The Balloon Payment is Due.

When I was a kid, PBS channel 2 in Boston was always showing "The Red Balloon". You know, the movie where some French kid chases a low flying balloon all over Paris. I'm sorry, if I was that kid I'd just pay a buck fifty and buy a new damn balloon. No chase is worth all that.

Canned Goods and Shotguns

OK so as a nation we're one bad Christmas season away from financial disaster. No xmas bonus means bad times for retail sales. Combined with the real estate pop and we have a nation that is in deep trouble. But there's good news. The government is going to stop reporting the M3 money supply. Also expect a sudden influx of cash next year to stimulate spending prior to an election. Every president has done it for the last few decades. What's M3? It's the total measure of outstanding currency. When M3 is high expect inflation, too much cash chasing too few goods. If the Fed stops reporting M3 it means our already stretched fiat currency will be worthless when people realize exactly how out of control the printing presses have been running. So we'll have out of control inflation and a financial recession. Kind of like the late 70's. They called it Stagflation back then. What stopped it was Ronald Regean borrowing trillions and pumping it into the military on the B1 bomber and Star Wars. The problem today is we are out of nations to borrow from, having pissed off the rest of the world with the lies that got us into Iraq. I don't see happy times ahead for anyone.