Morning Summary, 8/17

Getting off to a late start today. No reason for it. Maybe there is, but I don't know it at the moment.

This morning, my attention seems to be on the big picture. I just spent some time on the big picture in the markets. After all the hullabaloo about the debt ceiling, the Dow is back where is was before. Maybe bond yields moved down and gold moved up a bit. But stocks have gone sideways.

That makes sense. Nothing happened, except the government just gave itself another license to steal. Those who are getting ripped off are bond holders, but they are masochistic, just can't get enough punishment. Those staying above the water are holding gold.

The license to steal is inflation, which is where we are headed. How do I know? Paul Krugman said it, so that makes it as good as gold. The people who are getting fleeced still believe that we have a deflation scenario ahead of us. That would be true, if the government was honest. But it ain't. Paul Krugman can keep the wool pulled over enough eyes so that the nobodies won't understand what's going on. You know who the nobodies are: the ones with the sloping foreheads who reside in everywhere but where the sophisticated ones reside.

I am in a cynical mood. But that is getting normal for me these days. This blog is supposed to be about solutions, but there are a whole bunch of people out there who seemed to be dedicated to the proposition that no solutions are to be entertained at any time. Problems are more useful. Play up the problems, but, by no means do they intend to actually do anything about them. If they did, they just might be out of a job. And we can't have that, now can we?