A Couple Ominous Signs

Of course, there are many.  But first I had to get this off my chest, after reading the report that Jon Corzine and his wife were at some party in Paris shortly before MF Global collapsed and they announced that they were looking for a country French chateau to purchase.  Perhaps the bankruptcy trustee, who's law firm counts JP Morgan - the primary non-customer creditor to the bankruptcy - should take a look at all cash flows that flowed from MF Global to Jon Corzine.  It's a given that will never happen.  But it occurred to me that one of the primary co-conspirators in this whole situation is CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler.  In my book he is a total failure as a Government regulator and enforcer of laws.  He is an employee of the public and should be fired.  As a human being he is a loser.  Quite frankly, in my book Gary Gensler's status as a human being is between whale shit and the ocean floor.  And I extend this to AG Eric Holder for not initiating an independent investigation into this whole mess and to Obama for not forcing Holder to do so and for not removing Gensler from his position.  I guess that in and of itself is a very ominous sign for our system and way of life.

As for an ominous economic sign - one which points toward even higher Government spending deficits and debt issuance - this was the headline on the front page of today's Denver Post:  Medicaid rolls in Colorado at "all-time historical high" in November.   This is not a good sign for the country as a whole because Denver has one of the stronger regional economies, lower unemployment rates and an economy that is not dependent on heavy manufacturing.   When something emerges as a demographic trend in Denver, it usually precedes the same trend countrywide:

We've had a mushrooming of clients," Sue Birch, director of the state Department of Health Care Policy and Financing...There are just so many people who have lost their jobs — even those in my family who had really good jobs," said Dolores Rodriguez, while waiting for assistance at Denver's Westside Family Health Center

Here's the article:  LINK 

The Government is going to have to either cut back on other big areas of spending to maintain funding of entitlement programs like Medicaid and the perpetualized jobless benefits or it's going to have to resolve to create even larger deficits and raise the soon to be reached debt ceiling limit even sooner than we pessimists expected.  Any way you look at it, it's an ominous sign and it creates even more fuel for the next the leg higher in the precious metals.

One other ominous sign I wanted to point out.  And this is a statistic that is generated by Mastercard, not by the Government and industry association Phd  data manipulators (hint: the ADP payroll number released today was total bullshit).   It turns out that gasoline consumption during the last week of 2011 sank to its lowest level on record - at least the records kept by Mastercard.  Here's the story as reported by zerohedge:  LINK  I can't think of a better economic health indicator than energy consumption - either electric power consumption or fuel sales.  Speaking of electric power consumption, that has taken a nose-dive this year as well.  You can see the graphs in this excellent commentary by Mark Lundeen:  LINK

I wanted to finish today by re-emphasizing a point that I've been trying to hammer home for quite some time.  I was discussing the markets with a friend, who commented that "all eyes are on Europe."  My response was, "yes, all eyes are being deflected by Europe when they should in reality be scrutinizing the the ongoing collapse being hidden by the Government's Orwellian fog in this country."  Got gold?