DIRECT FROM THE NSA

"Hello."

"Ben. Ben?  It's me, Barry."

"I'm sorry. Who is this?"

"Benny, Benny, it's Barry...ah...Barack...ah, you know the President."

"Oh, right.  What can I do for you Barry?"

"It's Mr. Pre...oh, never mind...Benny what were you thinking yesterday? You damn near brought the whole house down."

"Did I?  Gee I didn't think that would happen.  I was just trying to smooth out the batters box for Janet when she takes over at the end of the year.  Give her plenty of options, you know what I mean?   I mean it was just a little lab test we were running to see how the markets would react.  Nothing serious.  Got a lot of good stuff but you know, not all of it is what we thought it might be.  Do you think some of our models might have been wrong?

I don't give s *&%# about your models!!  Jacob/Jack tells me everything is in the crapper and may stay there.  THAT'S what I give &^%$#% about.  Your models can go to hell.  They don't believe me when I tell them the war against terror is over.  How do you expect them to believe me when I tell them we're doing better economically when the DOW is down 500 points, the 10 year--whatever that is--is somewhere it's not supposed to be, the dollar is up so our exports are going to suck, the Euros think I'm an idiot, the Russians laugh and the Chinese wont even talk about things I want to talk about, and now THIS!?  What did you do?  How do I explain THIS?!"

"Blame Bush?  After all he appointed me."

"You know, that might work."

"But then again, you reappointed me."

"Oh shut up for once."


Just a little (very little) attempt at humor but today was really not a good day.  If there was any question that the past year or so was a bit of a Potemkin village the Bernanke remarks or following the Fed meeting set off a chain of events that certainly gave support to that belief.  One need but open one's window on the most beautiful of days to hear the cries of 'I told you so" emanating from the financial canyons of the East as some real blood is being spilt in the investment community.

It is a bit of a perfect storm as well as the news from China is not good at all what with tales of the overbought and the overbuilt  coming from every where.  A good friend who has just returned has remarked that they have a hell of a problem which he believes they will overcome but not without a great deal of pain.  Ominously, however, he added that this time it is no slam dunk.  Credit is becoming unavailable from the banking sector, squeezing the small business man who must turn to the shadow banking sector for liquidity into which cauldron slides any notion of transparency.  The numbers, which were always more than suspect are now non-existent making the one economy which more or less has kept the global wheels turning for the past five years is now in neutral or reverse.  The Fed punch bowl may no longer be there and the Chinese one may be running dry,  No, not a good day.