Asteroids, The Markets and PEACE

The good news from this week is that Asteroid 2009 DD45 did not hit planet earth! Now for the bad news. Really, where does one start? Citigroup? AIG? Fannie Mae announcing a $58 billion loss, which is more then all their profits since 1992? GE’s woes? The ridiculously bad unemployment numbers? The market plunging to new lows with the S & P down 7% for the week and 24% for the year? Sorry… the news is just all bad at the moment. All bad.

Bill Dudley the new NY FED Chief gave his first public address this week and I say “Welcome” to Bill in his new role. I had the pleasure of working with Bill at Goldman and I think very highly of him. Unfortunately he wasn’t exactly a perky puppy this week either saying that the “deleveraging process is still far from complete.” I know the FED is all out doing as much as they can to stimulate the economy but as we all know, we are in uncharted territory. Personally I have a lot of questions as it relates to ‘quantitative easing' as it seems that is all we are reading about these days. I wasn't particularly encouraged when I went to wikipedia and it described it as "creating money out of thin air." The UK engaged in aggressive QE this week resulting in a 53 bp rally in gilts. Read this piece in the FT for details. So can the US government just 'print' as much money as they want to? We know the downside of this, a plunging US dollar and inflation, but they are clearly not worrying about that at the moment. Eeeekkkk.... my brain hurts.

PEACE. Readers of my blog know that I had a PEACE party a while back and last week my daughter Allie decided she wanted to have one to celebrate her 9th birthday. In honor of trying to make the world a better place she asked that people spend only 1/2 the amount they would normally spend on a gift and give the rest in cash so she could donate it to her favorite cause - animal protection. Thanks to her extremely generous friends she is going to deliver a check for $150 to the Norwalk Animal Shelter. Now that is "doing what you can, with what you have, where you are." The Zehner Family is trying to start something here - have your own PEACE party to raise awareness and raise money for your fav cause. Once you do, please share the results. If you would like to donate too - Click here for PAWS Norwalk.