OH, BOTHER

I think I'll go out and play with Tigger in the 100 acre wood…oh wait, I can't do that it's too damn cold.  Fact is I have no idea what to write about which is almost unheard of, but this Ukraine situation overhangs everything.  It's kind of surreal out there with nobody really talking about it and yet is is on everyone's mind.  The other thing is you can't really get a handle on what it is that people are thinking.  For example, today the equity markets were weak but so were bonds with the 10 year well-above 2.70% for most of the day only to slide back to the figure at the end.  I think what this is telling us is that no one is sure as to how to read the situation and especially the maker of the feast, Mr. Putin.

Angie thinks he's nuts; maybe she's right.  Then again, I think he knows exactly what he is doing and is probably delighted that we are discussing his mental state.  The Leader also appears to be clueless while the politicos rant and rave as to how much fault to assign to the Administration.  even in left-leaning circles there seems to be the willingness to assign quite a bit in the running of our foreign policy which might indicate the first break in the grid lock that has been Washington.  What a country.  The thing that gets me, however, is how the hell did this come as such a surprise.  Like, Hello?  I kinda thought the spooks were supposed to be all over something like this but from where I sit in the fly-over zone, Putin's actions indeed look as though they came as a surprise.  Perhaps we might start thinking about the reset button being shipped over to Langley or into the office of the NSA 'cause we are on the back end of the news cycle.

In the middle of all this The Leader's budget was brought front and center with….barely a murmur.  Everyone in town knows it is not serious, designed to make political points and one which neither side expects it to be debated much less passed which is just fine with them.  After all, it is the most important by-election in years.  We are in more disarray than I have ever seen in an increasingly long life and the middle of it all,  this morning comes the news that Leon Black of Apollo took home $565 million last year.  Now as far as I am concerned, Mr Black can take home a billion but can it be possible that this administration can talk about income inequality and job creation in the terms of a rise in the minimum wage and higher taxes in the face of a number like this which, to any sane person, seems to scream out that something is seriously wrong structurally?  To top it off, one of Mr. Black's contemporaries was quite openly talking about thanking Ben Bernanke publicly.  Think maybe we got something wrong?  They all are big contributors to the party of The Leader by the way, and they did it all with leverage i.e. somebody else's money I guess in accordance with the Fed's dual mandate.  …I must stop.  Ah, hell.  This is what happens when I don't have anything to write about.