The current governmental crisis in the USA will eventually peter out.....I think we all know a deal on raising the debt ceiling will be done, and this will have the psychological effect of calming the global markets & letting everyone know that the equities party can continue, that the US dollar is still 'strong', that the US will pay it's bills. This is all just an illusion. A run-away stock market that is the only game in town as far as getting a return on money - because interest rates are being artificially suppressed - is now divorced from the under-lying ecomony of the US. The US underlying US economy is a basket case and just hanging on...whatever official figures come out of the USA are about as accurate as the figures out of China. True unemployment - counting the 'long-term discouraged' et al - is around 23 - 25% , with growth stagnant.....everything is being propped up by record low interest rates & a huge stock market bubble. This is a record bubble that the Fed have pumped-up and now cannot burst. Put simply, the Fed won't / can't allow interest rates to rise or the equities bubble to burst (and the two go hand and hand), so they can't taper.....they 'talked about' tapering and look what happened. They have to keep 'printing' $85 billion per month....

......which makes the problem worse - the bubble gets blown up even higher, which makes the illusory ecomonic strength - all based on a stock market charge to the stratosphere - even more fragile, which makes stimulus more necessary......this is a catch 22 situation, a vicious cycle. The USA ecomony - stock market false economy - is in a zombified gorge, it is an animated frankenstein on crack-cocaine. Meanwhile the real economy is either stagnant or atrophying. The gold market has been killed / died for 3 entirely logical reasons: 1/ Why keep your funds in gold when you can join the gorging of the equities party? 2/ The US dollar must kill off alternatives to sustain it's gravity defying high-wire act 3/ To provide buying opportunities at the right time for the 'big boys' - who will need 'insurance policies for when the equities bubble bursts.

When will this house of cards fall over? I've seen Bernacke's body language at the press conference after the last Fed meeting....and I was appalled at what I saw. He looks like a broken man.....now wonder he is trying to get out of the Fed. He's like the Enron boys trying to scarper just before the whole thing collapsed.

What I can't understand is why there isn't more panic about the impending disaster. I guess it's the way the world works: we only concentrate on what's right in front of us, and try to ignore what's down the track. Should we all just go back to sleep and ignore the fact that the writing is on the wall???? You cannot print your way out of this; you cannot double your money supply within 5 years - the Fed doesn't even believe this will work, this is all being done to sustain the party for as long as possible because there are now no alternatives.