Six impossible things

This is a great post from John Mauldin on the impossibility of every nation becoming net exporters and reducing deficits at the same time.

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/05/six-impossible-things/

RIP RJD

The Last in Line

Stock market is broken

While I was at lunch today, the DOW took a thousand point plunge, then recovered about 600 points within about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, gold was up over 2.5%. The stock market mechanism is broken and fraudulent due to HFT trading, front running, and a host of other reasons.

Google finance was showing 30,110 shares of Accenture stock (ACN) traded at 1 penny, while it closed at 41.09. Any system where this is normal is not a place to put hard earned money, or pension fund money.

MASSIVE SYSTEMIC FRAUD.

California Unemployment Insurance Fund Balance

The following chart shows the California UI Fund balance and Month-over-Month changes since the recession began in December, 2007. The balance went negative at the end of 2008 and has had a growing negative balance since then.