12 MAR 2010, Friday

1. Secular bear market in bonds (rising interest rates) coming...from Martin Pring.
2. Nancy Pelosi....the single best reason to pray daily for the good health of Barack Obama and Joe Biden!
3. And...one of my all time favorites...Listen to Senator Harry Reid tie himself into knots as he defends the ridiculous notion of how our tax system is voluntary.  So remember that when the young adults you know get hit with the upcoming (if it passes) "You don't have healthcare tax penalty".
4. President Obama's "bold" budget slashing proposals...visualized via a few short videos.  Republicans were no better...Medicare Part D anyone?  In February alone, the official U.S. federal deficit was a monstrous $221 billion, far greater than anything we have ever experienced in history.  Remember when the Reagan annual deficits of $200 billion plus seemed insane??? 
5. Feels to me as if we have finally gone through the "point of no return" with the current US fiscal experiment (Federal Reserve pumping and federal government "permanent" free for all spending).  Noone knows how this grand, first time tried in history, experiment is going to end...no one.  We're trying out theories and hoping for the best.  Regarding CON-gress, Keynes was the government deficit spending proponent....Psst...that didn't work during the Great Depression either...took World War II to make the difference.  Regarding Bernanke, he's treating the market as if it is a machine that has well defined gears, cogs, springs and levers which respond predictably to certain input actions (regardless how radical)...he forgets that markets are made of people that respond in unpredictable ways to stress, fears and uncertainty.
6. As Tom Petty once sang, "The waiting is the hardest part."
7. For the layman...Lehman investigation is finally completed.  Please....where are the cops???