Read This

Please read - and send me some cash so I can double my shorts.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-next-meltdown-is-coming-in-2012-2009-11-17?pagenumber=2

Please Listen To Louise

If you won't listen to me - listen to Louise Yamada. She is incredible.

http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2009/10/23_Louise_Yamada_files/Louise%20Yamada%2010%3A23%3A2009.mp3

When Oil Really Breaks, So Will the Market

If you have profited in this run up, my humble advice is to take profits NOW. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH HOLDING CASH (and very high quality bonds)IN A DEFLATIONARY ENVIRONMENT, and that my few dear readers, is what we are in.

When the current commodity price bubble pops it will be accompanied by a sell-off that makes last October look like a dress rehearsal.

There, I said it. If I am wrong at least you won't lose the rest your life savings. You can also laugh on my face, or yell at me. If I am right, well, then you will make it through the coming depression quite painlessly.

You can call me Chicken Little and I will still say it again - get out now. (Unless you have fifteen years to sit around and wait for your stocks to come back. Many of them never will.)

If you still are jonesing for some risk, drive down any suburban highway and count the number of "For Lease" signs you see. When you lose count maybe you will believe me.

I Am A Geek

I know I already have a link to Mr. Smith's blog on my site, but his latest is about an issue that has been perplexing me for years now. I am beginning to think he is an absolute genius.

http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2009/11/bubbles-inflation-and-overcapacity.html

Perhaps that is why he gets monetary donations to his site and I don't. Perhaps it is because I don't ask for them. Perhaps it is because my particular blend of interests is only really interesting to me and, well, a few very loyal readers. Perhaps they are not really that interested, they just love me enough to read my blog.

But I do know I have always been a bit of a geek at heart. Even if I seemed popular in high school, even if I used to be easy on the eyes, even if I tried to be cool, underneath it all I am just one big math-loving geek.

I like math and economics because it makes sense. You can always rely on it to make sense when nothing else does.

For example, I was trying to teach my son his "sight words" the other night and one of them was "of ". My son has a brain that works like mine (strangely-poor thing) and he said something like, "Shouldn't it be 'o-v'?, they want us to sound it out. I hate reading!"

I immediately thought, "Hell yeah, you are right, we ought to change those stupid rules, or at least admit that phonics leads our youth astray and.... well screw them, you spell it 'o-v'."

However, I did not say that. I said something like, "Just remember for the test that you think they are wrong, but you have to put down "of" if you want to get 100%."

Guess what, my son likes math!.

Thanks loyal readers - I promise this blog will probably never be of the caliber where I can justify asking for monetary donations to it.

But God only knows.

Love To You ALL!

Goldman Sach's Doing God's Work

The Human ego knows no bounds. Lloyd Blankfein statements about banks doing God's work is a great example of this. Does he see himself as among the chosen few? Absolutely, unbelievable arrogance.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/07/goldman-sachs-ceo-lloyd-b_0_n_349620.html

http://www.cnbc.com/id/33783316

This is the kind of crap that gives Capitalism a bad name. I will admit that in the greater sense banks are the financial tool that helps the economy grow by allocating capital. But honestly, Mr. Blankfein, do you really think you can compete with God? Banks, like all people and institutions serve a purpose under God. That is true for even you and your corrupt firm. Everything, even the ego, has a place in the order of things.

So, Lloyd, I guess in that way you are doing God's work. But by that logic, so is the rapist and the burglar.

Here is how much taxpayer money your firm took (I am sure you know the number): $10 Billion.* Yes, that is how much taxpayer money it took to keep your do-gooder firm afloat. Now, the way I see it, you should be sending those bonus checks directly to the taxpayers who lent it to you instead of to the Treasury. Oh, I know, that would be impossible to figure. Yes, it would.

Perhaps having access to Fed Funds at nearly zero percent is just to damn tempting. I can't believe we have not brought back Glass-Steagall. I consider myself an old school capitalist. But you know what, the reality is that since the creation of the Federal Reserve System our economy has been slipping further and further away from real capitalism. What we have now is some sort of hybrid monster. Glass-Steagall kept the monster calm. Glass-Steagall was a "rule of the game" that actually worked.

When is the last time you tried to play any game without rules? How did that go? What happens when you give one guy in the game an unfair advantage by giving him more information than the other players and a back-stop ensuring he will win every time, no matter how poorly he plays the game? How do you think that would work?

Ok - I am done with my rant now. I just wish we could get back to a time where capitalists were seen as honorable men who had morals and values they used to guide their behavior. Where did these egomaniacal, narcissistic rule breakers come from?

I argue they would be out of business and mostly good guys would be left if the damn government had let them fail. But than that is an entire dissertation for any young PhD candidate in economics who wants to take it on.

And Lloyd, don't slit your wrists. I don't think anyone would be happy if you did. I certainly wouldn't. Then you wouldn't have the opportunity to heal that massive ego of yours and start making some real contributions to the world. I mean it, no matter how lost you are, you are a valuable human being, just not for the reasons you think.

*I finally found an article saying GS has already paid the TARP money back. Good. Now, cut off their access to Fed Funds and see what happens. I wonder if God will still employ them.

http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/jpmorgan-repays-treasury-as-tarp-exits-continue/

Hillary Pulls a Pelosi

You see, when powerful women who cover come to to the U.S., they usually don't remove their headscarves for photo-ops. Oh wait, there are not enough women in positions of power in the Middle-East for that to ever happen anyway.

Bhutto paid for her power, the ultimate price.

If anyone can find me a picture of Obama in traditional male Middle-Eastern dress while President (yes, I know it's no homogeneous, but you know what I mean) please do send it to me.

And you know, I really did like Hillary. Oh well. It's just the damn principal of it. It really irks me.

Gotta Love Meredith Whitney

She is right again. So to all the people out there who say no one could have seen the crash coming: many did. Meredith Whitney was among the bravest of them, and now people listen to just about everything she says.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/33618030