Tuesday After Lunch Money Memo - Bears Had Thanksgiving, Bulls Have Christmas

The media don't have nearly enough Paris/Brittany/Lindsay news to distract us right now from our "problematic markets."

Big media usually only cover things that encourage shopping 24/7, unless the news is absolutely in front of their faces.

Lately, it's like the major networks just discovered people are interested in what www.321gold.com has been selling the past 9 years.  Where were these astute journos when the bubble was bubbling out of control?
Well, Ok.  I guess this too will run its course.  The current fusillade of financial negatives will abate.  Geraldo and the Fifis will soon move on to a kidnapping somewhere.

So, take 5 deep breaths and enjoy the winter season.  The weather outside is frightful, but it's somehow beautiful.  Oftentimes, it draws people closer together.

For those of you still indoors, Peter Lynch was quoted in Money Magazine in September, 2007 as saying, "The real key to making money in stocks is not to get scared out of them."

Sir James Goldsmith said, "If you see a bandwagon, it's too late." Meaning, if you own commodity issues, it's probably too late to sell.  The formerly brilliant hedgies written up in the Society pages of the NY Times indeed mistook the bull market in commodities for brainpower.  Many of them have thrown so many good issues over the side, I'm amazed they have anything in the tank left.  They've sunk so far below their "high water mark," (only above which are they allowed to take their much appreciated 20% of profits) that more than a few will just swaggeringly abandon their investors, close up shop and start over with next year's important sounding name and next season's investment hotties.

And for what it's worth dept., my conclusions from this anus horribilis (sic) so far:
#1.  My cats sleep more in the winter.  I think they've got something there.
#2.  It may take until the spring of 2010 to finally flatten the last of the real estate holdouts, but then the banks will stabilize.  And there will have been enough money manure spread around, that every financial guy in both hemispheres will realize that the problem du jour is Bubba Inflation Hotep.
#3.  Until then, homeowners, small business guys and the lonely self-employed will experience further toasting.  On the upside, there will be additional news about Paris/ Brittany/ Lindsay.
#4.  In some spring or another, bulls will return…;the weather will bring rain and flowers…;and commodity prices will stiffen.
#5.  Brazil, Russia, India and China have NOT fallen off the earth.  Those and other substantial countries won't stop trying to grow their economies.  They will spend much of their "stimulus" packages on infrastructure.   And they can't do that building without oil, copper, lead, zinc, steel, iron, and especially oil.
#6.  Once the world notices that life has continued upon this planet, we'll have a mite of inflation peeking about from the detritus of deflation pronouncements.
#7.  And when the folks on Main Street notice that the living room is no longer on fire, but that they survived another burning forest of bank stupidity, and the economasticians actually measure the increase in money in circulation, and citizens notice the increase in prices everywhere, mighty gold and silver will again call to the IQ-laden.
So don't throw your monetary metal anchors overboard just yet.
Until then, remember to breathe…

My gold book  Financial Foghorn's Guide to Gold is almost out there.  Jim Turk said nice things about it at Kitco's Commentator section www.kitco.com.
We are on our way to the finish line of book publishing, and will become a bookstore impulse purchase.  It will "soon" be findable in a 7" by 10" trade paperback format at www.financialfoghorn.com and in actual stores.
For this and other things, I am grateful, and am hoping you too had a nice Thanksgiving.