Hey Bill,

What camera are you using? Are you much into birding? If so, where do you do go to get good shots around Toronto, and if not, are you looking to learn?

Cheers...

Who cleans up all that bird poop?

Not at all. They appear to be close enough already.

Not close enough for my Remington 12 gauge and its politically-correct load of steel shot.

Back on topic, I certainly hope for a grinding downturn, Bill. I am 65% in cash and have my buys all mapped out once the S&P hits 1100 and Ma and Pa Kettle decide to cash in their mutual funds. Count me as at least one guy rooting for the bears.

Bill:

I can't match the geese. However….

My wife bought me this bird feeder which attaches outside my study window. About four feet from where I sit. One way glass. I can see them, they can't see me.

Trouble is, there is a cardinal who stops in, a male of course, and becomes enraged at his reflection. He ruffles his feathers and tramples his food to attack Redbird II, who oddly…. you think he'd figure this out…. looks just like him and matches every bellicose move.

They're pretty, the birds are, but they're not very smart, and I can outtrade them any day. That is, if I'm not too distracted from all that tapping on the glass.

Why S&P 1100?

Secular bear markets almost always have the indexes lose 50% of their worth.

Bill - I've also seen you say you think 20-30% is the worst you predict.

In your opinion, when does the Dow enter into a secular bear market and go thru the sort of pain it did in the 70's?

Another birder/gardener here. I combine the hobbies by growing sunflowers in part of the garden as natural finch feeders. The sunflowers reseed themselves every year and I just thin them out a bit and clear the areas where I plant my tomatoes and squash.

Days like this I'd rather be gardening anyway.

From Reuters:

Fed's Hoenig sees benign US trade gap resolution

MONTROSE, Colo., June 6 (Reuters) - Kansas City Federal Reserve chief Thomas Hoenig said on Tuesday the U.S. current account gap would eventually reverse itself but that the U.S. economy is big and strong enough for a benign resolution.

"I think the current account deficit running at 6 percent of GDP (gross domestic product) over a long period of time is probably not sustainable, if it's growing especially faster than nominal GDP for this economy, so it will need to correct," Hoenig said in answer to audience questions after a speech to a Kansas City Fed event.

"It is an imbalance. It will correct. And I think we are fortunate because of the size of our economy and its strength that we'll be able to do that in a systematic fashion and not in any kind of a crisis mode at all," added Hoenig, who is not a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee under this year's rotation.

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Is this another example of the spin machine? Does a recession count as crisis mode or is it in "systematic fashion"?

Fazeli, do you realize it was on June 2, 2005, a little over a year ago, that Richard Fisher, President of the Dallas Reserve Bank and a voting member of the Fed open market committee, said that we are in the "eight inning" of a money tightening cycle? How time flies! I think we have to take anything these people say with a grain of salt because I don't really think they have crystal balls.

Is it only me, or does this post & comments reflect recent market action.....tug of war between the gardener/birders on one side and the traders on the other. (bears vs bulls)? :)

And who can possibly complain, since Bill started both threads?