The Solution: Turn on the Printing Presses!

The financial markets are still volatile and people are still uncertain at best, or fearful at worst, for the future. Stratfor.com has a bit of commentary about the governments of America's and Europe's various attempts at solving the financial mess.

"Yet the Europeans and the Americans both had to intervene in some way, and now they face exactly the same problem: having decided to make the pig fly, there remains the small matter of how to build a flying pig. The problem is administrative. It is all very well to say that the government will buy paper or stock in companies, or that it will guarantee loans between banks. The problem is that no institutions exist to do this. There are no offices filled with officials empowered to do any of these things, no rules on how these things are to be done, no bank accounts on which to draw — not even a decision on who has to sign the checks. The faster they try to set up these institutions, the more inefficient, error-prone and even corrupt they will turn out to be. We can assure you that some bright lads are already thinking dreamily of ways to scam the system, and the faster it is set up, the fewer controls there will be."

Now that the governments have decided to force the banks to take money in exchange for preferred stock positions, the Dow industrial average yesterday flew up over 900 points (apparently pigs can fly!).

We will be monitoring developments closely, as always.