THE WEEK THAT WAS

Not a good one by any means.  Stalemate between the administration and the House on funding the government with the start of Obama care coming Tuesday and all sorts of dire predictions as to what it will wrought to the nation along with the collapse of capital markets around the world if we stopped paying our debts made just today by no lesser person than The Leader who wouldn't know a capital market if he walked into one.

No news yet on a new Fed chief which does no one any good, and the battle rages as to whether to taper or not, beneath which is a growing understanding of what we have been saying for quite a while:  we are creating one hell of an asset bubble with no clear results as to economic improvement.  The Fed's balance sheet in now $3.7 trillion and short term interests rates remain about as low as they can be.  Even the 10 year fell to 2.63% today.  There's an old saying in the equity business that the trend is your friend but for bond and currency traders  traders nobody cares which way it moves as long as it moves; and boy has it moved.  There are probably a lot of very rich-er guys out there after these few weeks.  Yes-sir-ree, nothing like a policy of creating economic equality.

Over There in Blighty today there was a hell of a surprise.  The Old Lady's new Governor, shinely minted in Canada, announced that QE didn't do much good and really wasn't needed given the improvement in the economy so it would probably be discontinued.  Shiva for Little Paulie will be announced at a later date. Now this is not the UK of 1813 or even 1913 but this is a real change of pace of which we should take notice.  The property market as they like to call it was probably the tipping point as it has been red hot as of late, but the lack of confidence in the QE thing was what caught my eye.  Now, perhaps we can have a real debate instead of the tut-tut, harumph-harumph that has been going on. We might actually learn something.

And finally, civilization has been saved by the UN agreeing as the propriety of Syria giving up
 their chemical weapons.. Of course, no one is sure how that happens, how much there is or what to do if Brother Assad changes his mind, but I guess that's progress.   Anyway, there is a HUGE football game tomorrow and perfect weather in the forecast.  A great weekend to be sure...except perhaps for Jamie Dimond.  Even the New York Times is beginning to question who did he piss off?  I think we'll lead with that on Monday.

Later.