Death Blow

Sorry for the prolonged absence, but I had a very busy week with my birthday, my wife's birthday, and my little brother's wedding sandwiched in-between. Death blow is a reference not to the current state of the economy, but to the best man speech I delivered. Originally scheduled for 6 or 7 minutes, it took me about 10 minutes to complete because I couldn't talk over the laughter. I believe the best compliment I received was from a complete stranger who told me he could now never have his brother, or perhaps anyone who even knows him, give his best man speech after the brutal blow I delivered. Watch for the youtube feed in the near future and congrats to my brother and his new wife! My one failure of the weekend was not being able to shave my alma mater into my brother's back hair, but hey, you can't have it all.....

Back to the markets....bought gold last week when it went under $850, about a 25% correction from the top. This is a longer-term hold as I think the dollar bulls have it wrong, again.

Funny comment from an itulip interview where founder Eric Janszen says that his friends in Spain, a socialist country, think our economic policies are more socialistic than theirs.

Despite its recent success, the future of home equity and credit card loans remains like a scythe hanging over the American consumer. Eternal optimist and hider of writedowns John Thain, CEO of Merrill, said this today, "But banks that have a consumer exposure, like credit cards and home equity loans, are likely to experience greater delinquencies going forward than we've seen."

From the same itulip interview, interviewee Dr. Michael Hudson says he thinks the Bear Bailout will be viewed years from now as one of the greatest debacles in American economic history, on par with Depression policy and 70s recession policy. Great.

Home sales down from Feb. and down 20.1% year-over-year. This is going to get much worse. The joke continues as Fannie lost over $2 billion dollars but "assured" investors they have plenty of capital. As long as Bernanke keeps printing it for them...

Still trying to clear my brain from all the red bull and vodka, will get the posts rolling again. Despite my desperate pleas to my brother that not all guests would have 20-30 drinks, he still had plenty of liquor left over.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/24501705

http://www.itulip.com/forums/showthread.php?p=35173#post35173