If you’re thinking about buying Gold now – Think again (please)

The answers to life’s problems aren’t at the bottom of a bottle, they’re on TV!”

~Homer Simpson

I guess it was morbid curiosity that made me put on CNBC  for the first time in a couple months (and that’s all I got to say about that).

All day, between Wonder Hanger® commercials, the forbidden word was uttered repeatedly.  Gold. If I were more ambitious, I’d create a montage of people saying the word gold on CNBC Today.  But it could never compare to MJK’s four minute plus montage of Homer Simpson saying, “D’oh”, so whats really the point?  Well, the point is the bobbleheads were so busy saying the forbidden word that I’m surprised no one collapsed from lack of oxygen. Gold gold gold GOLD gold………get the picture.

Gold was up about 17 bucks, while the dollar, stocks and bonds retreated. Of course normally, when gold’s up 17 bucks my favorite morons forget to mention it.  They treat gold like some sideshow curiosity that was once considered money….go figure…. But from time to time, they actually suggest that you should buy gold.  And if you’re paying attention, you know that is the time you should sell gold.

Of course when I say “gold”, I mean make-believe paper and pixel gold, not shiny yellow metal.  There’s really no connection between the two.  The “prices” that you trade on are figments of  imagination; no more real than the $35 “price” claimed by the Bretton Woods system.

The losses that you can suffer listening to the quacks on TV, however, are quite real……

more………….

HOW THE FUCK DOES THIS HAPPEN, MARY?

You know the SEC is still a joke when you see shit like this:

1 Day GLD chart from Quote.com.

If I were the SEC Chair, I’d already have the licenses and scrotums of the dirtbag’s responsible thumbtacked to my wall (by the way, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, maybe you too should become a government watchdog).  Unfortunately citizens, I’m just some blogger whose wife decides what gets hung up on the walls.  The SEC chair is named Mary L. Schapiro, who rose to the top post by virtue of over two decades “service” without  achievement (unless you count sitting on your hands and hiring Bernie Madoff’s son as achievements).  Remeber how she got grilled about how well she knew the Madoff family?  Me niether.

I  thought it was impossible to find a bigger bumblefuck than Christopher Cox, but our government has surprised me once again.  We found somebody who was literally surrounded by the biggest fraud in history, and never made a peep.  I love this graphic from muckety.com

more……

I’m no Harry Markopolos either…(Me and the SEC)

I’m trying to put a piece together that details my thoughts on  Harry Markopolos.  He is the stuff American heroes are made of.  If you haven’t read his 2005 report on Bernie Madoff to the SEC, it can be found here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/9231188/MadoffSECdocs20081217 .  I find it unfathomable that the SEC would ignore such a detailed analysis.  These useless cowards were handed a smoking gun on a silver platter and what did they do?  Tossed it in the trash saying, “another tin-foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist”.  Why should any of them be allowed to keep their jobs?  Or the money they were paid, for that matter?

I got no answers for you, people.  Just another disgusting story of sleazebags entrusted to protect the public looking the other way.  My own.

(There should be a “read more” button somewhere down there…….)

A Whole Flock of Black Swans?

Pleas note: click on the headline to see charts full size.

OK, so I’m not above misusing the buzzword-du-jour, that’s not important right now.  From January 1950 until September 28, 2008 the S & P 500 had moves of 5% or more (up or down) a total of 19 times.  That’s an average of one every three years.  For perspective, keep in mind that so-called great earthquakes (8.0 or higher) occur about once a year.

Looks like a .wav file, eh?

Lately, there’s been a whole lotta shakin’ goin’ on.  What took over 58 years to happen once,  happened again in just 78 trading days.  That’s right, there were 19 days between September 29 and January 20 with 5% moves (that’s an average of one every 4.1 days).

Interesting times, indeed……(hope you’ve got good veins in your legs)