June 23, 2009

Good Morning All,

Commentary:

Although the adage "all politics is local" has been attributed by the late Democrat Tip O'Neill to his equally late father, it has since been incorporated into the reportage of all party campaigns; be they state, federal or municipal in nature. Until recently, however, it had never occurred to an American national leader that this theorem also applied to countries, as it has taken over a century of failed U.S. interventions to finally produce a counter policy that might work in Iran.

The criticism of Obama's reticence to become actively involved in the current situation in Iran has come from the usual political and otherwise uninformed sources, a monologue that is at once galling and laughable, considering the incredible mess these same individuals have most recently made of U.S. foreign relations. Worse still are the reporters whose consistent failure to ask the most obvious of questions; such as "what would you propose we do that would make a POSITIVE difference?"

The answer to the Iranian question will be best answered by the Iranian people, who just happen to have some recent experience in regard to revolutions having kicked out the last American puppet 30 years ago. Maybe this time they will get the "change part" right and finally throw off the yoke of fundamentalism. Meanwhile it is quite something to watch the Christian fundamentalists in America and their fellow travellers on the wacky right, scream for a defeat of the conservative leadership in Tehran. Once again, "politics is local", let's keep it that way. Twitter your support if you like but remember that democracy imposed from without... is just another form of tyranny.

Markets

We appear to have reached an impasse during June with several weeks of trendless trading, or non trading were the truth to be known. I am disappointed with the current failure to move toward my early July goal of a 1050 plus S&P 500 as this present market condition may now prevent a summer of leisure. The ancient market truism has once again reared its ego busting head "you may be able to predict the time or the level, but never both together". We will watch carefully over the next few hours or days to see whether the S&P will visit 840 or stage my desired rebound past 945. The themes of techs, biotechs, potash etc remain intact. Commodity stocks have given up 20 to 30% of their recent gains and should once again be under accumulation.