Bad Moons Rising?

A couple weeks ago, a friend of mine (from whom we'll probably be hearing more when the Phillies head to Minnesota this weekend) wrote that she was "done" with the war and all things Iraq. At the time, I told her that we didn't have that option, that these times required commitment and that we should even feel happy about living in a crucial period of American history.

But the truth is, I've been feeling pretty fatigued myself. During Watergate, the meme was that it wasn't the crime, it was the coverup. Regarding Abu Ghraib, it hasn't been the crime, or the coverup, but the collective national yawn in response to allegations that we have become everything we claim to despise that left me despairing.

That said, here's the government memo in which torture is more or less embraced as American policy in Iraq. Try to get mad. More to the point, try to get even.

Meanwhile, Kos reports that the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is going to bring suit on behalf of the Guantanamo detainees against the contractor firms that did the actual torturing. Again, don't expect much sympathy for the "evildoers" who were on the receiving end of the pain and humiliation. But under the RICO law, who knows what might come out in the trial.

And then there's this. I have no idea what it means, as my financial literacy never got past the junior high level. But the analysis holds that there's a "high" likelihood of market decline, and a "very high" chance of "substantial decline" in the next 12 weeks. And a statement like this one tends to jump out at you:

Let me just say from the outset that the Federal Reserve has confirmed our Stock Market Crash forecast by raising the Money Supply (M-3) by crisis proportions, up another 46.8 billion this past week. What awful calamity do they see? Something is up. This is unprecedented, unheard-of pre-catastrophe M-3 expansion. M-3 is up an amount that we've never seen before without a crisis - $155 billion over the past 4 weeks, a $2.0 trillion annualized pace, a 22.2 percent annualized rate of growth!!! There must be a crisis of historic proportions coming, and the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States is making sure that there is enough liquidity in place to protect our nation's fragile financial system. The amazing thing is, the Fed's actions mean they know what is about to happen. They are aware of a terrible, horrific imminent event. What could it be?

One can draw no other conclusion except that the Fed is acting irresponsibly in its managing the money supply, in fulfilling its duty to "maintain a stable currency." I reject the notion that the Fed is acting irresponsibly. No, something is up, bigger than we have ever seen in the history of the United States. Let me ramble. Perhaps they simply see the ominous technical landscape we have been warning about in recent issues, and are attempting to pull out all the stops to avert the predicted crash. The recent rally in just about everything is similar to 2003's market behavior when the Fed pumped massive amounts of liquidity into the system during the first half of the year. This time seems different. The amount of liquidity is too large. The Fed is deflating the value of the monetary base by a fifth! Why are they willing to do this? Wisdom says something bad is up--big time.