Interesting week

   A bit over 6 weeks ago, I posted an article I titled "Smells like history". Well, none of the things I mentioned gave rise to anything interesting. The Irish caved, the French bank run campaign achieved nothing, and no one cares that corporations serving as primary exchange nodes in the world economy are acting as stooges for the US Administration. (Well, no one but Iceland)
     But, as it so often is, Other interesting things happened. Very interesting things. 

     While these last few weeks have been a bit of a surprise to mainstreamers, they would appear to have been even more disappointing to conspiracy theorists. 

      Not only is JPM still alive, but silver has been unable to make a sustained breach of $31/oz. It's just sitting there, sputtering. This does not look to me like a market experiencing any kind of squeeze. In fact, all the leverage induced pain seems to be on the other end of that trade. 'Manipulation!' is the offered excuse, but it's getting old. 
     And gold! Geez, what a bloodbath! POMO's running every day, and gold goes Down !? What kind of world are we living in? 
    Further, we have been breathlessly assured by the likes of Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge that any breach of $91/barrel by oil would lead to a prompt rise to over $100. Well, the breach came . . . and went. Oil languishes in its prior range. 
   They claim that the high sugar prices credited for sparking the revolution in Tunisia are the result of monetary inflation. But they would appear identical to similar world-wide food pice discomfort on 2008, which happened when US money supply was slowing. 

    I think the above cases outline a problem in the field of popular economic discourse, one shared by popular political discourse: No sensible opposition. In politics, it seems we must either choose between unrepentant socialists, and ignorant creationists, or else be marginalized as an irrelevant minority. And now, in economics, it seems we must chose between the blatantly "for hire" drivel of CNBC, or wild-eyed conspiracy theory. The few diligent investigators, who painstakingly pick apart balance sheets, and make predictions that come true (and here I will offer Reggie Middleton as my favorite example), seem to be ignored, despite a remarkably solid track record. 
     I call upon people, when presented by unsensible options, to choose "none of the above". Create a third way for yourself. Heed Ron Paul, and Reggie Middleton, and anyone else who tells it like it is, and gets it right. Because the default "choices" being carefully created for you are Not going to cut it!