A Crooked world

I have not posted much since I stopped out of all long positions a week or so ago.  Lesson ONE  is always be willing to take a loss and I am glad I did.  I took the view that with a presidential election coming up we would see inflation accelerate.  MF Global has been the tip of the iceberg in the other direction in that it has undermined investor confidence in all things Wall Street.  People just do not trust the banks, the government, the exchanges and paper of any type ( even stocks you own and have paid for are not yours if a broker is holding the certificates).  So the public are packing up their bags and going home.  If there was one thing that was supposed to be sacred it was that if you bought and paid for something it belonged to you - now we see things are different http://www.businessinsider.com/james-koutoulas-jp-morgans-involvement-in-mf-global-is-suspicious-2011-12 and the natural reaction is to get out of Dodge as fast as possible - what we are currently seeing is people re-assessing their investment strategies and that takes time and this may be what is holding gold and silver down as much as anything.  At some point gold and silver are a buy but only as physical metals and only away from the banking centers - it is possible that mining stocks will be a way to go but for now we have governments "juicing' up the value of worthless paper and the public cashing in what chips they have and we may well see a crash in everything.