CHA-CHING!!!$$$ And ya'all thought it was boring stuff..............? The trend is your friend.........damn what a good buddy ( ! ) .

away...to wait for the follow through........

EB$

I think I know that gold should be higher.That's the denoument.But, this endless and eternal twisting of the plot -- this market is nuts.I refuse to let go ;yet,I want popcorn.Nothing is as it seems and I keep thinking that it can't go on.It goes on.

Maybe we would be better invested in Beanie-Babies.Do they put real beans in those things? At least,I could eat.I could use one as a ' bad call' brick and throw it at the television.What if Tyco made a Beanie laced with gold thread.Now,where is that e-mail address.

The only piece of advice that I've seen that makes any sense at all is; If you don't have to be in the markets, then don't be! The Fed did NOT cut interest rates because all is going WELL. If the smart/big money demanded a rate cut as part of the LTCM deal, then this is the mother of all sucker rallies........ If the above scenario is correct, then these folks were already positioned. Those who buy in to this are then 'bailing' out the smart/big money out.

manner, but that was some years back. Boston's Mayor Curley used

the technique as well.

with today's rate increase, but encourage the creation of more debt

of any kind; consumer,mortgage, or margin.

Missed tests due to kids bedtime, but Keetco on glass is reassuring.

Not old enough or fat enough for golf.;- ) Go Gold!

ANOTHER hinted about unified asian currency to combat the EURO about a year ago.

Your handle says it all. Wish I had thought of it first.

So -- Milton Friedman is probably only partially right about the Great Depression and the behavior of the FED. Somehow one has to convince the public that it is ok to spend and borrow if a deflationary crisis hits. Easy to say and think about -- but much harder to do in practice.

I guess a good analogy I read somewhere about the FED applies. It is easy for the FED to put on the brakes and slow an economy -- but it is much harder to stimulate one heading for a recession. The latter is like pushing on a string. And --- a possible depression is the grandaddy of a recession when it hits. So -- you could argue that anyone in charge of the FED could not have prevented the Great Depression once a certain ( unknown ) critical point was reached.

It might be interesting to compare the mood of the average consumer in the late 20's and 30's with the current situation, although time is probably accelerated due to the information revolution. I'll bet that the average consumer thought times were pretty good right up to that famous day in October.

And -- we may still be awaiting a market blowoff rally. Wonder how long this current short term rally will last with this much financial stimulus? The market response will give us a pretty good idea of how healthy things really are.

Gold: Really odd that AG is dropping ST rates so rapidly, when it was not so long ago he was worried about inflation. Good for gold, provided that deflation doesn't come around and bite us in the rear end as JP would have us believe. I don't know what to believe, but it sure looks like commodity prices have bottomed. At the very least, I would guess that the price of gold is about to go up -- should be at least $320/oz, just based on that the US dollar did in the last month or so.

We just need to be on the lookout for a pending deflationary event -- might never happen if the dollar continues to drop on the international exchanges. If the dollar drops fast enough, deflationary forces will not be able to prevent the rise in the price of gold. Also, if the US markets and WJC continue to weaken, foreign investors will sell US assets if they can find a safer/more profitable resting place.

Of course, we do not want the US dollar to drop too rapidly, as the world's financial system might go up in smoke.

My vote -- whatever happens -- is for a controlled process. Not a total meltdown.

We gold bugs just need to be nimble -- should have bought more gold equities today -- I ve been adhering to a 'two day' rule, and did not hear about the Fed ST rate drop today until too late.

http://www.lexis-nexis.com/lncc/sources/libcont.html

It is my understanding that one of the goals of Lexis-Nexis is to have historical particulars on everyone in the United States -- birth date, SS#,mother's maiden name, all prior addresses, etc. All available to paying customers. What worries me is that many credit card companies use mother's maiden name to identify you 'as you' when you communicate with them. But -- what good is that level of privacy if it is compromised?

I do not know which databases at Lexis-Nexis have personal particulars such as the above, but rest assured that they do. I am also of the impression that you can have your particulars deleted if you request. Only problem is, there must be more than one database like this, and there is no reason for any new database owner to inform you that you are on it. --- Or for that matter, what they have on you. Might be a good idea to express your concerns to your congressman.

I guess the bottom line is that you should at the very least create your own unique passwords ( if you can ) for everything -- banking, credit cards, etc. Secondly, I think it would make sense for you to demand that your bank, credit card company etc., send you a letter in writing that they do not release your personal data to anyone without your written approval. Would be interesting to see their response. At the very least they should be acknowledging what they send to the federal government.

Right now medical records require approval by the patient before they are allowed to be released. But -- as more and more hospitals go to electronic records -- the likelihood of medical record abuse will go way up. It has already started in the life insurance industry -- people getting turned down for medical problems they wanted to keep private between doctor and patient -- but now it is a doctor-insurance company-patient relationship, like it or not. Forget Dr. Marcus Welby.

Here's another headline from Nando: Mortgage rates jump almost half a point in one week. 30 year fixed rate mortgages jumped from 6.49% to 6.90%.

And then there's the situation in Washington, where both the 1999 budget and the $18 Billion IMF handout were approved by Congress, almost in lock step with the rate cut. The fire is not discernible in detail yet, but the smoke is getting pretty thick, wouldn't you say?

http://www.marketprojections.com

http://quotewatch.com/options/options.cgi?symbol=HM&exchange=NYSE&market=stocks

http://quotewatch.com/options/options.cgi?symbol=NEM&exchange=NYSE&market=stocks

http://quotewatch.com/options/options.cgi?symbol=ABX&exchange=NYSE&market=stocks

http://www.pcis.net/jeannev/jeil.htm

http://tiger.golden.net/laird/TimeXAU.htm