Gold Standard

I got a pretty good lesson today. I have always overestimated Gold production, even though I understood the lack of liquidity. Mike and Matt reminded me that the Gold standard is very different from Fiat money. Well, of course, what am I thinking? Too much manga. They can have quite a lot of Gold in them. Wait, that's fantasy, not real life. But it does remind me that alchemy was once thought to be science, for the same reason of increasing money supply...

Then again, my shorts got killed again, and Goldman reported FABULOUS earnings. Guess what, from what I read, they missed, on a 4 month basis rather than just Q1. So happens that their rollover from an investment bank to a regular bank will phase out December 2008, which they wrote a huge loss down, so Q1 plus December is $1.24 ($3.39-$2.15), which is way below $1.60. Even if we compare Q1 to Q1, using the same months as comparison, it points to a sharp decline over last year's Q1 and at best a Quarter-(2)-To-Date flat YOY performance.

WOW! From cook the books to cook the calendar. I wonder whether they will do the same to skip some other months? If only the real cooks are THAT creative. I haven't got the whole story yet, but I hope the tide will start turning for me. And someone...please dump these frauds in jail!

On a side note, AIG is saying that the outcry will hurt their business and damage the chances they pay back to the people. On the sympathetic note, I agree and I must say that witchhunts typically crucify the ones that are less guilty. On the other, perhaps they should open up all their books and DOJ can start hunting the REAL culprits, like former boards, CEOs, CFOs and other coo COOs. You can't blame others if you are unwilling to blow the whistle on the wolves, right?