Mr. Epley, who shares a common interest in the economy as I do, where discussing the new year in relation to car sales and potential for growth. Of course, if you read and follow most of the recent economic reports, of which there have been few of positive note, the prospects for next year seem to bleak. Unemployment continues to climb, food prices continue to climb, while oil prices have continued their gradual descent.

What does it all mean? Well, to Ray and I, a unique event seems to be in the set-up stages….that is to say that higher end products seems to be in a period of deflation, and daily essentials, such as food..etc, seem to be continuing to inflate. I have looked through a large amount of literature for previous documentation on this condition and have found little in the way of explanation. Of course, this is in keeping with my overall view that economics is ruled by chaos theory and that each individual economic event is unique unto itself. Which, I want to point out, is a distinct departure from the random theories, as there is nothing random about what has happened in the markets for the last several months.

Today’s trading, like the trading in recent weeks, was a bit slow until the end of the day when the Dow miraculously rose 100 points…seemingly out of the blue. As Ray is an amateur economic enthusiast, this raised his eyebrows some. And it should…how does the market stage these last minute rally’s with such frequency. Some say it was short covering, which might be plausible…but there had to have been a tremendous amount of shorts to raise the market 100 points. The whole thing has Ray shaking his head. Is there manipulation going on here? It’s anyones guess.

The day ended down nearly 60 points…

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