Arkady's Thoughts

This weekend I saw a commercial celebrating our independence day, it got me thinking.  This commercial played out by portraying red coats at the time of the revolutionary war ready for combat.  The situation turns grim when they discover that our founding fathers are charging directly at them at about 55 miles per hour...in a few American made cars and as the Brits run off in disgrace, a triumphant George Washington emerges and we are greeted with a slogan:  America got two things right:   Cars and Freedom .  My impulsive reaction was to blurt out that we have neither and in 2010 to invoke the memory of American automobiles in the face of unprecedented bailouts is just silly.  Later that day we watched the fireworks and I was swept up in thoughts that many would consider pessimistic and against the spirit of the holidays.  Unfortunately, we as Americans must be more cognizant than ever of what 4th of July means and what it once represented....

Jon Stewart is a well known liberal comedian, but a liberal that has at times criticized traditional friends of the liberal establishment like main stream media, unions and other darlings.  Today's clip is either an extension of this approach or a harbinger of things to come.  Depending on your familiarity with Stewart and I will admit that I generally cannot digest his liberalism, love for big government and economic buffoonery, this appears to be really bad news for both Obama and the entire obsession that America has with regulation. If one recalls the clip from SNL some time ago where Obama was the subject of ridicule amounting to "jack squat" one gets the impression that perhaps the very people that rallied so strongly behind a go-getter, wealth distributing friend of the poor is nothing more than a two-bit propagandist?

On the heels of another Euro destruction, where the Euro has made new fresh lows against both the US Dollar and the Swiss Franc one has to wonder where this roller coaster plans to stop.  As mentioned here previously, no sustainable rally can occurring American stocks until the situation in Europe resolves itself. That is, at least temporarily because your host fails to understand just how exactly Europe can pull itself out of their predicament.  What is their predicament?  A gigantic circle jerk of debt.   For your viewing pleasure, enjoy this video. My position remains the same, Germany which is currently Europe's strongest Economy needs to leave the Euro and return to it's own currency.  This will then expose the Euro's actual value which is NOT 1.19 against the Dollar, but something substantially lower.   Similarly and much more importantly countries like Greece and Spain need to have their currencies and debt recognized at a...

Ever since Chris Christie assumed governorship in one of the bluest states in the country he has been a source of frustration for Democrats and a source of pleasant surprise for the Republicans.  To me he has not done anything drastic or extraordinary, but some of his rhetoric has been quite news worthy.   First he schooled a NJ reporter for being called "combative" and then he vetoed a bill from the NJ legislature because they attempted to raise taxes on individuals making more than a million dollars a year.  Now he took on a NJ teacher head on in an honest, refreshing and common sense manner. After watching this video, if you have any sympathy for the teacher then you need to get your head checked. The most interesting aspect of this video is the statement by the teacher, that she teaches because she loves it while at the exact same time demands MORE money on public television.  These are the people teaching our kids?  This is an utter embarr...

Right now the focus is on the turbulent financial markets and for good reason.  Volatility has increased drastically and after almost one year of steady gains, such volatility should be a concern.  Previously I discussed the movement in the currency market as a potential catalyst for a move in American costs. Specifically the move in the Euro, or rather it's ultimate demise.  Ever since Europeans decided that they would rather keep Greece in the union and willingly print Euros to cover the rapidly deteriorating debt of the Greeks it signaled the beginning of the end.  Reason is rather simple actually, when a central bank is willing to print more money just to keep an artificial coalition together outside forces will grow skeptical of the value of this currency.  Furthermore it exposes other weak links within that coalition, namely Spain, Portugal and Italy.  There was only one correct move in the case of Greece fire and that was to snuff it out, instead t...

It has been a very busy week with some good news and bad news.  Good news include Rand Paul winning the Kentucky primary and ousting the GOP establishment candidate.  Bad news include Peter Schiff getting completely shut out in CT, stock market sending dangerous signals of an incoming sell off in the next few months and Scott Brown showing his true colors and breaking the filibuster enabling the passage of the so-called Financial Reform (59-39) . But there is nothing to celebrate.  In this liberal soup only the big corporations and power hungry Statists benefit while the average man suffers under the growing weight of a growing Government bureaucracy and an ever increasing financial oligarchy.  Gone are the audits of Ron Paul/Alan Grayson, gone are the restrictions on derivative trading and restricting access to taxpayer money via the Federal Reserve, rejected were the plans to remove Fannie and Freddie out of Government ownership  (along party lines), ...

As the smoke settles after last week's fiasco and the stock market attempts to climb out of a historic point drop we are left to ponder what awaits us.  Little know fact about last week's one day swoon, currencies were selling off hard.  Looks like someone realized that the inflationary pyramid being constructed by our central banks will collapse sooner or later.  In fact the Euro was flirting with multi-month lows before the famous "fat finger" that sent the Dow Jones Industrial into a virtual melt down.  Why was the Euro selling off?  Well that is rather straight forward and I am glad you asked.  You see, shortly before this swoon the Greek situation was "resolved'.  I use the term loosely of course, because essentially the European Central Bank pledged to buy debt even if the world agreed that the debt's quality was deteriorating.  A quality of debt is measured by the ability of the debtor in paying back what he borrows.  This move was c...