I had a wonderful day yesterday. Why, between watching the market melt up to cover short positions which is not why I’m in a massive short position now – and add that to the fun of sorting out the annual income tax confessional and, gosh, what a wonderful Wednesday it was.
I was making money disappear faster than a bonfire, although in the end, it won’t matter, since Ben Bernanke, et al, are able to make fresh money appear on command.
All of which gets me around to awarding the first gold star this week, to my old friend the Mogambo Guru, who has penned another mighty analysis in a brief moment of economic lucidity under the title “Fractional Reserve Banking Gone Amok.” The flavor of this piece can be discerned here:
This nostalgic trip down my path of shame is not the point, however, but is instead about “profound idiocy,” of the kind that I have alluded to in my brilliant addition to Will Roger’s famous quote, which is the idea that a crushing load of a combined, gargantuan $53 trillion in personal, business and government debt can ever, ever be, somehow, “bailed out” by continually going farther into debt to spend another gigantic, humongous load of new money created – literally! – out of thin air by the Federal Reserve.
“And the idiocy is compounded when believing, for even an instant, that in doing so it will not cause a ruinous hyperinflation, like it has all the other thousands and thousands of times in the last 4,500 years every single time any idiot government tried this Same Silly Crap (SSC).
About here, you may be asking “Why start my morning with this highly cynical although admittedly humorous take on the economy?“
Because the rest of the day’s news is very dreary if not downright oppressive, and I keep thinking if I cheer you up on Thursday so the PowersThatBe can get one more day of sweat out of you, before you take off for the weekend of substance abuse, they’ll somehow show me mercy when my turn at the wall comes up. OK, self-serving, but WTF?
On the other hand, that is a far-fetched notion, so fire up the Geiger counter and let’s go count meltups and meltdowns.
Markets Melting Up
Sure at hell a bit short-covering festival going on in markets. What happens in a meltup like this is a bunch bear (decline side) players like me, place bets that the markets are rational, will react to the massive decline in personal savings implicit in the (further) collapse of housing prices this week and will do the only possible thing: Drop like a free-falling piano.
The Dow popped up almost 72 points yesterday, despite more warring over Libya and oil pushing back up to the $105 level as the Bush glorified [Time: "Why Gaddafi's Now a Good Guy" from 2006] and Obama/Clintonista demonized Gaddafi has taken back a key oil port,
As someone committed to accurate sports play-by-play, I just cringe and duly report “OK War fans, we’ve still got the republicorp out front, three wars to one, but look out, Hillary’s got time and weasel-words galore, so let’s see if we can get interventions going in Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen too, while the democorps are still at bat.
ViseGrips?
The press, which know if you follow any politician around long enough, they will say everything and express every possible position as long as no one has any Super Glue handy to make them stick to their words, had managed to drag out an Obama 2002 speech where he says toppling a dictator is a “dumb war.”
Which, or course, we all knowingly nod, around here and nudge one another nervously, knowing full well that without plenty of resource-wasting war and cheap oil to keep us greased into happiness, the whole world of PTB-globalistas falls apart and humans get back to the tribal level of existence, which, sorry, seems unfortunately to be accompanied by a higher-than-used-to-be background level of radiation.
Of course, it’s only Thursday, so if you would please just keep being hoodwinked for two more days and going to work like a good little corporate serf, maybe the sky will open and manna will fall on us around 4 PM tomorrow. And if not manna, would you accept a couple of brewskis and a hotdog with the Mariners down at Oakland tomorrow night? Something poetic about Seattle’s opener being away on April Fool’s Day.
That reminds me to make a speed run to Lowes to pick up a couple of quarts of paint for Elaine & me. Next time she says baseball is like watching paint dry I’ve promised to make a more fair comparison.
Yankees and versus Detroit this afternoon and cold enough to keep the beer chilled throughout.
Clean Miss
One thing we don’t have to worry about – at least as of press time – is the major West Coast earthquake which didn’t appear as expected. A reader has an interesting thought on this:
“If one looks at the facts only, arriving at no conclusions based on emotionally based assumptions, it seeeeeeems to me (as in “appears”) that a clear pattern has formed regarding the Web Bot data: the closer the impact of an event is to including Olympia, WA, the less accurate the forecast. Make a chart. Look at the data, not assumptions, presumptions, or anything else. “
More than likely a big tune up on the lexicon is in order, since language drifts around horribly. Not that we won’t get a quake, at some point, but since time is all event/correlated with no handy clocks or calendars, the system’s gonna miss sometimes. And missing on a 10 magnitude kind of West Coast quake is just fine.
Still getting little quakes in Arkansas and a couple overnight on the big island of Hawaii — worth noticing.
Nuke Madness
The story in PCWorld this morning about “Debris prevents robots from entering stricken nuclear plant” gives me one of my best-ever marketing ideas for a niche product.
We simply scale up the iRobot 560 Roomba Vacuuming Robot, Black and Silver
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But, seriously, as my pal the reactor operator a few states north pointed out, one of the reasons we see stories like “Radiation traces found in U.S. milk” is that instrumentation has gotten sooo much better since the old days.
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Contrary to popular belief, the apparent genetic disposition of Midwesterners to blindly believe whatever comes from the rabid tight is not a result of the fall out of US nuclear tests in Nevada early on. Fluoride’s a more likely suspect.
Point being that if the whole science of instrumentation can detect you smoking a joint (doodie or leg, depending on age & location) 100-days ago, and you’re not still stoned from that, odds are your glow-in the-dark watch is as big a health risk…
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But seriously serious: The Japan Times reports that” high radiation has been found outside the no-go zone” but in their fine tradition of nuclear whitewashing, the Japanese authorities are not expanding the evacuation zone.
Gotta wonder if the Japanese studied emergency management in, oh, New Orleans, for cryin’ out loud…
Medicine has a commandment it lives by “First do no harm.” You’re welcome to submit your take on what government’s motto should be, although my favorite so far is “First, leave no money or evidence…”
Rally ON
Weekly unemployment number improved again:
In the week ending March 26, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 388,000, a decrease of 6,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 394,000. The 4-week moving average was 394,250, a increase of 3,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 391,000.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0 percent for the week ending March 19, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.0 percent.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 19 was 3,714,000, a decrease of 51,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,765,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,765,250, a decrease of 32,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,798,000.
Damn, being a bear is expensive here lately.
Self Fulfilling Forecast Department
“Wal-Mart CEO Bill Simon expects inflation” headlines USA Today this morning.
He apparently hasn’t shopped his stores around here….that stuff’s already peeking out of most aisles…
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