I thought you might be interested in this take on the plight of the U.S. and what needs to be done in our country by Bill Gross - probably the U.S.'s best known and respected bond expert. What struck me is that he talks implicitly about the weakness of our governmental leadership (another capitalist who "gets it") and the need for big changes on the part of the citizens.

The main points of his commentary are about inflation where he shows that U.S. inflation has been grossly underestimated for years compared to the rest of the world (surprise!). But importantly, it is pretty clear that Gross thinks that we need new, and very strong leadership (read Democratic) to inspire and November is not soon enough. Unless we have this leadership, and unless the citizenry starts to awaken from its decade long sleep in the dreamlands of TV, credit cards, immediate gratification, and lightweight politics, e.g., candidates pastors, we may be toast. I think this is pretty heavy stuff coming out of mainstream Wall Street. (Of course our Kossack experts have been on this case for a long time now!)    

In case we are toast and McCain gets elected, Gross has some investment advice for at least a slice of your investments that I think has a lot of merit.  Check it out below the fold.

The Seattle Times did a brilliant job of trying to figure out the earmark scam that Congress runs. Led by investigative reporter David Heath, the Times team sifted through all the hidden data on earmarks - much of which is written in code in conference reports. Congress actually goes considerably out of its way to hide this information from the public. I looked at the Times database, and found the following for the approved 2007 defense bill.    

Clinton Defense Earmarks:         $110,520,000
-Received from defense contractors   $378,660

Obama Defense Earmarks:             $3,300,000
-Received from defense contractors    $97,250  

More below

We are told by Mark Penn and the MSM that the super delegates will be the ones who decide the Democratic nominee. Bloomberg news has come out with an interesting breakdown of super delegates that gives a pretty strong indication about where these folks are heading in June. In short, it's the Elected Super Delegates that are most meaningful because they are the ones who will face the voters in November. They are the ones who sense the trends and the sentiment of the electorate. Guess who is making hay among the elected superdelegates?

Barack Obama has pulled almost even with Hillary Clinton in endorsements from top elected officials and has cut into her lead among the other superdelegates she's relying on to win the Democratic presidential nomination.

More below.
 

I just saw Obama's town hall meeting in Parma Heights, Ohio. He was quite spectacular as usual. But as he dived into the crowds after the interchange, I started to notice how carefully the Secret Service is protecting him. They had two agents on either side, and one at his back. Plus, there were several going along in the crowd in the midst of the folks he was greeting and chatting with. The more I watched, the more impressed I was that our government will spare no effort to protect any candidate who may have a chance to be President of our country. Why am I so gratified by what I just saw?

The news is already front page in the LATimes on-line edition here /http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/was...

There are some details as follow below the fold that will make you get goose bumps if you are an Obama supporter.

No doubt, we are all impressed by the voter turnout for the primaries so far. Time Magazine has a nice piece on the comparative results so far. Time  The South Carolina results add to the growing sense that anger, hatred, and resentment towards Bushco, his Republican lackeys in Congress and wingnut Talk Radio are turning out Democrats, Independents and disaffected Republicans by the droves. Polls aside, the numbers that are coming in from South Carolina make me think that the Democrats will sweep to power in November by margins greater than we can imagine now.    

Buried in today's Washington Post is the following on page 13.

Iranian Boats May Not Have Made Radio Threat, Pentagon Says.

The Iranian Government came out with their version of the incident yesterday showing that the contacts were normal for the area, and that there were no threatening moves made by the Iranian boats. The Post article then says the following blockbuster:

The Pentagon says it does not dispute anything in the [Iranian] video.

Say what?????  We have Bush threatening war with Iran, and Huckabee threatening to send Iran to the gates of hell over some dubious report from the Pentagon, and our useless Big Media swallowed it hook, line and sinker. Where were the questions, probing, follow-up by the press and the news organizations? If we do go to war again, the Big Media will be complicit just as they were in Iraq.