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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TobagoJack who wrote (15153)	3/9/2007 9:21:10 AM
From: foundation	Respond to of 217860

oooh la la! GOOSE the payroll <breifing.com snip> "... Futures indications are now signaling a strong start for stocks as an encouraging jobs report provides more evidence that a soft landing for the economy remains on track. Nonfarm payrolls in February rose 97,000 (consensus 100,000)..." <snap> ... and how many of those are Department of Labor fantasy fabricated Net Birth/Death Adjustments -- you tentatively, attentively, retentively inquire? 118,000 LOL! Living with managed markets... and learning to love it. Or else. bls.gov

To: TobagoJack who wrote (15153)	3/9/2007 9:33:09 AM
From: foundation	Respond to of 217860

hello j ... I'm gravitating toward Denning's “Super Bubble” thesis: "... Markets seem to have dodged the bullet of imminent crash this week. We’re sticking with our “Super Bubble” thesis that cheap money across the globe is likely to drive all assets up to record highs in the next 12-18 months, before a liquidity black hole swallows them, or crushes them…or does whatever a black hole does. Don’t be fooled by the announcement from the doddering old men of Europe’s Central Bank that they would raise short-term interest rates by a quarter of one percent to 3.75%. This is still 3.25% higher than short-term interest rates in Japan, proving that money is not yet expensive. And in any event, the elephant in the room is the fact that much of the credit/excess driving global bull markets has been created outside official channels. In other words, central bankers are not nearly as in control of the growth in credit as they would like you to believe. Nor are they firmly in control of levers that can arrest a free-fall in asset prices, when (not if) that occurs. But we are probably quibbling over details. And then end is not nigh, yet. The real question is getting the timing right on when the “Super Bubble” will peak and what to do in preparation for it. After all, it will be dangerous to own any kind of equity asset at all after the blow-off blows up. ..." dailyreckoning.com.au However, stubborn as always, I'll hold my junior miners with vise grips...:-)

To: TobagoJack who wrote (15153)	3/9/2007 10:25:38 AM
From: Crimson Ghost	Respond to of 217860

The US and Iran, in Iraq posted by Helena Cobban One week ago today we were sitting in the lobby of our hotel in Amman, Jordan, talking with the very smart and well-informed Middle East analyst Joost Hiltermann about the interactions that US power now has in and over Iraq with Iraq's much weightier eastern neighbor, Iran. (Hiltermann has worked on Iraq-related issues for many years, including for several years now as the senior Iraq analyst for the International Crisis Group.) He said, Well, the US and Iran agree on two things inside today's Iraq-- but they disagree on one key thing. What they agree on, at least until now, is the unity of Iraq, and need for democracy or at least some form of majority rule there. What they disagree on is the continued US troop presence there. Because the US basically now wants to be able to withdraw those troops, and Iran wants them to stay! He conjectured that the main reason Iran wants the US troops to stay in Iraq is because they are deployed there, basically, as sitting ducks who would be extremely vulnerable to Iranian military retaliation in the event of any US (or Israeli) military attack on Iran. They are, in effect, Iran's best form of insurance against the launching of any such attack. I have entertained that conjecture myself, too, on numerous occasions in the past. So I was interested that Hiltermann not only voiced it, but also framed it in such an elegant way. (For my part, I am slightly less convinced than he is that the decisionmakers in the Bush administration at this point are clear that they want the US troops out of Iraq... But I think they are headed toward that conclusion, and that the developments in the region will certainly continue to push them that way.) From this point of view, we might conclude that the decisionmakers in Teheran-- some of whom are strategic thinkers with much greater experience and even technical expertise than anyone in the current Bush administration-- would be seeing the possibility of "allowing" the US to withdraw its troops from Iraq only within the context of the kind of "grand bargain" that Teheran seeks. The first and overwhelmingly most important item in that "grand bargain" would be that Washington credibly and irrevocably back off from any thought of pursuing a strategy of regime change inside Iran or from any threats of military force against it. Under this bargain, Washington would need to agree, fundamentally, that despite serious continuing disagreements in many areas of policy, it would deal with the regime that exists in Teheran-- as in earlier decades it dealt with the regime that existed in the Soviet Union-- rather than seeking to overthrow it. Teheran might well also ask for more than that-- including some easing of the US campaign against it over the nuclear issue, etc. But I believe there is no way the mullahs in Teheran could settle for any less than a basic normalization of working relations with Washington-- that would most likely be exemplified by the restoration of normal diplomatic relations between the two governments-- in return for "allowing" the US troops to withdraw from Iraq. There are numerous paradoxes here. Not only has Washington's wide distribution of its troops throughout the Iraq has become a strategic liability, rather than an asset, but now the heirs of the same Iranian regime that stormed the US Embassy in the 1970s and violated all the norms of diplomatic protocol by holding scores of diplomats as hostages there are the ones who are, essentially, clamoring for the restoration of diplomatic relations with Washington. ... Meantime, however, a great part of the steely, pre-negotiation dance of these two wilful powers is being played out within the borders of poor, long-suffering Iraq. For the sake of the Iraqis, I hope Washington and Teheran resolve their issues and move to the normal working relationship of two fully adult powers as soon as possible. One last footnote here. I do see some intriguing possibilities within the Bushites' repeated use of the mantra that "All options are still on the table" regarding Iran. Generally, that has been understood by most listeners (and most likely intended by its utterers) to mean that what is "on the table of possibilities" is all military options-- up to and perhaps even including nuclear military options, which the Bushites have never explicitly taken off the table with regard to Iran. But why should we not also interpret "all options" to include also all diplomatic options? That would certainly be an option worth pursuing.

To: TobagoJack who wrote (15153)	3/12/2007 11:20:58 PM
From: pogohere	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217860

And further: Goldman Sachs was initially selected as the only foreign asset manager to share responsibility with Daiwa Securities and Nomura Holdings for offering investment products and managing the savings of some Japan Post customers. But Goldman was later ruled out of a future role by Japan Post executives after the US bank was punished by the Financial Services Authority for violating the country's investment trust laws. from:http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=23362775 Do you suppose that's why Paulson was just in Japan, giving assurances all around? Hmmm, new Chinese investment entity, new Japanese investment entities. GS essentially locked out? This week, in a reality near you, in color: The Ides of March