Today's Market Commentary

It was an exciting weekend for the Bartlett clan. Lynn and her brother ran the LA Marathon yesterday and I chased em' all over the city lending moral support and logistical support in the form of Gatorade, Power Bars, & bananas. My favorite part of the route was around mile 20. The race wove its way through the so called "Fashion District" of downtown LA. There's nothing fashionable about it. It's a freakin' ghetto, but I digress. Lynn finished in five hours thirty nine minutes
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As far as the markets today, the theme was Thornburg Mortgage. Last week it was AMBAC. There are so many potential triggers out there. No one can know what event, company, bankruptcy, etc. will set it off. The situation has now become obvious. We have had rate cuts, Central Bank infusions, fiscal promises, bank nationalizations and promises of more banking support. These have not worked. The economy is now accelerating to the downside. Warren Buffet today said " by any common sense definition, we are in a recession". The credit crunch is now biting the real economy with a vengeance. The catch 22 is that none of these traditional remedies will/can work.

We have gold at close to $1,000 per oz....The anti-dollar can never enter a Bankruptcy court. Gold will never require a capital infusion or "Fed loan" to remain solvent. Gold doesn't get heart palpitations while waiting for reaffirmation of a bogus AAA rating from Moodys, Standard & Poors, or Fitch. It can't have counter-party risk if you have it in hand. If you have no margin against it, you can't receive a margin call that have been ever so popular as of late. If you didn't know better, you'd think it should be a boring investment. It actually is. An oz. today, will still be the same ounce next year.