[mark]

Okay, okay, enough with the Chinese.

Can I pick 'em or what? I am the best barometer of what not to do. My original post implied that things were getting out of hand and ready to go splat! Well, gold, silver and oil are taking a major pounding. The dollar, that most unworthy of currencies, is now beginning to rally, though from a lower price than earlier.

So is the present emergency over?

Iran and the US trying to make nice. Bushco effectively managing the news from Iraq. Stocks of oil and gas on the rise. Hurricanes scheduled for the Atlantic side this year. Oh, and it's an election year. Bushco have strong, overiding interest in maintaining control of the House least an impeachment ball starts rolling.

Can they pull off another one? Well, Rove is still around; looks like he's not going down after all, too important for November's playtime.

Curiouser and curiouser.

[bobaloo]

What do you mean IF a million Chinese got on a boat to Canada?

Been to Vancouver lately? You won't hear much English being spoken on the street.

[SoothSayer]

Been to Vancouver lately? You won't hear much English being spoken on the street.

Been to London lately? You won't hear much English being spoken on the street.

[MacG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SoothSayer', '[')b]Been to Vancouver lately? You won't hear much English being spoken on the street.

Been to London lately? You won't hear much English being spoken on the street.

[SeasonOfPain]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MacG', 'C')ome to think of a strange experience in Manchester some five years ago. Went to a chineese restaurant with some business partners (yes, they have ten or fifteen different flavours of chineese in Altrincham alone, dont remeber which one it was) and we were served by this bowing little chineese guy asking if we wanted "flied lice". He did a non-stumbling version of Manuel in Fawlty Towers. When leaving the place, I overheard the very same guy talking on the phone in a back room, and he spoke some PERFECT Oxford English! Probably third generation or such. This thing with 'flied lice' was just a show for the customers! Give them what they expect....

[evilgenius]

What is most important is that oil is not going down very much compared to other asset classes. Every time that oil descends there is always plenty of reason for the price to recover. We have entered the season where oil replacement is tight.

I understand that the whooping going on is largely margin call based. Hedge funds could get into serious trouble as well because the losses are being felt in all asset classes across the board. If the hedge funds get into trouble you won't hear about it until the big guys have had a chance to put a fix in for themselves. Long Term Capital Mang didn't tell anybody, and the PPT didn't either until the crisis was over and the big fish had been well padded in addition to being saved.

I think the thing to watch right now is the price of oil. More specifically, if oil stays high as we pass summer then Katy bar the door.

Also, if oil rises in real dollar cost. The dollar could go up in value and oil might go down, but not by as much as deflation has boosted the dollar. Yes, the fed might crash the economy and the crash could bring deflation and an ostrich head tucking into US treasuries. The loss of the housing ATM could be the equivalent of the loss of the banks in the thirties. Americans operate on credit and their houses are integral. If the credit thing dries up it will bring deflation. It will bring it at least as fast as stock prices have recently gone down.

Will the Fed counter with liquidity? Can they hyper-inflate the dollar?