Make it rain (or not)

Greece is not out of the dog house but looks like they are getting it together and coupled with better employment numbers, US markets soared.  Speaking of soaring, a real Linderella story.   I’ve caught it too.  Yeah, I’m Asian, but, in general seems like such a good dude.  You see,  thankfully (sarcastic emoticon here), my God-fearing mom has flooded my inbox with ‘Jeremy Lin on Faith’ youtubes.  UUGH- just when I finally cleared my inbox of all those Tebow prayer cards she forwarded.

Like Lin-mania, US Fed (FOMC) (led by Ben Bernanke) remains biggest name in town.   That’s because they tell you how the US government is going to spend their money.  So rest of the world tracks/studies/stalks them as frantically as I do a 50% off shopbop sale.  Thankfully, (like Jeremy Lin)  no disappointments yet. Their most recent game-winnning shot came in a Jan 25 comment.  Basically announcing ‘Chill - we’ll stay ‘loose’ and plan to keep pumping money into the economy til 2014’.   Another interpretation: Go spend-spend-spend  because saving will earn you ZERO-ZIP-NADA.  Some of you may have heard Ben Bernanke nicknamed Helicopter Ben.  No, he wasn't a pilot, but, think of him more a club-goer with a reputation to 'make it rain' when the party starts to slow.   Quite literally encouraging us to buy – Definitely a Starbucks frappuccino and manicures but more importantly property/stocks & yes, Diamonds too! 

Quickly let’s just run thru the other major big-shots. PBOC (People’s Bank of China); BOJ (Bank of Japan);  ECB (European Central Bank) and BoE (Bank of England).  And finally , think of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) as the Boy Scouts where delegates from everywhere come together. Funny - Dom Strauss-Kahn was in charge of these boy-scouts until he acted SKETCH.

Right now the major agenda at these meetings is bailing out Europe. They are still debating how to do this but generally boyscouts (from all countries) think we need to keep it raining.

However the Americans in the club are divided right now. Some want the FOMC to stop making it rain ASAP (complaining it’s on their tab) while others are arguing it’s only 9pm and insisting stay loose and make it rain more.   Watch this space – if the Krug stops and music fades – mood can change fast.