Over at CBS they had a piece reporting that the price of gold has had a big drop. It is now selling for just over $1,500/ounce while it was over $1,600 during the Yukon Quest and Iditarod [several of the prizes involve ounces of gold].

The piece also talks about the drop in the price of oil, and the record highs of the stock market, while the yield on 10-year T-bills is down to 1.72%.

Gold usually drops when the economy is expected to improve, and the stock market matches that sentiment, but oil goes down when demand is expected to drop because of weak economic conditions.

The only thing that makes any real sense is the T-bills, which is most probably a result of people fleeing the Euro after the ‘Cyprus solution’ went into effect. T-bills would seem to be one of the few things that is selling well. If we had people in charge who knew what they were doing, we would be selling more T-bills, not destroying our economy to reduce the number that are available.

—————-

All Things Considered had a segment on data collection and mining today. They included a quote attributed to Albert Einstein: “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” This incessant collection of data is pointless.

It was pointed out that the data doesn’t really provide any context, and search algorithms can’t determine them from the raw data. Google gets on my nerves when I decide to price something, mostly for other people because I can create better search terms to find what they are looking for, than they can. Every site that uses ads tied to the Google system will be filled to overflowing with banners and boxes for whatever I searched for. Amazon gets really annoying after I get something for my Mother. There is no way of really getting the point across that I really don’t want to buy any more CDs from artists that my Mother likes. I really miss the local record store where I could get this stuff with cash and not be pestered to buy more of it.

They interviewed an individual praising the utility of electronic medical records. Nice concept that is totally worthless because, as I was reminded on Friday, the bloody ‘health care professionals’ don’t bother to read it.

While I was out and about trying to deal with the US ‘health care system’ without murdering anyone [it wouldn’t, of course, be murder if I remember to shoot them, because this is Florida :evil:] and then installing a new gas stove, other people were paying attention to the world.

Lambert at Corrente noticed that in addition to cutting Social Security benefits, Zero’s new budget also creates automatic IRAs for people who aren’t currently enrolled in one of the existing con games that Congress set up. Apparently, if you don’t check the appropriate box and/or submit the proper form, the government is going to start deducing money from your pay check and giving it to a manager to ‘invest’ for you. While past performance doesn’t predict future returns, given that the professional financial sector managed to smash the global economy about four years ago, why would any sane person trust them? They will earn management fees from these accounts whether the accounts grow or decline, so why would they care?

Now I have Nancy Pelosi joining Debbie Wasserman Schultz trying to convince me that the Republicans are a threat. Ladies, the biggest threat I face is the current President. If you want to be taken seriously, you had better start publicly complaining about what the White House is doing. If you want to take back the House in 2014, you had better part company with the ideas contained in the Obama Budget.