Chicken Little

I haven't fully digested the past four days of stock market Armageddon -- a fancy way of reporting that,  whatever I say,  I am not  at all confident that I know what the Hell I am talking about.

But I want to get something out early, before the markets open this morning so that, if I'm right,  I can claim vast powers of economic analysis.

It is this: The recent stock market losses come to about 10 per cent, (give or take because economics is the only discipline I can think of this morning where arithmetic is not an exact science). Ten per cent  amounts to an awful lot of money, enough to ulcerize most everyone, from the 1 per centers down to the poor slob who bet some rent money on the rosy Wall Street chatter of a few months ago.

My prediction: The panic will continue until the central banks announce, or strongly hint, that problem is simply liquidity, a problem they can easily solve by printing more money. My prognosticated time line runs from right now until the Gnomes of Everywhere have had several three-martini lunches.

When they do so, all the world will sigh, giggle, and start pouring all that fresh cash back into Amalgamated Phuckall, Inc.  and its corporate kin. APA will rise again, and the three-piece suiters  will resume strutting  and crowing about the conquests of their big swinging dicks.

So, that's just the latest of Jim's hard-money rants, right?

Maybe. Maybe not.

There's a guy named James Grant who is reputedly an expert on money and markets. Three months ago he weighed in on central banks, especially their mania for fiat trillions. The article is worth a read, but the nut is here, in a quotation going back a century and a half. Grant writes:


Walter Bagehot, a wonderful Victorian journalist who served in the 1860s and 70s as the editor of The Economist, once said that John Bull — the proverbial personification of Great Britain — can stand anything, but he can’t stand two percent. Meaning very low interest rates. Why? Because they instigate a lot of unwise speculation and a lot of misallocation of resources: people who find that money costs nothing to borrow do silly things with it. And when Bagehot said that, he meant positive two percent. In Denmark, for example, they now pay you to borrow and you pay them to save.

John Bull, Janet Yellin's Fed, the European banker/bureaucrats, the gnomes of Peking, the Bank of Japan. Do you doubt for a moment they're about to override the governor on their high-speed presses?  They'll call the resulting new bubble "wealth," and in a small way it will be, until next time.

Irritating the DHS

Here is Nancy Wilson, an extremely alluring woman who is of African-American heritage. She wears a nearly transparent cover over underthings designed for allure.  

This TMR presentation runs sadly afoul Department of Homeland Security rules for its agents' use of taxpayers' computers while on taxpayers' time. It appears to be obscene, racist, sexist, vulgar, and harmful (likely to harm DHS spooks' minds by generating impure thoughts, and we all know what that can lead to).

I also take malicious pleasure in posting it, thereby violating at least six of the 13 DHS guidelines in one tiny little post. Only seven to go. 

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It is probably useful to note that she also sang at least as well as any other woman who ever lived.

My Cheatin 'Heart?

As to Ashley, I am innocent.

As to my public internet writing, I must be judged, I guess, against Department of Homeland Security rules. They permit their snoops to use the taxpayers' computer for "limited" personal browsing but forbid visiting sites...


 ...that are "obscene, hateful, harmful, malicious, hostile, threatening, abusive, vulgar, defamatory, profane, or racially, sexually, or ethnically objectionable."

Looks to me like  the TMR is 13 out of 13. A perfect score. Thank you mommiedotguv for all your inspiration.

Iowa Caucuses Interim Report

Iowa, where we decide who you get to vote for:

Clinton is still above 50 per cent, though barely. Bernie, the cutie version of Eugene V. Debs, is second, about 20 points behind. The other are seesawing. Including Jim Webb at 1 per cent, which is a damned shame if you ask me.

Explanation: Clinton leads because --  no matter what the evidence of her lies, crimes or near-crimes, --  the unwashed left has but one answer: "Why are you picking on this poor woman?"*  Bernie is doing pretty well because even here we have a mass which believes the fairies can  go to Washington and bring us back a free lunch.

In the GOP, Trump still leads but may be fading. Walker and the traditional GOPers trail him. Rand Paul, the semi-libertarian, has faded to 5 per cent or less.

Explanation:  Trump struts because the general electorate loves -- and often understands only  -- trash talk. Paul is down for several reasons, among them the diseased liberty movement here. It stems from sleaze bags, at least one them indicted, who helped operate his dad's race four years ago. Another reason is the general media focus on the dramatic moments (Gore in!? More secrets on Hillary's server? Joe Biden surges!).

But, in all, both fields are so packed than no poll number makes much sense as a predictor.  It is usually like that six months before the caucuses; the uncertainty is elevated by the population explosion of wannabes this time around.

They're almost all at the state fair this  week. And if you hope that at least half of them chomp a fatally tainted corn dog, you are guilty of unChristian thought.


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*Credit  for phrasing  to BC.