Economics Update

Oil hits another record, breaking $106/bbl, and the Dollar falls again another record against the Euro, and a 3 year low against the Yen.

As I've noted before, these are tied together. The expectation of a falling dollar pushes up the dollar denominated cost of oil to maintain the same global purchasing power.

Closer to home, the US lost 63,000 Jobs in February, which was an unexpected 5 year high.

Not surprisingly, this is accompanied by consumer confidence at a six year low.

Luckily for us, the Fed is riding to the rescue, and printing up more money to give to the jerks who screwed this up in the first place. The March money sales have been increased from $60 billion to $100 billion.

Carlyle Capital is being to forced to liquidate securities, one would assume well below purchase price, to meet its margin calls.

That's what 32:1 leverage gets you.

The lenders are getting skittish, and they are starting to ask for some or all of their money back from hedge funds and other speculative entities.

And why shouldn't they as the housing crash is chewing up their balance sheets like a great white shark.

So we have money fleeing to the safe haven of US treasuries, because they are expecting another shoe to drop, like, for example, the possibility that, Fitch Ratings might downgrade $160 billion in Alt-A mortgage backed securities, which is rumored to be imminent.