Brilliant ticker! MY only comment would be that RE is not the mother of all bubbles, although it certainly has appeared that way at times. The bond market is the mother of all bubbles and the FCB's the ultimate bagholders. Now that the bond market is starting to crack, its just a matter of time until a bond crash and panic, followed by GD2. All is progressing exactly as in the GD1 script.

Can you imagine what interest rates would be right now if not for the "kindness of strangers?"

I don't have a problem with Ron Paul seeking the earmarks, and I don't consider it as extraordinarily hypocritical.

His vote is to limit the size of the spending. Once the spending is inevitable, his earmark maneuvering is about ensuring his district benefits from the spending that is unavoidable and will happen anyway.

If he doesn't seek the earmarks, the money will go into a general agency budget, and it is debatable whether the money would be spent on his district.

Consider a Congressman who did not attempt to have tax money returned to his constituency when he had the chance to. Most people would consider that Congressman to be derelict in his duty.

Remember, any one Congressman's actions in the earmark process is about allocating the spending of funds, and not about limiting the spending itself. By the time earmarks come into play, the spending is a foregone conclusion, and it's then a matter of, "Now that we have procured, how do we spend?"

Quote:

Despite such questions and public outrage over high-profile earmarking abuses, the system that now-jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff once called "the favor factory" is still running full tilt. Congress disclosed 11,234 earmarks totaling $14.8 billion in bills covering government spending this year, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based watchdog group. The White House puts the total at $18 billion, including the amounts that lawmakers added to what President Bush sought for specific projects.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25007385/

Yeah, ok. Whatever.