre-1990 calculations methods, the CPI for the last 12 months would have been 7.6%, and if the gimmicks introduced since 1980 were removed, the number would have been 11.8%. This is versus the published 4.3% CPI.

A healthy degree of scepticism is advisable in dealing with almost anything in life, but if you are objective as you stated, why would you dismiss the research of a company that makes a living out of supplying key economic data to some of the largest Wall Street businesses but take the official CPI data for granted without applying the same kind of scrutiny? The run ups in commodities prices and USD decline against foreign currencies paint a very different picture from the "cautiosly optimistic" view that "inflation is under control".

[Solomin]

I don't want to get into a flame war about some government conspiracy. I'm just going to say this and be done with it. This guy does not consult major corporations, he may at one time have worked for companies that did consult for these companies. If he was working with Morgan Stanley, I think he would have a better web page than an infomercial. It's tough to argue this if you are going to use data from this guys website when I'm claiming he is unreliable to begin with. I'm not going to get into a debate about why economic organizations change what data they use or gather when you're going to claim the conspiracy card. The Fed switched from house prices to rent prices because they were being accused of falsifying the truth, that they were covering up the blight of the poor etc. The reason the Fed changes the way they measure the CPI is to more accurately portray inflations effect on people.

[Igor01]

I don't want to get into a flame war about some government conspiracy. I'm just going to say this and be done with it. This guy does not consult major corporations, he may at one time have worked for companies that did consult for these companies. If he was working with Morgan Stanley, I think he would have a better web page than an infomercial. It's tough to argue this if you are going to use data from this guys website when I'm claiming he is unreliable to begin with. I'm not going to get into a debate about why economic organizations change what data they use or gather when you're going to claim the conspiracy card. The Fed switched from house prices to rent prices because they were being accused of falsifying the truth, that they were covering up the blight of the poor etc. The reason the Fed changes the way they measure the CPI is to more accurately portray inflations effect on people.

Whatever. After all, you are 24 and have a BS in Economics while ShadowStats only consults a bunch of Fortune 500 companies and some of the largest hedge funds for the last 20 years, so what the heck do they know.

For those who remember that "there are lies, damn lies and then there are statistics" here's a bit of Williams' interview which explains briefly what and why:

According to Williams, government realized as long ago as the Kennedy administration that Americans would rather hear good news even if it’s false, and so the manipulation of data began. Unemployment was easy. First they created the “discouraged worker” category (those who’ve given up on finding a job) and counted them separately. Then, under Clinton, they quit counting them at all. Upwards of five million out-of-work people were suddenly no longer “unemployed.” Consumer Price Index? Since Jimmy Carter, every administration has messed with it. In order to make it look decent, Alan Greenspan and Michael Boskin, former head of the Council of Economic Advisors, came up with the “substitution” concept. Williams: “The whole purpose of the CPI [was] to measure the change in the cost of a fixed basket of goods over time . . . What Boskin and Greenspan argued was, ‘We should allow for substitution because people can buy hamburger instead of steak when steak goes up.’ The problem is that if you allow substitutions, you aren’t measuring a constant standard of living. You’re measuring the cost of survival.” Who gets squeezed by this? Fixed-income people. “The difference that it makes is significant: if the same CPI were used today as [under Carter], Social Security checks would be 70% higher.” An adjunct to substitution is “weighting,” adopted under Clinton, whereby the Bureau of Labor Statistics changed from a straightforward arithmetic to a reality-challenged geometric method, a move Williams calls “a pure mathematical game.” The gist of the change is this: now, if something goes up in price, it gets a lower weighting in the CPI, and vice versa. Voilà. Down comes inflation. There’s also hedonics, which we covered in an earlier WWNK article. Simply summarized, this means that if a product is “improved,” then it is deemed to have come down in price, even if you’re paying more for it. Gross Domestic Product? “If you adjust the real GDP numbers that the government releases for the myriad revisions and redefinitions that have been applied to the measure with increasing frequency since the mid-1980s, you find that there’s a happy overstatement of growth of about 3% on a year-over-year basis . . . it’s important to realize that if inflation is understated, then reported ‘real’ growth will be overstated.” Yet “manipulations of the CPI . . . pale next to the impact of imputations in the GDP.” Talk about insidious. To the government, “[any] benefit a person receives has an imputed income component.” Thus, for example, if you’re a homeowner, forget that backbreaking monthly mortgage payment, you’re considered to be paying yourself rental income on your home! No kidding. It’s called “imputed interest income,” and it’s the fastest-growing segment of citizens’ personal income. Not only does this phantom cash jack up GDP, it also inflates average household income, which is actually dropping. This we can all see in the explosion of personal debt because, as Williams says, “without growth in income you just can’t support growth in personal consumption on a healthy basis, so you do it on an unhealthy basis. You borrow money.” Just like the government. And while the amount the government admits it is borrowing may look horrifying enough, the reality is far, far worse. What follows is not for the faint of heart. Williams says that the feds take a stab at reporting their accounts according to “generally accepted accounting principles,” or GAAP. Although the numbers include “all sorts of disclaimers,” and exclude Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and similar accounts, “They at least do put out a financial statement. It’s the best they can come up with.” However, “The budget deficit numbers you hear announced at White House press conferences are from accounts kept on a cash basis, with no accruals made for monies owed by or due to the government in the future.” What’s the difference? A lot. In 2004, the deficit was reported at $412 billion. The official GAAP-based number published by the Treasury Dept. was $616 billion. Add in the net present value of the underfunding of Social Security and Medicare, and what you get is $3.4 trillion. Yes, trillion. And that’s if you ignore a one-time spike from the setting up of the new, utterly unfunded Medicare drug benefit. The true GAAP-based deficit has been holding steady in that range. $3.7 trillion in 2003, $3.4 in 2004, $3.5 in 2005. “[T]otal federal obligations at the end of September were $51 trillion,” says Williams, “over four times the level of GDP. It is unprecedented for a major country to have its actual obligations so far out of whack.” Williams’s conclusions about what comes next are grim. “The Fed will back the system with every dollar it can print. But of course that would go on top of what is already an uncontrolled federal deficit. The end result, when it does all come together, will be something akin to a hyperinflation, but at the same time you’ll have also a very depressed economy. So there’ll be an inflationary recession, which I think we’re already beginning to get into.” Despite his dire research findings, “I am an optimist at heart,” Williams admits, and he echoes Doug Casey’s own words when he says, “If you’re able to somehow protect your assets and liquidity through the very rough times ahead, you’re going to have some of the greatest investment opportunities that anyone has ever seen.” (The full interview with John Williams is available here: http://www.weedenco.com/welling/Downloads/2006/0804welling022106.pdf)