SOMEBODY FIGURED...

Every market went to hell today, the equity markets I mean. It started in Asia, spilled over to Europe and then ended up here with the Dow down around 185. Financials got hammered in the face of notsobad retail credit loss numbers and retail was murdered in its bed. It was ugly. I'm getting that feeling again that somebody out there knows a lot more than I do (ok, stop laughing) and that we are heading for a retrace of the down markets of last year albeit without the panic selling and crisis atmosphere that accompanied the down-turn. It just appears that the feeling of confidence is not there and this down-atmosphere is not helped in any way by the monstrous mess made by The Leader and his mob over health care. To me, it appears that a great deal of the country is not only concerned as to the invasion of privacy issues that the government's intervention might cause but certainly out here in the fly-over zone, everyone is beginning to ask the question as to how all this gets paid, and for many the nonsense coming out of D.C. doesn't ring true.

Perhaps we are not the only ones. I try to make it a habit to watch the delicious Miss Burnett and her sidekick Mark, every morning on CNBC; they are far and away the best 1-2 act on tv. I hope whomsoever paired those two is making a lot of well-earned money as they are not only entertaining they are informative. This morning, seemingly not realizing the full import of the reportage, Erin elicited from the head of Norway's sovereign fund the fact that he wasn't investing in Treasury securities and, in fact, didn't like them much at all given the future outlook. Her matter of fact response to this little tid-bit of info was to me a bit surprising although I must admit that as the morning went on she seemed to grasp to a greater extent the full import of this info given the Norway has the second largest investment fund in the world. I was perhaps even more surprised as just prior to this interview she revealed that China had been a net seller of Treasuries in the near-term and didn't really like the two facts more closely. In a financial sense, this seems to have violated the first rule of news reporting, "If it bleeds, it leads," but then I may be reading more into this than the facts deserve. Gotta love the Norwegians though: look you square in the eye from 3500 miles away and tell you your country's debt stinks from an investment standpoint. I suspect they are the most brutally frank people in the world and always have been. Good on 'em.

Anyway, this didn't make me feel any better about the state of things. My friend Larry keeps repeating that the Chinese are in a dollar trap and as smart as he is he's probably right, but i keep wondering as to how those one billion or so Chinese are feeling these days? I can't seem to forget that last year's collapse was preceded by a turn-down in China and I just wonder if Joe Chinaman feels as spooky as I do. If so, things could get ugly very quickly and the end of the recession that was being touted in Germany and France last week might not be so final, fueled, if it was, by China trade. Then again, the college football season begins in just two weeks. Maybe things aren't so bad after all.