This week and the next are some what busy.  Normally I have the weekend, or at least one day over the weekend to catch up on my reading and write a blog.  This weekend I have been working both Saturday and Sunday at the “day job”.

However others have picked up on Bernake’s comments about not monetizing debt.  The general tone is that politicians will not have the backbone to make the tough decisions which will in the end leave only monetizing debt as the way out of the mire.

Already the US government is in the position that every two months, the fed needs to borrow nearly the equivalent of the previous entire year’s record-breaking deficit. This is clearly unstainable.  Already the Chinese are looking for alternatives to holding US dollars.

Treasury Secretary Geitner is on a mission to China to shore up the US dollar and to try and convince the Chinese that their US dollar holdings are safe.  As part of this trip he gave a talk to students at the University of Beijing, saying how the US was going to reduce the deficit of 12% of GDP to 3% GDP. The students did not believe him, they laughed at him.

For all of that the market still made modest gains for the week.  There was rejoicing that initial unemployed and non farm payrolls came in less than expected, though initial unemployed has still to drop below 600,000 for a week.  Non farm payrolls will be revised over the next few months.  They add in “births and deaths” of new businesses.  Being spring they estimate there are 1000′s of new business starting up, all employing people that have not shown up in the figures yet. 

Another article that caught my eye was that “Medical bills play a role in 62% of bankruptcies”.  Wow!! A very good reason to keep away from doctors and look after yourself.

Now it is my bedtime as I have a 5:30am start which means I have to get out of bed by 4:15am.