January 15, 2009 Edition

Good Morning All,

Investor bids on world markets have all but disappeared over the past six days, leading this short term bull toward an internal debate over the question as to whether I am totally wrong (impossible), or temporarily mistaken about the timing of my prognostications. Ahh it would be unhindered peace and progress, t'were it not for the quandaries this life is wont to present to our world of fun and frolic.

One answer to the present dilemma may reside within the lessons taught to each of us through the exercise of life and living. If, for a moment, we can chase back in time to our early days when we were first introduced to the realities of the David and Goliath world that would become our existence, you know (as Caroline Kennedy might say), the years in which we began to understand whether we were going to be freedom fighters, nasty bullies or simple tribespeople. For my part I was an early Darwinist who quickly realized that my survival and prosperity resided not with my physical skills, but with the agility of my tongue and its ability to sway (or as some critics might suggest) manipulate potential opponents through minduse. To carry the story a little further and thereby get to the point of this seemingly strange metaphorical diversion, permit me, for a sentence or two, to dwell upon the physics lesson first learned in Sunday School.

As a child I was not one disposed to the abuse, torture or murder of small animals and feathered creatures nor do I believe that I ever owned or operated a slingshot, but I was an observant little fellow who quickly grasped the aforementioned principle behind David's weapon of mass destruction. Elasticity by its very nature must be stretched before its power can be released, and the farther the pull back the greater the forward thrust will be. Markets, similar to the underestimated slingshot are presently enjoying such a pullback and they are aimed not just at the ceiling but o'er the roof. Realistically though, we must remain aware of an even more important law of physics...gravity.

Short term problems with a couple of Barack's cabinet appointments will soon be overcome as the holdup appears to based more upon opposition posturing than it does on substance. Meanwhile things continue to look very bleak on the economic front just as do the prospects for sanity in the Middle East. There is little good news about these days excepting the comforting thought that we are about to deal with the Reagan legacy of deregulation and the inherited Bush debacle of everything, instead of simply living with the seemingly interminable mess. Despite all of this, it is not whether we get an Obama rally it is when and I suspect that we are due, if not today, then very soon after.

On another Barack watch note, it was interesting that he invited a number of conservative media types to dinner on Tuesday evening. Yesterday morning, Larry Kudlow, the extremely annoying, ideological boor who is given far too much air time on the increasingly absurd CNBC business network was absolutely ecstatic over the meeting, gushing on about Obama as if he were some sort of ......may I say it....Messiah. This from cable television's most reactionary conservative. If Barack can win these guys over with pragmatic posings or supposings....well he reminds me of that little boy who realized his personal strengths at an early age. Just get the job done son.