T.G.I.F.

I'm beaten. I have no idea what's going on. I checked with all the smart guys I know and they left me with the impression that in the capital markets things are looking a bit dicey. The 10 year is up 30% in a couple of months. My son and his wife refinanced their mortgage for 30 years at around 4.60 last month and today the rate would be over 5.00%., Seven year auction stank, the dollar is sliding against everything but the Yen, Chicago Purchasing report today was simply awful, GM is about to go into Chapter 11, Chrysler is gone, the price of oil has more than doubled in 5 months, Our Hero is crawling on his knees to the Chinese--or at least that is the perception everywhere but in D.C.--the spikey-haired dwarf sets off a big one, BiBi tells the Leader to mind his own business, Europe's economy is almost in free-fall and he DJI closes up 93 points in the last 10 minutes. I have this terrible feeling that it's Berlin and the music is from "Cabaret." Then again, what do I know.

From all reports there is a hell of a fight going on in D.C. over what the new regulatory regime is going to look like with sides being drawn up all over the place. That of course is just what we need...a political brawl when there is a bit of light at the end of the tunnel. I have to admire my favorite gal regulator, Miss Shelia and how she plays things. Jockeying for a place at the head of the table she just hammered Our Hero early in the week with one of the great backhand shots of all time in proclaiming Mr. Geithner's public/private partnership, "essentially dead" as a result of the position of the major banks being so much better that there is very little interest in any of them in participating. Next great idea, Tim? She knows how the game is played or else she is an avid reader of this Blog. Somehow, I doubt the latter. This is not a sideshow, however. Who winds up with the reins going forward is vitally important to the ongoing success of the rebuilding of the financial institutions and the financial markets. One would wish that Ms. Bair restricted herself to trying to get our good ol' boy Ken fired as she has been trying to do for the past year. Why? who knows. But it was good theater without much consequence. Last time she got involved with something serious she went off to advise the Stagecoach boys how to screw poor ol' Citibank with the take-over of the OTHER North Carolina bank. Girl is a pain.

Speaking of regulation, I've been thinking about this quite a bit and would like to share with you a couple of very unconventional thoughts next week. In the mean time, keep this thought in mind; a great deal of focus has been spent on what was done and why it went wrong--with good reason. Very little time has been spent on who did it. Ultimately, it always comes down to the people.

Have a great weekend. My tomatoes get planted tomorrow.