I’m standing hunched over the desk in my 9th floor office, chewing lightly on a light Mediterranean salad, which is giving off slight aromatic aromas mingled with the sharp hint of vinegar, and a side of tender chicken while I work. In between taking bites, I can’t help but feel my lips purse into smirks.

Looking over my shoulder; WTI is now toppling into the $82-83 range. Yet, SCO is also falling, as is ERY, and reliably, TVIX is inside of $10 again (that product is useless).

What funniness!

I can’t say I blame anyone because the horizon is murky. So all products are being sold off together. Only cash is king today.

My expectation is that by the POMO meeting towards the end of June, policy makers will have already yielded some form of accommodative support to markets. However, it could come later. This is a big gamble, so having plenty of cash and feeling secure and confident about one’s book is critically important.

I was somewhat suspect of holding products like ETFs into today, because I figured they could sell off, much like last Friday. Being wary of the potential for intervention over the weekend, I sold SCO yesterday; missing out on big gains this morning.

However, that is the price of safety sometimes.

I’ve decided to hold ERY through the weekend – I’m going to trust that, if something big is announced this weekend, I’ll be able to get out with the herd on Monday. It’s a risk, but worst case, ERY opens down ~10% and it does 2-3% of damage to my portfolio.

At that point, I would theoretically deploy some of my – by then larger – cash position.

I yearn to buy more silver; but I cannot do so here. Lower; I need lower prices.

I’ll be preoccupied with some work for the remainder of the day. It’s my intention to stop back periodically and to finalize my strategy before the closing bell. If I do not get the chance, let me take this moment to wish you a fine weekend.

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I’m sort of half-heartedly watching the city of Detroit going through the motions of deciding to give up its self-governance to the state of Michigan.  It’s amusing, but in that “pulling my hair out” sort of way.  In a recent last ditch effort to buy more time, the city is trying to raise something like $130 million in a bond offering.

You’d have to be an idiot to buy them for anything less than pennies on the $10,000.  There’s about zero chance of ever getting your money back from this sink hole.

Basic projections have Detroit running out of money sometime next Thursday, which means they’re already out of money and busy raiding pension funds, charity institutions, etc.  Anything with standing cash they can spend is most likely flying out the door.

So naturally all the local poltical contenders are busy putting on a show; claiming the state is robbing them, threatening to take to the streets in civil uprising, contending that they’re owed bailout money from the rest of the state, refusing to accept any responsibility or oversight as an affront to Democracy,….

My favorite is a few of the “less sentient” of the city council who seem to think they can hardball the state into better terms by refusing to vote for the current aid package, which would avoid a direct takeover and resort instead to a series of checks and reviews.  Money with no strings attached; that’s the only acceptable outcome for them.

Ha, they really are just clueless on how leverage works!  They have zero bargaining chips; they’re holding a 2 of hearts, and 7 of clubs, a Draw Four card from an Uno deck, and a parking validation ticket…in five card stud.  And they’re trying to bluff Snyder, who’s holding a suited straight and already has all the chips.

What a mess.  I await the Emergency Financial Manager with glee.  Hail Caesar!

In other news, the EU is going to up their firewall/bailout to 1.1 trillion euros.  Let’s go back through the last six months.  This is including the 400 billion euros they appropriated last Fall.  Plus the LTRO which brings the total “euros from nowhere in particular” to 2.1 trillion.

This is to keep governments running, because tax receipts are caving.  But more, the EU governments need to keep rolling their debt over.  So every one of those euros (plus at least another trillion if my predictions hold) is committed.

And what is all this money buying?

Nothing.  The answer is: this is what they need to sustain their current economic activity, which is contracting at almost double digit rates.  All these trillions in dilutive currency get them no economic stimulus whatsoever.

So I will say it again.  The euro and the dollar are going to par, and when they do, we’ll see what you think of the US and emerging market economies then, now won’t we?

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Meet Francois “hollandaise sauce” Hollande; sometimes referred to by his more loving title of “that socialist asshat whose going to totally fuck the euro”.

Just who is Francois, you ask?

Why, Francois is the leading candidate in the French elections right now.  He is beating Nicholas Sarkozy by a mile, and unabashedly so.

Why, just earlier today, his stool pigeons were commenting on the very “British Prime Minister”-ishness of “Sarko” and how such a man as Nicholas is very unbecoming to all that is “French”-y.

And just why is this relevant, do you ask?

Well, because Nicholas Sarkozy has been more or less the only thing holding Germany to the rest of Europe.  Without French compromise, I doubt very much that Angela Merkel would be making much headway at home, where printing money remains a very “Weimar Republic” thing to do.

And that is sort of the catch, isn’t it?

You see, “The Eggs Benedict Presidential Candidate” himself is rather fond of printing money.  In fact, that is Mr. Hollande’s only proposed solution to the teansy, tiny little situation that Europe has been trying to brush aside for going on three years now. 

He supports overpaid and benefit rich labor, cushy state funding even at the expense of big deficits, and printing shitloads of money.

Naturally, he and the Germans are going to get along swimmingly.  They will be best friends.  Why, they will be so close, Germany may elect to send some of their people into France to visit.  Just a casual meeting between close compadres, you know.  A few hundred thousand countrymen…oh, and what if they were all wearing the same garb?  Wouldn’t that be fun.  Maybe a few vehicles; just to show off.  Some trucks.  Some tanks…whatever’s lying around, really.

The French and Germans have such a long history of close, personal friendship.

At any rate, even short of Germany high stepping all over Frenchmen’s backs, the addition of this fine gentleman is sure to make an already hopelessly confusing, unstable situation into total pandemonium.  German politicians are not going to enjoy being told that they’re disillusioned pussies who can’t get over the suffering of their long dead relatives.

It’s going to be an Eggs Benedict election year in France.  And hollandaise sauce all over your faces.

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I have a confession. I didn’t even bothering listening to Obama’s speech last night.

I know the state of the Union; I get nothing out of listening to this guy. Some people enjoy hearing him, because he is “a great orator,” whatever the fuck that means. I suppose it’s not much different than enjoying the quality of sound. It’s probably an interest that rhetoric majors and guys who build electric speakers have in common. But I get nothing from hearing words uttered, however eloquently, that are totally devoid of content.

Myself, the 9th floor is kept quiet, unsullied by incoherent disruption. When I want to listen to something beautiful, it will be music. I can enjoy music because it isn’t constantly telling me how all my triumphs are owned by others. It also doesn’t iterate the same message; that I must surrender my hard won resources over to people I would sooner see dead than in control of any aspect of my life; over and over and over…

Listening to Obama talk is enjoyable to some, because the tones and sounds he makes are pleasant. But when I actually hear the words coming out of his mouth, my blood pressure spikes and I dream longingly of stuffing a basketball down his throat to muffle the stupidity.

So I didn’t listen to the speech. And after reading excerpts of it this morning, I can’t help but think to myself, “Good job, self. Time well spent…”

His speeches are nothing but a string of unrelated opinions and poorly made points, forced together. The only thing they have going for them are that the individual notes and tones of him talking are not unpleasant to hear. That hardly makes for good listening.

Good speeches and good music should come from the same place; they need theme, continuity and coherence, and cadence. They need structure and shape given to them. They need to serve a higher purpose than to simply hear scattered notes with no grand design.

For the record, you should always read speeches rather than listen to them. When you read them, any affability of the speaker is removed and you are forced to take the points of speech on their fluentness, merits, and ability to tie content to drive truth. Do that and I promise you won’t think Obama is that great of a speaker anymore.

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I left late Friday evening to enjoy some downhill skiing in the frosty northern lands of Canada. The scenery was beautiful, the people rather friendly, and the architecture, motivating. I always enjoy seeing cosmetically adorned brick buildings; our homes should be ornate and representative of a people who care. Nothing puts me off more than functionally driven housing. If the post-industrial world has claimed one underserving victim, it is the myriad of grand style that has been supplanted with faceless and formless buildings dotting the landscape.

What does that say? I’m so poor I just can’t take the time to cast some concrete into a more pleasant shape. I’m so destitute that constructing living spaces in anything other than cubes is a hindrance to my well-being. The old neighborhoods we drove through were splendid to look at, and full of cathedrals and churches made with the tall pride of a people replaced with a generation whose catchall is “no one can build them that way anymore.”

Oh really? “Can’t,” or “Are too lazy to try?”

That being said, I’m glad to be back in the U.S. If I have one criticism to place against Canada, it is this: your costs of living are stupid expensive.

Between dropping $1.20 per liter for gas (well over $5 a gallon for those who don’t care about the metric system) paying 20-25% more for all goods we purchased (all beer including domestics starts over $10-12 a pack. I was “overjoyed” to pay $50 a meal for Mrs. Thaler and myself, when eating out and that was for “decent” food, not great), I simply cannot fathom how you Canadians get ahead in life. Those prices would easily devour the entire budget of most ordinary citizens. You really see how high the costs are, now that the two dollars are near par with one another; the old excuse of a weak Canadian dollar is no longer valid.

Oh, I’m actually playing devil’s advocate. I know exactly how you get ahead. Don’t pretend like I don’t know that Canada has a brazen and rampant black market for labor. I’ve heard the stories from before healthcare reform, when men and women could work some paltry handful of months a year to qualify for coverage, and then quit their jobs and work under-the-table on all sorts of odds and ends for the rest of the time. And I know that remnants of that dark pool still exist. There’s nothing like tax free income to escape the burden of high costs.

It’s a shame; I’d probably visit the country more if I could at least engage in the simple enjoyment of living without constantly needing to contribute money to someone else’s welfare or benefits. It’s fairly ridiculous how much money those price disparities eat up with just the simple necessities like food and drink. This concerns me, because it looks like the Democrats put us on a similar path not long ago.

Two men should be able to exchange as freely as possible between themselves, without having to constantly feign worry for others; it’s a pretty straightforward transaction until you start chaining the planet to the participants. I’m a firm believer that a homeowner should be able to fix the roof on his house as easily as possible, without resorting to hiding in the shadows to avoid the open hands. It disgusts me to think that we could be dealing with these price levels at home in just a few short years, if a prolonged liberal majority were to ever hold office.

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I’m going to break with finance and just make a prediction here that has little to be gained from. Maybe that seems silly, since I’m putting myself on the line with no chance of reward, but I think it needs to be said. Actually, I’ve already said it last month, but exclusively on Twitter, which is an outlet most sane people just don’t read.

So here goes, for all to peruse over:

This election is just not going to see the kind of spending the last one did.

Maybe I’m being naïve, but my basic insight is that Obama is not going to drop a billion dollars fighting Generic Republic #9; he needs an opponent to spend that kind of money and the GOP is not providing him an opponent.

Good lord, do you remember the last election? I knew McCain would be the nominee before he bothered to run. The GOP primaries are usually so obvious; the party faithful have their pure breed race horse picked out years in advance.

But not right now. All of this nonsense…”Perry in lead”…”Santorum breaking away”…”Backmann taking the nomination”…”Herman CAIN”….”The Return of Romney”….

All this trash doesn’t mean anything for the latest candidate; what it really indicates is that the conservatives don’t care for any of these assholes. How much money do you think a disinterested Republican donor list is going to turn up? I’m not giving a cent to any of these morons to blow.

The call for this election to be the most expensive ever seems to hinge on two points; Obama says he’ll spend a billion, and this is the first presidential election since we’ve had unlimited campaign contributions from corporations.

I know, you on the left just love to bitch about corporate donors and how they’re going to show zero restraint and buy up all the elections. Just like they buy up all the good property and steal your sunlight. But what’s in it for a corporation to drop that kind of money here; when do they make it back?

In order to get anything (like healthcare reform repealed) they don’t just need the presidency…they need the Senate.

Yeah, that’s not happening, not after the Tea Party fiasco of this summer.

And as for the former point of Obama spending a billion…well like I said, is he going to spend that much money fighting the GOP when they can’t even seem to agree on a single candidate to put against him? Maybe that’s all part of the strategy, since they are all hated so much. Obama fairs worse against nobody than he does against any of these bodies. But…he has to face somebody.

And Obama’s own donation levels have consistently come in below expectation. Even his own side isn’t very hyped up about this.

My guess is that we see spending in this election lower than anytime during the last two decades. And the only people who are going to be getting hyped up are those of you who choose to do so…which will be a minority.

The rest of us are turning off our televisions and going outside.

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