Back from Vacation

Wow, I take a week off and the world doesn't stop to wait for me????? WTF?

Highlights (lowlights?)

Portugal goes belly up, this a is a trend to watch; this month is bad across the EuroZone as many nations (we are looking at you PIIGS) have a lot of short-term bonds that they need to roll over. Interest rates have become punishing and promise to get worse. The bailout model developed by the ECB only contributes to the problem, high cost bailouts with printed money for the the periphery (inflationary) and interest rate tightening for the core (deflationary) combine to make for an interesting summer. I don't think they can keep this going until Autunm. Sooner or later one of the PIIGS will simply say "No" and the whole house of cards will fall.

NATO prepares for ground combat in Libya; Like nobody saw this coming! Noises out of high ranking US commanders recognize the need to introduce US soldiers with "special skills" into the area. Really now, can't SOMEBODY just accidentally put a slug through this nutball's head and end this situation. Drop Quackdaffy with a .50 Barrett round and send a little letter to his successor with a note saying "Congratulations on your recent promotion. We would like to dicuss a few things. If you are disinclined we can arrange for your "retirement" and we will speak with you replacment"  Even the thickest despot would get the hint.

More Earthquakes and leaky reactors in Japan. Does this shit ever end? One would think that, as the only people ever bombed with a nuke, the Japanese would extra special careful with this sort of thing. Nope. Not a chance, No Way. Cut corners in construction, shortages of equipment, addle-brained management and a remakable ability to be one step behind developments have made an unfortunate event into a full-on disaster. At least I won't have to try to remember how to Chernobyl anymore.

Last Minute Deal to stop a government shutdown. We have fully substituted Theatre for Governance. Another one of those events that everybody saw coming, but still had to enacted under the glare of the Moron Media so everyone of those mouth-breathing asshats in Washington could get a few seconds under the kleig lights. The real hilairty of it all is that they cut (drumroll please...........) $38,000,000.00 out of the budget. An astronomical sum of money to the proles like you or I, I readily admit. But, in D.C., you find that kind of money in the cushions of a Undersecretary of Stupidity's waiting room sofa. This amount was removed from a 3.4 trillion dollar budget. To illustrate; $3,400,000,000,000.00 is Obama's (amusingly optimistic) projected budget for 2012 (remember that he couldn't get one passed last year when he had control of the House and Senate, they have been running on continuing funding bills for a year now) and they cut $38,000,000.00.  Huge numbers that are almost meaningless to the average person so let us put it another way; say you have thirty-four dollars in your pocket (some of it is change) and some person asks you for thirty eight cents. Would you engage in a month-long drama before finally giving it to them? The slack-jawed morons in D.C. just did exactly that, they probably spent more money playing out the drama than was saved by that tiny reduction in spending. Damned Fools.

Gold, Silver and Crude Oil hit nominal highs. Another one of those, who didn't see that coming moments. Frankly I thought that the PMs would take a little longer, but who the Hell am I? Geopolitical and Financial shenanigans of the most moronic order force people to seek safety; PMs and commodities offer that in spades. Prices are through the roof and heading north! If you don't have some get some now before the sheeple catch one and it truly explodes. Respectable, cautious sources say Gold $1500, Sliver $50 and Oil $200 before the end of the year, I am not that optimistic on the chances of an economic recovery and am thinking those are low-end estimates. Golly I wish I had gotten more back when Silver was $16 waaaaay back in the early part of last year.
BTW has anybody else noticed that the dollar is in free-fall and gas seems to go up about a dime a day?

Tomahawk Update My only source that I can contact from home shows 248 (a significant drop in the rate of firings) I will wait until I can contact my other sources on Monday before exhausting myself doing the math.

More Later, Keep your powder dry, my friends.