Goin’ To California

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsDZMxto-Vc&feature=related 450 300]

(Another take on Kanye)

___________________

Yeah, I’m goin’ tah California, gonna get mahself a beah. 

More likely a nice Plumpjack Estate or better yet, Rafanelli Cabernet Sauvignon in beautiful Healdsburg.  I’ve got an early morning flight for a big celebration for a special lady, who in a lot of ways resembles Madame in the above clip, though she is not from Joisey, but rather Queens, originally.

Truth is, Madame above is from Brooklyn, originally (if you watch her other clips, you’ll learn more) so it’s all six of one half dozen of the other in my assay.  Essentially, almost all of humanity is originally from Brooklyn, at least in these here United States.   It’s like “Out of Africa” via the Piltdown Man, save in this case, it’s out of Flatbush via GTO.

While the dollar is figuring out what it wants to do, I will be jetting West for a long weekend of sybaritic repose, tennis and vin rouge guzzling by the stainless steel vatful. 

Maybe I’ll skip the tennis.

I will try to check in as much as possible, but you can see how nonchalant I’ve become.   That happens when your positions are hundreds of percent in the black.  I suggest you try it and stop screwing around trying to scalp a dime here, and a half buck there.    

Yesterday’s pickup of EXK was fruitful in the extreme.  I would be cautious here as we are due a dollar bounce in the $77 area.   I don’t expect it to be a particularly exhubrant or winning bounce.   More like a semi-spongeous deceased feline, if you know what I mean.

Rome is burning my friends.   Let us raise a glass to a New Republic, someday, with hope in our hearts.    In the meantime, make sure all your denari are .9999 fine grade gold first.

Best to you all.

________________________________

Comments »

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REYOJDANQ0k 450 300]

(Remember when Kanye was witty?)

________________________________

We’ve finally done it…  we’ve broken into “free air” on the Miner’s Chart — the venerable $HUI Gold Bugs Index.   Come see it for yourself:

I did a lot of things today in celebration of our free air moment.   First, I covered quite a few of my hedges in ANV and SLW and GDX, some at a loss some at break even.  The ANV was particularly egregious, but we’ll try not to dwell on that.  I still have about a 20% hedge on SLW and about 30% of ANV still hedged.   You’ll note the overbought stochastics and relative strength indicators on the above chart, I’m sure.  That’s my reason for retaining a little hedge.

But let’s not kid ourselves, the dollar is busted, and headed all the way to Target #4 without even a passing “hey howaya?” to Target #3.  Cheggitout:

Sure, we may get a little bounce at $77, but look at what happened after that last bounce.   No, I think the dollar is dead as Jacob Marley on burnt toast.

So please, get out of any silly short positions you may be contemplating “holding out” for.  There’s far more easy hunting out there than going after an Alaskan grizzly with a plastic butter knife.

In addition to releasing most of my hedges today, I also doubled down on an initial IAG long call position (DEC $17.50’s) at $1.60 a piece today.  My original purchase of 80 was at 90 cents each.   I expect IAG to be over $20 before Santa arrives.   I also added a touch more EXK, which was gluttonous of me.  I now own more of that than I even do SLW, though the share price is lower.

Of course, I think EXK will be the next SLW, so there’s a method to my sleep deprived madness.  I also really like RGLD here, and it looks like it’s ready to launch once again.  

My best to you, and to yours.

___________________________________

Comments »

I Know…. Nosssink! 

______________________________________________________________

Regrettably, it’s come to my recent attention that my site has become infiltrated by black bag conspiracy nuts of the Alex Jones variety.  I would ask without undue rancor that knot-heads believing in the alleged 911 “Inside Job,”  the Barack Obama Birth Certificate Kerfuffle or the Bilderbergian/Illuminati Central Axis Hypothesis (whatever that means) to kindly pole-stave off to a nearby conspiracy swamp of their choosing.

You see, all political movements — left and right — have their nutty fringe, and I’d rather not indulge those fringes right now given the seriousness of our national economic and social plight.

 So please, continue thinking that you’ve got that Jewish Lobby Puppet Master thing all figured out, and do keep proferring your legal brief claiming Barack Obama is just George Bush in more fashionably cut business attire.   That’s all fine for the Cheetohs and Miller Lite– Lone Rifleman meetings you’ve been conducting in Mom’s basement apartment, but this site is not for such erudition.

And don’t get me wrong,  it’s not just about your poor spelling and ham-handed grasp of the Queen’s grammar that’s putting me off.  Generally, that’s an amusing byproduct, in truth.

No, the ban is really about getting serious.   We’ve got a little over a month to go to make sure the bums on both sides of the aisle get the message that we are too well informed an electorate to allow another ten year Great Depression to come about under our watch.    It’s time to make sure that we have representatives educated in economics and U.S. Civics as a baseline. 

 That means no more “government-first”  initiatives, and the only time the word “investment” should come out of a poltician’s mouth is when he or she is referring to the myriad free choices for risk capital available to the private sector.   If these rubes can’t understand “First, do no harm,” then they must at least understand “Stand down, and let the people govern themselves.”

You see, it’s an ironic verity that the PPP’s mentioned in today’s title are actually  giving the “government-firsters” ample cover by repeating their paraonoic’s claims.   In fact, it seems PPP’s can’t realize that the people who would imprison them are not wearing the jackboots of their dark dreams, but instead carrying the clip-boards and white coats of the empathetic and concerned bureaucrat. 

It’s this attitude of creeping  incrementalism that must end.   Only by remaining wholly rational in its face can we hope to return to the principles — by no means perfect, but always powerful and disposed towards freedom — that brought this country to its acme.

Instead of cursing the darkness,  light a blowtorch, and think about which candidates are seeking to keep your markets and by proxy, your civilization, free.  Then go and give them every hand you can spare.

____________________________________

Looks like the dollar may have temporarily bottomed late Friday afternoon, as it’s rebounded about a quarter over the low $78 it posted then.  Tonight (midnight Monday morning) has dollar trading at $78.24 and gold and silver about flat.  I continue to hope for a bit of a pullback here, but I’m not counting any chickens and would advise caution in the coming days.   October is seasonally weak for gold, so you might be on the lookout for a nice bit of weakness with which you might ride Santa’s sleigh into the Yule holidays.

Still hedged on SLW and ANV, everything else is foot loose and fancy free.    My best to you all.

________________________________

Comments »

 

______________________________________

Who isn’t sobered into a melancholy pause upon realizing that most of the cast of Spartacus has now departed this earthly veil?  Look at the list:

Lawrence Olivier — dead!

Jean Simmons — dead!

Peter Ustinov — dead!

Charles Laughton — dead for ages now!

It’s somewhat fitting that only The Ragpicker’s Son himself — star of the slave rebellion show and Gordon Gekko’s true father– Kirk Douglas — remains alone from the vast ranks of this blighted party. 

And now this day, even the questionably heterosexual but unquestionably loyal “Antonius” — Tony Curtis — a Noo Yawkah-done-good extraordinaire, has finally taken that last train to the Bronx.  

 I always loved Spartacus as a youth, albeit not for Curtis’s part, though he made a great Sparty sidekick, despite the bath scenes (not that there’s anything wrong with bath scenes, per se).   It was on WPIX Channel 11 and/or WOR-9  at least two or three times a year, maybe because of native sons (of Noo Yawk) Curtis and Douglas were the stars.   

 No matter, Curtis was always a favorite of mine for this flick and for Billy Wilder’s classic featuring Marilyn Monroe at her apex — Some Like it Hot, which co-starred another all-time great, Jack Lemmon.   It’s nice to remember that before he started appearing in Dan Tanna’s Vegas with a bad toupee,  Tony could kick some ass on the silver screen, not to mention catching some off of it.  

I’ll leave this hat tip to Tony with a funny story he told in a 2006 interview with Esquire magazine, talking about his early days of fame in New York and L.A. —

When I left the Navy, I used the GI Bill to get into the Dramatic Workshop, which was located at the President Theatre on Forty-eighth Street. Walter Matthau and Harry Belafonte were students there, too. We were all just trying to make it. Later on, I went out to California, and good things started happening for me. When I came back to New York to do a promotion for City Across the River, they gave me a suite at the Sherry-Netherland and a huge black limo. I took it around to show my buddies in the Bronx and then went by the Dramatic Workshop. It was a terrible, rainy afternoon, and who do I see out in front? Walter Matthau. He’s got a long, heavy coat on with a Racing Form sticking out of the pocket, and he’s looking down at the gutter. Here I am in this nice, warm limo. And there he is, this grumpy guy surrounded by a cold, miserable world. The look on his face says, “What’s ever going to happen for me? Nothin’!” So I tell the driver to pull alongside him and stop. Now Walter’s watching the limo. I roll the window down, look at him, and say, “I fucked Yvonne De Carlo!” Then I roll the window back up in a hurry and tell the driver to get the hell out of there.

No, no, no, he wasn’t mad! For years, Walter loved to tell that story at parties. He’d make it last twenty minutes.

There’s more funny quotes like that in the link.   He sounds like an old pisser, and a guy to have a bourbon with.  Self-centered and probably something of a jerk, but a veritable pisser.

Best to you all, and good night Tony.

__________________________________

Comments »

Hold on there, jackasses!
_________________________________________

My apologies for being away, folks, but I am on the road and I can only snatch a moment with you here and there and when the wireless broadband affords.  I should be back tonight and be able to give you a more comprehensive posting.

It looks like the dollar has finally bounced, after briefly making it below the $78.50 level down to $78.41 this morning, but now it’s bounced pretty convincingly and is currently trading at $78.78 as of 1:15 pm Eastern time (and it had bounced all the way to $79 a bit earlier).  I am expecting that this will mark our much needed respite in the precious metals market.

And I really mean that.   If we don’t get a pullback here, then I fear we may have a parabolic situation, which is never good for a long term investor’s health.   I don’t want to give up on my positions here, but if we keep going northward without a rest, my trigger finger is going to get extremely itchy.

I’m still short the SLW and ANV calls, which I hope to harvest within the next couple of days.

I hope to see you all again tonight.   Best to you all.

_________________________________________________

Comments »

[youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK_CZdS0K6o&feature=related 450 300]

Is he too fat to be President?

___________________

Governor Christie of New Joisey (that of the Short Hills Mall) rocks, plain and simple.  He is the fat, sweaty Tony Soprano Reagan of our time.   He doesn’t take the schinola from the mealy mouthed press looking to characterize him, and he doesn’t take any crap from public service union hacks:

[youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0Nqk9e1kfY 450 300]

That’s some serious Porky v. Porky action there, but the diff is — Govenor Porky really wants to peel the pork back from the bloated Jersey public sector.  Even better– he’s succeeding!  What better crusader could we enlist to take on the corrupt SEIU and the other public service unions living off the transference of our tax dollars?

In weeks ahead, I will likely be focused on electoral issues, as we head into the extremely crucial mid-term elections of 2010.   But whatever may happen on that date, we will still have the failed Obama Administration to cope with.  That means we need to start thinking about potential Presidential aspirants also — and I’m not just talking about Hillary.

We’ll have two years to figure out who best to put against the demagogic Messiah.   As I’ve mentioned to some, my personal choice is Mitch Daniels, the spectacular former mayor of Indianapolis and now Governor of Indiana.   Daniels took 80% of the Indiana vote in 2008 — the same year that Obama won in Indiana.  He is a special guy and very competent.

But I wanted to start out by looking at the Fat Man, because he too rocks.  Those of you closer to the Metropolitan area may wish to comment, but from what I’ve seen thus far, I really like this guy’s political charisma.   One last before I go.  This may be him at his best in  “telling it how it is” —

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ksLlAi3iIc&NR=1 450 300]

God Bless you, Jersey, you may finally have a great one after a long time in the wilderness.

_______________________________________

Gold should be pulling back here (finally).  Hang tight, as I don’t think it’s going to be much.   I will let you know when I release the hedges on ANV and SLW.

Best to you all.

______________________

Comments »