Put Your Money Somewhere Safe, Like Namibia

You know, Namibia, the African country with 40% unemployment and no child labor laws. While listening to NPR this week, they pointed out that Namibia's banking system was rated as safer than our own in a recent survey. Don't forget to set up offshore accounts in Malta, Estonia and Barbados as well, all with safer banks than ours.We finished 40th, Canada came in at #1. Great.



Nice week for the S&P, down 18%, the worst ever. I love the analyst community and our MSM. They're acting like this is a blip in the never ending market that must go up. A pinch here, a dash there, and presto, back up to 14K! Stocks have been grossly overvalued for a long time and earnings projections remain too high as well. There are no rules for this bottomless pit. The noise is overwhelming.



Why, just this week, CNBC's court jester Dennis Kneale remarked "I know I've been wrong all the way down, but I promise you, I'm gonna start buying and the market will go up!" Thanks Dennis. I can almost hear the monkey turning the handle on the music box in the background while you speak, doo-doo do-da-doo, doo-doo do-da-doo......



And our friend, Dick Bove, breathed a big sigh of relief as he "discovered" that Morgan's exposure to Lehman wasn't as bad as he expected. So his buy recommendation from $41 down to $6 is looking good ("In a note dated June 29, Bove said the first month of the fiscal quarter ending in august was "not a good one," adding that the underwriting sector and activity in the fixed income markets was relatively quiet. Bove maintained his "neutral" rating and has a price target of $41 on the stock.").

When will we stop treating this mess like there's a quick fix and not follow a Jim Rodgers solution of letting over leveraged banks and businesses fail? Instead of allowing for private solutions, we are rushing towards nationalization and thus, socialization of our economy. All Paulson is concerned with is how can we get the slot machines on-line again? How can we get the roulette wheel to land on something other than zero or double zero?

If you liked my recos on Monday, you certainly liked them yesterday. Saks 5/09 had more than doubled in price, WSM 5/09 up 33%, DRI 4/09 up 90%, and Cake 4/09 up 20%. I also added GLD calls, yes, calls to my bag of tricks this week, buying the 1/10 100s. Interestingly, GLD took some lumps yesterday (why, I have no idea), but the calls went up in value. Hmmmm. Also, we're in on BBW 1/10 5s.

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssHealthcareFacilities/idUSBNG23037220080630

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2008/10/namibias_bank_are_stonger_than.html