Random Friday Afternoon Observations....

Gold and silver were unusually strong the past two days relative to the S&P 500 and the dollar.  Silver managed to hold two attempts to take it below $18.  Today it hit a low early this morning of 18.05 (December contract) but closed access trading at $18.51.  For most of yesterday and today, spot silver was trading in 2-4 cent backwardation (spot higher than the front month futures price), indicating an extremely high degree of demand for physical silver relative to its immediate supply.  I actually missed the closing price of gold on the Comex, but if you include the access market close, gold closed at an all-time record high.  Next week should be interesting, to say the least....

Some Congressional Democrats, led by Peter DeFazio of Oregon, are starting to jump on the "get rid of Geithner" bandwagon on Wednesday DeFazio called for Geithner's resignation on MSNBC.   Yesterday during Geithner's blow-smoke-up-our-ass session in front of the Joint Economic Committee, Congressman Kevin Brady point blank asked Geithner to resign:  "Mr. Secretary, you are the point person on the economy, and the buck, in effect, stops with you," Brady said. "For the sake of our jobs, will you step down from your post?"   Congressman Michael Burgess followed up with:  "I don't think you should be fired. I thought you never should have been hired."

The real issues with Geithner for me are the fact that he was found guilty of cheating overtly and for multiple years on his taxes and Obama should have withdrawn his nomination of Geithner as soon as these facts were revealed.  Rep. Burgess is right - Geithner should have never been appointed and confirmed.  But worse, it has now come to light that Geithner essentially transferred 10's of billions from the Taxpayers to the large investment banks which were derivative counter-parties with AIG when Geithner was head of the NY Fed.  Not only should Obama fire Geithner immediately on this basis, he should appoint an independent investigator to investigate every aspect of Geithner's involvement in this grand theft of Taxpayer money.   Geithner is a criminal for dodging taxes and he is likely an even bigger criminal for his role in the AIG/Goldman Sachs et al bailout.

I was going to pontificate about the possible criminal behavior of Fed Head, Banana Ben Bernanke, but I don't have the energy right now.  So on that note I'll end with, who gives a shit that Oprah is ending her talk show?