SAR #12332

Language is God's gift to liars.

The Sequel: The people who made all the fuss about Mubarak last spring are back in Tahrir Square, trying to get President Mursi's attention.

Flexibility: Republicans like some tax cuts (for the rich) but not all (payroll taxes). But if keeping the payroll tax cuts will help cause budget problems for Obama, then they'll be for them. For a while.

Mother Will Kiss It & Make It Better: It seems unlikely that we, the current crop of Homo sapiens, will stop burning fossil fuels and having babies, so in the not too distant future the CO2 overload will require Mother Nature, as she has many times before, to cycle the planet into a new equilibrium. One that does not include us.

Ms. Scrooge:Ms. Lagarde says that no IMF funds will be 'disbursed' (to Greece, presumably) until the Eurozone “fulfills its commitments' and the private sector accepts haircuts on its Greek bonds.

Object Lesson: Finland, which does not follow a test-driven centralized educational model and does not test at all during the first six years of school, is ranked first in the world in terms of its education system. Guess whose child they're leaving behind.

Chicken/Egg: Global warming has made it possible for a large tanker to cross the Arctic from Norway to Japan, delivering a load of LNG, which will, when burned, cause even more global warming.

Tell Me A Story: CME Group says that 'force majeure' is preventing it from loading gold bullion, platinum bullion or palladium bullion at one of its depositories. 'Force majeure' frees parties from liability due to an event outside of their control.

Social Experiment: For centuries, Europeans (and Russia and India and lately a few US states) have provided 'foundling wheels' or their equivalent, where mothers who could not care for their newborn could anonymously leave the infant, assured it would be cared for. Now the UN has decided that the practice is evil, depriving the child of the presumed right to know its parents. Or to be abandoned in a dumpster.

Extra Credit: What does the fact that all of the most common investment strategies do not work say about the whole idea of 'investing'?

Echo: As we mentioned yesterday, the 'new' Greek deal "solves almost nothing" and isn't really a deal. It is a transfer of wealth from private investors in Greek bonds to the central banks of various European Countries while driving Greece further in debt.

Factoid: “Seniors on Medicare and Social Security did not cause the Great Recession, Wall Street did.”

Always The Bad News, Always: Consumer confidence is now at its highest since February 2008. Unsettling, at best.

As Advertised: Climate scientists, trying to scare the women and children, have repeatedly warned that the CO2 we're dumping into the atmosphere will leach into the oceans, making them acid enough to dissolve the shells of sea creatures. Turns out they weren't kidding. Just ask the 'sea butterfly' snail, which provides absolute evidence that increasing acidification of the ocean is (a) happening and (b) deadly. Since the beginning of the industrial era, our oceans have become 30 percent more acidic, reaching a level of acidity not seen in over 50 million years.

Same Donkey, Another Tail: The IEA's Fatih Birol now says that by 2035 the US will be importing only 3.4 million barrels of petroleum a day. If there's that much available.

The Parting Shot:

Rain, fog, espresso.