In other news, traders are going long for duct tape and shotguns

Before I react to this, I'd like to know who these investors are. I suspect that they are not investors in developed countries, but wealthy folks in underdeveloped countries who store their financial assets in places other than their own countries.

On the other hand, US silver eagles are in short supply around the country and are being purchased for somewhere around $5 above spot.

Klug: if you clicked through to the FT story, you'd have seen this: "Last week, the US mint suspended the sale of its American Buffalo coin after it ran out of stocks."

This is not just about wealthy individuals in developing countries.

For those wondering, the sky does still appear to be in place, and the only way to unfreeze the credit markets is to kill the bailout for good so people who are holding those mortgage backed securities who won't accept $.30/$1.00 right now will not keep holding them hoping Paulson will pay $0.50/$1.00 for them next week.

No one wants to be the patsy who sells too early and that's causing the problem. Kill the bailout. Kill it good and dead, and the problems will begin to work themselves out. As long as the bailout looks like a possibility, the lockdown will remain.

[But the market, the market -ed]

Two things, even bear markets have grizzly days AND
Market, we don't need no steenkin' market. The 3 month futures contracts for the Mongolian Tögrög, that's what you wanna watch!