Now the days are not only longer but finally starting to warm, what happened in the financial world this week? Well, on Monday Mervyn King stepped up to the plate and offered a deal for UK banks. They could swap assets of unknown worth mortgage-backed securities for those of known worth government bonds .

Just like the Bank of England, the U.S. Fed seems to have Britney-sized ‘issues’ with its core stock in trade, money itself.

The Cartel showed up on Globex trading shortly after London opened for business. Someone was offering physical in size and they were successful in driving down the gold price below $900 briefly before it recovered somewhat to slightly over $900. Silver had the same chart pattern.

If it’s not an emerging market – keep your money in the bank… unless of course that bank happens to be in America.

Inflation pressures should abate with slowing growth unless there’s a supply shock.

A whole lot of flation goin’ on…it should be onwards and upwards from here on out. What will happen when we see a real bottom…the new economies start to pull away from the old ones. When the working man was king…and more!

Traders have a saying. “It’s not the news — it’s the reaction to the news.” The idea is to pay attention to what’s happening behind the scenes. If the news is good and the market goes down, that points to hidden weakness. But if the news is bad and the market goes up, that points to hidden strength.

I’ve mentioned more than a few times here that unemployment is a lagging indicator. What that means is, that things get bad in the economy, and then the jobless figures start to rise, not the other way about.

Big Gordon Brown ‘had a word’ with the chiefs of Britain’s biggest banks yesterday. “Pass on the Bank of England interest rate cut, boys!” I imagine he menaced. Today we’re presented with clear evidence of Brown’s skills as a persuader.

A popular radio show from the 1940’s, Can You Top This?, was one of my Mom’s favorites when she was a kid. In the program, comedians swapped jokes while a “laugh-o-meter” gauged the audience response to see who was the funniest. This was the pre-TV version of America’s Funniest Home Videos, a show that my kids just can’t get enough of today.