What our enemies and friends are learning from the Gov't Shutdown

It's sad to see but this shutdown is going to show countries like Iran and North Korea how they will need to deal with our Country in a crisis. This Shutdown and Debt Ceiling crisis is not good for our President and the Congress as our enemies are going to learn a free lesson in dealing with us when our Countries have a major crisis like Iran acquiring a Nuclear Bomb. They get this knowledge without having to pay anything for the lesson. It's a damn shame and a sad day for America. Someone is going to need to be the adult in the room and it isn't going to be Speaker John Boehner. He is forcing the President's hand as the crisis of Syria did when he drew a red line regarding the use of Chemical Weapons and couldn't get the Congress to support him. What idiots the Tea Party Representatives are. They don't really care about our Country and they should fold their hands in this crisis. The Country needs to get rid of all these Tea party nuts and some consequences should also take effect with the dumb people who voted them in!

Kim Jong Il funeral celebration

North Korea to Celebrate Kim Jong Il at Funeral. The ceremony will likely mobilize hundreds of thousands of weeping participants in a display of national mourning that’s designed to portray broad public support for the regime, according to analysts.

Sanctions against North Korea? How many are in the U.S's bag?

OK, every time North Korea does something we don't approve of, and the pursuit of Nuclear Weapons seems on the top of the list, we threaten them with new Sanctions. So here's my question. How many more sanctions could we employ? Let the American people and North Korea see what we are considering in total, rather than in piecemeal. If you want to stop someone from doing something and you are threatening them with some action, wouldn't it be wise to share all of what sanctions we are considering if you wanted to get them to stop. Otherwise they continue to build more nuclear material for bombs and also Missiles to deliver them. We either can or can't influence them, short of war. Oh and while we are at it, what about what we are willing to do regarding China and her role in this? You see I think it is all nothing but show for the American people as we are not willing to go to war over this, unless North Korea used a Nuclear Missile. I don't even think we would go to war with them if they shared the technology with others, because they already have with Iran and now Miramar (Burma). Quite honestly, I think Americans are getting tired of this strategy used by every Administration, Republican and Democrat alike. Don't you?

Market outlook: Higher volatility days ahead.

Scary day today for the markets. If you pay attention today, your blood pressure will surly rise as will the VIX. The Nikkei dropped almost 300 points in overnight trading for a 3% loss as did the Topix and currently European markets are also down anywhere between 2% to almost 3%. World jitters are said to blame and certainly we have enough of them. For example, concerns over the North Koreans starting up the war again with the South Koreans and drawing in China and the US. Then there's the catastrophic Oil spill in the Gulf which has been going on for a month and most likely will continue for another 2-3 months before the well is sealed. Then add to the mix the concerns in the Euro zone about the recent debt problems of Greece and now of Spain, not to mention our own debt problems, and you have a vessel holding a lot of world issues in it.

However, everyone seems to discount the fact that the charts of the markets, which are produced by trades of our collective human minds and the software, which has been used to create formulas which can execute those trades in micro seconds, have been telling us this market drop was coming over a year ago. But we wanted to believe that we were missing out on the rally if we weren't in this rising market. Well watch how you react when the market now reverses. It's the old greed and fear paradigm at play. This creates volatility in markets. So watch the VIX index rise today.

Dow Futures point today for the Dow to drop as low as the 9700-9800 range and the other Indexes point to a similar move. If you are new to this Blog, you might want to read back issues of this Blog ofr the past 6 months or so, sampling the various warnings I had posted. I will summarize the message here as follows: We are headed eventually here to testing the previous market low of 6,440 and it will not hold ultimately. Prepare your portfolio for this and your psyche. It will not happen all at once but rather will play out over the next year or so. But it will play out!

If you haven't noticed lately, 3 Month Libor rates have doubled over the past few months. The rates, which are what banks charge each other for lending to each other, has gone from a low of 0.21% to now 0.54%. All in preparation of a tightening of lending even more than previously. Hmmm, you think they knew tis trouble was coming? Hmmm, Oil has gone down significantly as well. Today it is down over $2.29/barrel to $67.84. One would have thought with as large an Oil spill that the prices would have gone up. This is deflationary.

I thought we might get a relief rally back to 10,500 to 10,600 but we may not as well. I might be forced to part with the TZA OPtions I bought yesterday but it was not a large bet, so that's OK too. I still have 1/2 of my October Call Options as well as owning many TZA shares outright as well as FAZ, both of which are ETF Ultra Shorts. TZA is up to $8.20 in pre-market for a move of 7.5% after hitting a high of $8.38/share earlier.

Watch 1044 on the S&P 500 as that is where support is. If we can hold that, we can then get a rally in the next few days. If we can't we are heading lower and breaking that support level. And it's a long way down from there before another support level will stop the drop. On the Dow, that level is at 9850 and on the Russell 2000, that level is at 580.

Serious accusations against North Korea could reignite a war.

While the stock market had its own problems so far this day, this from Yahoo! news:

North Korea, accused of waging the deadliest attack on the South Korean military since the Korean War, flatly denied sinking a warship Thursday and warned that retaliation would mean "all-out war."
Evidence presented Thursday to prove North Korea fired a torpedo that sank a South Korean ship was fabricated by Seoul, North Korean naval spokesman Col. Pak In Ho told broadcaster APTN in an exclusive interview in Pyongyang.

He warned that any move to sanction or strike North Korea would be met with force.
"If (South Korea) tries to deal any retaliation or punishment, or if they try sanctions or a strike on us .... we will answer to this with all-out war," he told APTN.

An international team of civilian and military investigators declared earlier in Seoul that a North Korean submarine fired a homing torpedo at the Cheonan on March 26, ripping the 1,200-ton ship in two.

Fifty-eight sailors were rescued, but 46 died — South Korea's worst military disaster since a truce ended the three-year Korean War in 1953. President Lee Myung-bak vowed to take "resolute countermeasures" and called an emergency security meeting for Friday.

This is very scary stuff and should be on more news outlets than it currently is. But this could affect markets already nervous over the European Unions troubles with debt and the Euro.

Is this really Kim Jong Il? You be the judge.

Is this really Kim Jong Il? The newer photo showing him grayer, was from when he was taking part in voting at Supreme People's Assembly of the country Thursday, April 9, 2009 in Pyongyang, North Korea. You be the judge from the photos. To me they look like different people, maybe an impersonator used to fool us. Maybe they are trying to pull the wool over our eyes. Maybe he died? If I saw a Voice Recognition pattern showing they were identical I would be more inclined to accept it. To me he looks like a close double. You be the judge. Leave a comment on what you think.

At what point does the world hold China to account for Burma?

The tragedy in Burma (Myanmar) is getting the world community very mad at both the government of Burma and now of China, which borders the country. China is the only country with a good relationship with the Military Junta but with the problems of delivering aid to the innocent civilians in that country now more at peril it is about time the world speaks out not only about the Military leadership in Burma but now the role that China is playing here. Too many world problems are connected to China. There is North Korea, Somalia and the Darfur genocide, Tibet, Iran and now Burma. When is the world going to see that all roads lead to China. And with this latest appalling action of seizing the aid from the U.N. and hoarding it from their citizens, the world can not sit by. If China is not immediately helpful here, the Olympics should not be attended by anyone including athletes. China should not get a pass here. This is a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportion and if China wants to be a part of the civilized world then it needs to act more civilized and use its influence, pressure and threat of hostility if necessary to help the innocent people suffering in Burma.

Wake up!

UPDATE: May 10, 2008

Headlines tonight from Time magazine.com reads as follows:

Is It Time to Invade Burma?

It looks like others are thinking the same thing as I am.

To read their entire article click here.

Is there a new enemy emerging in the world?

What do these places have in common: Darfur, North Korea, Burma, Tibet? The answer is China! The other answer is oppressive regimes!