MARKETS AND ECONOMY

Yippie Ki Aye Kay Ayyy. The EU is practicing "Cowboy Economics"

It's a bull market in the USA. French and Germans are cutting taxes. Don't you just love it?. This means consumers there will have more money to spend and they will spend a little of it on American goods, so it's good for OUR economy as well as theirs. A strong Euro and a weak dollar play right into this.

EU Central Bank is in a pissing contest over interest rates with the EU over budget deficits (like Bush, they have to spend their way out of an economic slump) and won't cut rates further, already very low at 2%. Don't sweat what they do. Everyone over there is upset at the high Euro/low dollar thinking we finessed them by "pretending" we wanted a strong dollar when we really wanted, and got ,a cheap one. Like they can't read charts over there?

ECONOMY

Let's play "Good Cop-Bad Cop"

GOOD COP: The new workers entering the jobless are people who had dropped out and now feel better about the economy and are dropping back in, thereby inflating the numbers
BAD COP: Yeah, like a couple of million jobs have gone bye bye and now people are feeling good? Highest rate of unemployment for blacks since 1983. "Happy Days are Here Again?"
GOOD COP: Best news of the week is that real interest rates are rising which means that demand for money is showing up and business is expanding. Great news.
BAD COP: Yeah, homes will cost more. Great news for the rich, bad news for everyone else especially the poor slobs who build homes and may lose their jobs because housing prices will rise.
GOOD COP: Stock market, the leading indicator, is up roughly 10% on the year.
BAD COP: Waitresses, carpenters, and sweat people are jumping up and down for joy while they wait in the unemployment lines over that.
GOOD COP: Mergers are way up. This cuts down on the over capacity that has been plaguing the markets for the past three years.
BAD COP: Tell me how many truck drivers are going to lose their jobs over the merging of those two huge trucking behemoths. Why is it good news when sweat guys lose their jobs and bad news when PhDs, college professors, and executives lose theirs? Mergers cost jobs.
GOOD COP: Ad rates are rising. Radio is virtually sold out as is TV. We are seeing almost all ad slots filled by quality ads at high rates.
BAD COP: You're telling me the rising ad rates for "Sluts in New York" and "Gold Digging Slime Bitches in Hollywood" is good for the economy? Or is it just good for prostitutes?
GOOD COP: For the first time in more than two years a survey of business executives shows that seventy percent are positive on the economy and it is business spending that creates a recovery.
BAD COP: The same bunch of assholes who got us into this mess with their bullshit accounting, insane acquisitions and personal greed are now optimistic? This is "Good News"? For who exactly?
GOOD COP: Business profits are rising, commodity prices are rising, and producers can at last raise some prices. This is the best news of all.
BAD COP: Just what everybody is dying for: higher prices for everything and wage cuts for everybody.

BOTTOM LINE: Until unemployment starts to go down, we ain't got no recovery that means anything at all. This figure MUST start falling or the stock market will fall. Watch this stuff. Most of all keep your discipline. Get out of markets on your rules. This unemployment is VERY BAD news. Don't fall for the Cavuto/Cramer/everybody else bullshit about the stock market being a leading indicator. Lagging indicators can be the real numbers. Stay disciplined.