Whither Now ?

The elephants are still stomping in the mud at their drying waterhole. I've been hiding in a palm tree overlooking it to avoid getting stomped. My last two trading forays ended flat and poorly. The question is, whither will the world economy go now ? Up, sideways or down ? Or will it go in different directions in different places ?

News today is not encouraging. From FT: "Germany’s economy ground to a halt at the end of last year, dashing hopes that its rebound would help lift activity across continental Europe.
Gross domestic product in the fourth quarter was flat compared with the previous three months, according to the country’s statistical office. That was weaker than expected and suggested that the ending of government emergency support measures – including subsidies for car purchases – had a greater impact than feared."

China announced higher bank reserve rates this AM to slow lending. Futures dropped on that news.

The US Congress is discussing another jobs bill. I guess that's a tacit admission that last year's 'stimulus' bill mostly wasted the money. That's no surprise to readers of this blog.

A friend sent me a headline from Australia on a jobs bill there. That nation seems to cleverly combine jobs with long term benefits to a key industry. They are funding heritage projects around the nation. These are good programs because they not only provide good construction jobs to preserve historic places, but those very places are important tourist sites. Thus a good local industry gets long term benefits, too. The US did something like this in the Depression.

Here's the link ->

http://thegovmonitor.com/economy/jobs-fund-to-support-60-million-heritage-investment-and-create-thousands-of-australian-jobs-12202.html

DC, ooops I mean RC (aka Racketeer Central) has been so corrupt for so long that simply doing the right thing is foreign to the lifers there. They just do what's expedient. Or do something phony hidden by lots of propaganda. Or run their rackets of lobbyist payoffs and earmarks (aka bribes) for supporters.

The US economy is going to have to start standing on its own very, very soon. In March the Fed will cease buying home mortgages. That will be an acid test. Rates will surely go up. How much ? More importantly, will sufficient funding be available ? I wonder ...

Hence my choice to stay safe in the trees. The elephants are stomping around hard, the mud and dust fills the air. For my speculative funds, I'll wait until I can envision a sustainable trend - when the elephants move out, I'll climb onto their backs and ride to the next waterhole.

My long term funds, managed by my dog, Krypto, made some substantial purchases of equities, gold and silver in recent days (all posted here). Her asset allocation moves often are rather timely. So I'm leaning to thinking the long side will proved the next big move. But when ?

For now: Je ne fais rien. Ich machte nichts. Nic nie robię. Estoy haciendo nada. Non faccio nulla. Nihil facio. I am doing nothing.

Celebrate Lincoln's Birthday !!!

I'll be doing that this evening and again on Sunday at the Lincoln's Birthday Brunch of the Department of Massachusetts, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.

"President's Day" is such thin gruel compared to Lincoln's and Washington's Birthdays. I stick to the original holidays.

Word of the Day

"Irrefragable" - adjective [$10]
Irrefragable means 1. (of a statement, argument, or person) unanswerable, indisputable; 2. (of rules, etc.) inviolable.
Sentence: It's an irrefragable truth that the US Congress is now dysfunctional. Why ? The wrong people are being elected. For decades, voters chose the expedient path, viz. a person who 'brings home the bacon', rather than an honest person. Voters: be bipartisan - vote solely for honesty and good principles !

[hehe, I love it when my Word of the Day stumps the Google spellchecker :-)) ]