A Meaningful Monday

Hammerin' Hank decided to put FNM and FRE into the penalty box - aka a conservatorship - indefinitely. Management gets fired, Treasury buys senior preferred stock, greates a facility to buy mortgage securities directly using its account at the Fed, and warrants to increase its capital in FNM and FRE over time as needed. This is a pretty good plan. I like it. Another home run for Hank.

Equity markets are up substantially worldwide.

Sheesh, just hearing a pundit - money manager - comment on Babblevision. He says its a short term fix, but "we don't know" endlessly about other matters. Why the heck is a non-thinking dolt like him put on TV ? Can he not use his small amount of brains to think about how the changes might unfold and what will happen ? Ohhh, TV "news" is so worthless.

Arghhh ... and then Babblevision puts on Sutty - what an imbecile !

Other News

Physical demand for gold in India and the Middle East increased enormously as the price of gold fell. We also know that US consumer demand for gold and silver coins exploded as their prices fell. I like gold & silver long term and maintain at least 5% of the value of the Krypto Fund invested in gold & silver via physical holdings, ETFs and a precious metals fund at Vanguard.

World Affairs

Putin really looks like a fool or knave in his waving that US passport of "Michael Lee White" - "US Army veteran" - around as proof the US fomented the war in Georgia. The WSJ of September 3, 2008 interviews Mr. White and has a photo of him. That passport was reported lost in 2005 on a US-Moscow flight and cancelled. Mr. White is an "itinerant 41-year old English language teacher in China." His US Army experience was driving an oil truck. Lots of details and interviews of independent persons confirm all this.

So now we know what ? Remember the MO of the KGB: falsely accuse the US of doing what the KGB in fact is doing. So likely Russia had infiltrated Georgia and South Ossetia with agents to provoke Georgia into attacking and to thus give Russia a cover story for its invasion.

Word of the Day

"Wafture" - noun [$100]; this word is used in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" as "... angry wafture of your hand"
Wafture means 1. the act of wafting; 2. something wafted.
"Waft" - verb and noun- is not really a $10 word except for some meanings.
Waft means (verb, transitive) 1. to carry lightly and smoothly through the air or over water; 2. to send or convey lightly as if in flight; 3. (obsolete) to signal, summon or direct by waving; (verb, intransitive) to float or be carried (as in 'an odor wafted into the room ... ' ); (noun) a sound, odor, etc. faintly perceived.
Sentence: The wafture of stench and slime keeps increasing from Vladimir Putin's actions in the Georgia affair.