The past couple years have been somewhat mundane if you watch the stock markets since its been essentially a constant Fed induced melt up in stock prices.  Great for “nominal value” but rather boring to watch if you’re a trader of any type.
This week we have seen some good volatility return to the market, mostly in conjunction with the uncertainty in the Middle East.
Here are a few thoughts on what is going on and what you should be watching:

As far as I’m concerned, we have always had uncertainty in the …

It’s amazing how the world works.  I’ve been saying for years now that massive uncertainty is looming and that we’re in for some interesting world events.  The crazy thing is that it’s nearly impossible to imagine what exactly that will look like.  Nobody anticipated that Egyptian protests would be the possible spark, but indeed it was.
With Egypt toppled, protesters are moving on to other countries.  Libya is close to falling, and now the eyes of the world will turn to places like Saudi Arabia where an effective uprising would really …

If the unemployment situation in this country were a cyclical issue (which most people assume) than jobs would be being created left and right at this point.  We’d be well on our way back towards a more normal and acceptable unemployment level.  Unfortunately, this isn’t happening.  Despite an “improving economy” as we’re told.
Now I would still debate the level of improvement in the economy – because I think there are two economies.  One for big business and one for small business.  Big business that has access to cheap/free money and …

Egyptians are rioting because of food prices, and Kraft Foods today said that the previous price hikes have not been enough and that we should expect more this year.  Food inflation.  It is here.  But, Ben Bernanke says that inflation is nonexistent so who do you believe?  Ben’s words or Kraft’s actions?  Read more here.

I’ve been very busy with a number of different things and have somewhat neglected 20smoney.com – hopefully the busyness will pass and I’ll be able to get to a more normal schedule of posting.  In the meantime, I’m going to shift to a type of post where I discuss a number of things that I’ve been reading or thinking about.  Here goes…
There are amazing events happening in the world. Egypt is a major story of interest with the changes happening there.  I also read something incredible going on in the …

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Sign of the times.  The group coupon thing is a booming business as shown by the two main players in the field doing Super Bowl ads tonight.  I found it rather interesting.  Of course Google trying to buy Groupon for something like 6 billion a little while back was all the confirmation we needed that this new business is here to stay.  Anything to help us consume more and save the world economy!

The unemployment rate is one of the most worthless numbers that exists.  The “drop” in unemployment from 9.4% yesterday to 9% is a perfect example of how stupid this statistic is.  The fact that our government officials actually use the decrease in this number as something to brag about, it shows how stupid they think you and me are.  Unfortunately, most of us are stupid.
The cause for the decrease was nothing more than the fact that more and more people are falling out of the work force due to complete …