Equity futures are lower this morning, with the dollar and bonds higher, oil lower, gold & silver lower, and mixed food commodities. Basically this is the opposite of yesterday.
Earnings season kicks off today with Alcoa reporting after today’s close.
The only significant data today comes from the NFIB Small Business Optimism Index which rose slightly from 88.1 to 88.9. Here’s Econoday:
Highlights
Pessimism eased slightly among small businesses in September with the National Federation of Independent Business index edging 0.8 points higher to a still weak 88.9. Improvement is centered in employment and business investment. Showing no improvement are sales, the outlook for the economy and the assessment of conditions in the credit market. Borrowing demand also remains weak with 92 percent saying they are not interested in borrowing.
This was the first rise in the past seven months, however, the people who prepare this report tell it like it is in seeing very little real improvement, realizing that their readings are still extremely depressed. Always a good read, here’s the entire report, their summary gives a good flavor for what’s happening in the small business world – keep in mind the disconnect here, where large corporations who are receiving trillions in bailouts and are allowed to play shell games to hide bad “assets,” and are allowed to use false accounting are thus spinning that conditions for them are better than what you hear from small businesses:
NFIB Small Business Trends October
Yesterday Bill Still announced that he is running for President on the Libertarian ticket:
Presidential Press Release-10 11 2011
I talked to Bill about his decision to run, he thinks he has a good chance of getting on the Libertarian’s national ticket, and is already making progress towards that nomination. I wish him the very best of luck and he knows that he has my full support with his mission to get the word out about the importance of WHO controls the production of money!
Bill mentioned that he agrees with the majority of the Libertarian platform, so yesterday I spent some time researching the Libertarian Party and was surprised to learn that indeed I also agreed with much of their common sense positions. In fact, when I took their political leanings test, indeed I tested a little left leaning Libertarian – this was an interesting test, I particularly like the categories in it and the definitions they present for each category. Check out the test and then take a look at their platform, you might be surprised - Libertarian Party.
The Libertarian Party is the third largest party in the United States, claiming to have more than 225,000 registered members.
I’ll be talking more about Bill’s run in the future – he’s going to need our support and I hope that everyone will help support his mission, you can start by getting the word out that he’s now in the race.
Below is a paper written by Martin Armstrong, quickly covering his thoughts on the Occupy Wall Street protests and gold. I’m posting this paper as he is spot on regarding the use of gold as money or behind money – his take is the same as both Bill Still and I on the subject:
Armstrong on Gold