Hungry and Mad

What in the world is it that makes us think that a bunch of power hungry Washington Political types and money mad financiers could get together and create anything other than a mess? Well obviously we, the people of the good ole USA do. It's worked out so well that our dollar today is worth about 5 cents in 1913 terms (1913 being when we got a central bank). Here is the ramblings of some nut job Randite in 1966 : In the absence of a gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation via inflation. The financial policy of the welfare state requires there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

Of course later in life this Randite discovered that real power lay in DC, he went on to serve as an Economic Adviser to President Ford, and of course later he became the Maestro, and master currency deflater we all know as Mr Greenspan. Mr Bernanke seems to be eager to follow in his steps, and why not? No one is paying attention that they no longer report M3, it did go from $6.6 trillion in January of 2000 to $10.2 Trillion on March 23rd 2006. Another trillion to trillion and a half has been added since then, but because they don't report it maybe its more, maybe its less.

Why is price fixing a crime when business does it, but thats what the Fed is chartered to do? Questions, Questions, Questions...but not much for good answers.

Oh, I've changed my stance on the market now after all this fun. I had become very bearish in November and have spent the entire time from then till now heavily in cash with a few shorts. Overall I'm pleased with the performance.

Over the last few days though we have started to see some beaten down sectors pick up, and started to see decent moves on decent volume. I'll be picking up small amounts of Homebuilders, Semis, Truckers and the like. Small shares for now. The real test will be on the pullback. Internationally both Chile (ECH) and Malaysia (EWM) look like good places to have some money. I also suspect, though I'm not yet prepared to put money on it, that the dollars decline is done for the time being, and that oil is not going to continue going up, that its topped for the near to intermediate term. (USO)