We Are His - Max Lucado

“Thank you for your love, thank you for your faithfulness.”  Psalm 138:2 The Message

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The Russell opinion. It's the markets that are telling the real story, not the analysts or the government..Believe me if the stock market continues the way its been going (particularly if it crashes) it's going to scare the living hell out of America's consumers. If consumers freeze up, you're going to see all the deflation you want. So who to believe, the analysts and economist or the stock and bond markets? READ ARTICLE

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“Break the thermometer, then you won’t have a fever.” - Former Polish President Lech Walesa

Watching the TV news here is Spain at the moment is often a rather discomforting and sad affair. The normal menu seems to consist of a constant stream of ministers who have to appear before the cameras and the public to explain something that they, in all fairness, don’t really understand themselves. And so it was on Saturday, as I tucked into my early morning breakast of sausage and beans (Catalan style) in the village near my mountain retreat, there in the background I could see the face of Spain’s Labour Minister Celestino Corbacho (photo above), giving details to the assembled press corps of the latest government decision to make another six month extension for the 426 euro monthly “exceptional” payment for those whose unemployment benefits have run out. Why there are so many unemployed in Spain, and why renewing this subsidy is now an almost permanent necessity (this is now the third time that this “temporary” means of support has been extended), or what the real prospects of creating enough jobs to start reducing the unemployment mountain any time in the foreseeable future, was not explained. Well, the future is not ours to see, so “que sera, sera”. READ MORE

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In an interview by Likud Knesset Member Danny Danon, speaking with WND senior reporter Aaron Klein, who hosts an investigative program on New York's WABC 770 AM Radio, the Israeli said that "Israel is preparing for a time of war...We are ready for all scenarios, and we are able to defend our civilian population. I cannot tell you how long we can wait more. But we prefer to wait and see if the international bodies are acting, or [whether] it will be only the burden of Israel, like it was in the early '80s, when the great leader, Menachem Begin, [made] the great decision to bomb the nuclear reactor in Iraq." He concluded: "We don't want this to be a war of Jews against Muslims. It should be a war of Western civilization [against] Iran." Good luck explaining that to 1.5 billion Muslims around the world.

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As another leg down to the economy is starting to be telegraphed by even the official data set, particularly in unemployment, and housing, and with industrial production slowing down, Goldman is once again beating the QE 2 "non-lite" drums. As such, all eyes turn to this week's Jackson Hole Kansas City Fed Economic Symposium (the same Kansas City where the sole dissenter to the Fed's ZIRP "bubbles4eva" policy, Tom Hoenig, rules over rational thought with an iron fist, even as other Fed intellectual midgets scribble pre-paid papers describing how stable the economy of soon to be bankrupt countries is). As we pointed out in the days following Hatzius' reduction in GDP estimates, the Goldman strategist was hoping for a $1 trillion QE announcement. The Fed decided against it, and the market sold off. Which is why at this very public Fed venue (and last) before the September 21 FOMC meeting, many will be focused on Bernanke's speech to see if he will telegraph the purchases of even more securities, which as Hatzius highlighted before, could include more "exotic" credit, including private label MBS, munis and even corporates. As Sven Jari Stehn says, "it will be worth watching whether Fed Chairman Bernanke will comment in his opening remarks on the recent data disappointments and/or the ongoing debate on the appropriate stance of monetary policy." And nobody is more concerned than Angela Merkel - now that the EUR has finally started to dip once again to the delight of an insolvent Europe, Germany will do all it can to keep the USD on its upward trend, as the ECB would prove much harder to manipulate into another round of QE. Or maybe not - all it would take is for Greece to be declared bankrupt again. Which is why the next big geopolitical instability cycle may start off anew depending on the first few sentences uttered by Bernanke in the August 26-28 meeting. And finally something quite odd about this year's meeting - as Bloomberg's Scott Lanman points out, the head of the FRBNY's trading desk, better known as the PPT, Brian Sack, is not invited to this meeting for the first time. We will keep a close eye on this very peculiar regime change.

One thing is certain: the ever more clamorous disagreement between the uber-Hawk (Hoenig) and the uber-money printing advocate (Bullard) is about to reach new heights.

More from Goldman:

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Longs may be forgiven if they are sweating their long positions over the weekend: not only did we just have a second, and far more solid Hindenburg Omen confirmation today,

, but the Saturday is the day when Iran launches its nuclear reactor, and everyone will be very jumpy regarding any piece of news out of the middle east. As for the H.O., the more validations we receive, the greater the confusion in the market, and the greater the possibility for a melt down (or up, as the case may be now that the market is unlike what it has ever been in the past). Furthermore, with implied correlation at record levels (JCJ at around 78), any potential crash will be like never before, as virtually all stocks now go up or down as one, more so than ever before. And should the HFT STOP command take place, the future should be very interesting indeed (at least for the primary dealers, and the Atari consoles which are unable to VWAP dump their holdings in the nano second before stuff goes bidless).

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Dismantling America: Part IV

How did we get to the point where many people feel that the America they have known is being replaced by a very different kind of country, with not only different kinds of policies but very different values and ways of governing?

Something of this magnitude does not happen all at once or in just one administration in Washington. What we are seeing is the culmination of many trends in many aspects of American life that go back for years. READ MORE

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n today’s shaky economy and jittery investment markets, investors may well find that their best moves are not discovering the next big thing or a fantastic value, but simply avoiding serious, and costly, mistakes. Here are ten of the most common mistakes we see investors making everyday, and how to avoid making them yourself.

Full Story:

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