What’s new? Nothing much…Markets still moving up…

For whatever reason, the French newspaper, Liberation, chose to recall a grim event last week. On February 4, 1912 Franz Reichelt, also known as the ‘flying tailor,’ put on his contraption – a homemade outfit designed to work like a parachute – went up to the first observation level of the Eiffel Tower, hesitated…then stepped over the rail and jumped.

I was reading Michael J. Panzner’s book When Giants Fall, a scary-yet-scholarly look at how the hell we got into this mess, and I was impressed with how the title When Giants Fall so perfectly describes America (the heretofore ravenous, gluttonous engine of global economics based on the fraud of an expanding fiat currency) falling on its fat, stupid face.

Comes word this morning that the China State Construction Engineering company has gone public. It’s the biggest public offering – at $7.3 billion – in more than a year. It’s also China’s biggest homebuilder. And as soon as the shares hit the market yesterday they soared… closing 56% higher than the IPO price. At that price, it trades at about 40 times forecast 2009 earnings.

The U.S. Postal Service is on track for a record $7 billion deficit this year. That’s more than double last year’s loss.

The jobless rate hit a 26-year high of 9.5% last month – and many economists are betting for the jobless rate to hit 10%.

I wouldn’t read a lot into the action in the gold market on Friday. It was just another day off the calendar…as Ted Butler would say. The only comment I would make is that the action in the gold price feels more like a top than a bottom.

Gold added about five bucks to its price from the time that trading began in the Far East Thursday…and the London a.m. gold fix. Then from there, it gave back seven dollars going into the p.m. gold fix…and after that, it gained over eight dollars until half past lunchtime in New York. Then a really serious seller showed up taking nine bucks off the price between then and the close of electronic trading in New York. It was pretty choppy trading all around…and it was obvious that every rally ran into serious resistance. The same could be said for silver.

The depression deepens. “These are not layoffs… they’re permanent job losses,” said Barry Rithotlz this morning. “These people are not going back to work anytime soon.”

It was a nothing kind of day yesterday. Both gold and silver got sold off at bit in the Hong Kong market late in their afternoon. This lasted until shortly after London opened. Then the prices just sat there until shortly before the London p.m. gold fix, when a N.Y. rally of sorts commenced in both, with neither metal going too far. Ted Butler pointed out to me that neither silver or gold got above their Monday highs…and that was probably the intent.