The collision of global markets and social mood

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Saturday Slices

A few ramblings for no particular reason:

So great is the Fed's fear of continued credit deflation that inflation has become the US' leading export. The Fed screws the rest of the world while its ability to screw Americans slips away as deflationary psychology steadily increases.

Goldman is screwed. That's my take anyway. Could it be that its sudden 52% profit slide coincides with increased insider trading scrutiny and post-Madeoff Ponzi scheme inquiries by the SEC?

The same may go for Stevie over at SAC Capital who boasted 30% annual return for 18 years before the Madeoff case broke, then suddenly lost 19% in 2008, gained 29% in 2009 during most epic bounce in history, and then returned a humdrum 15% for 2010. I wonder how long he'll get away with charging 3 and 50?

Social mood is alive and well and grim as ever in of all places, the art world. A new exhibit at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas of Salvator Rosa's "Bandits, Wilderness & Magic" is described in the WSJ as "unsettling, dangerous gloom and doom."

"Rosa's human figures never smile; instead they seem grim, wary, defiant, sullen or lachrymose . . . confronted and absorbed by nature's cosmic violence."

A premonition of things to come, or a mirror image of steadily declining social mood? The markets will have the answer.

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