Friday, July 8, 2016

THE ARMY

The United States Army, besides being the most formidable fighting machine in the world is also the most cynical resivoir of black humor  around.  Killing people isn't easy and gettting killed is even worse so you need a bit of the former and a lot of the latter to survive.  On any base in the world, song will often break out;

"When you are down and out, lift up your hands and shout...S*&^!"

Or from the time in 'Nam and "Bad Moon Risin',"

"I hope you got your S*&^ together,
I hope you're ready for Paradise..."

It's one way to survive.

May jobs were revised down by 11,000.  Job growth in June was up by 287,000.  How the hell do you survive crap like this?  Join the Army?

Nobody believed it, but there it is (I want to say I told you so but I really didn't believe anything like this could/would happen).   But in a week when the head of the FBI brazenly prostitutes himself and destroys any remaining semblance of the rule of law I suppose I should have known better.

Equities went crazy with the Dow up 250 and the S & P within a smidge of it's record high.  The ten year hit it's record low--ever.  Joy in the economy?  Nope.  Two things have happened.  The consensus is..and I mean 100%...that the Fed is done until September at least; not good enough.  With the election, the Fed is done until 2017.  The second thing is the jobs number could have been a million, and it wouldn't have mattered.  Yield is all that counts and the flight to quality which continues apace has pushed investors to chase anything in equities that beats 1.33%; which means that there are a lot of people owning stocks that shouldn't.  The thing is way over-bought but unless you are willing to pay someone to hold your money it's all there is.  Normally a condition like this doesn't end well but we are in the "New Paradigme" aren't we?  Or are we?

It's going to be a lovely weekend, so I'm not going to worry.  I have a bottle of Clos de Beze in the cellar and I think I just might throw a steak on the grill and have a go.  What the heck, it's not worth anything anyway.  After all, it doesn't pay a dividend...and it's a great thing to have when you're sinkin' fore and aft.

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