There was some important as well as aggravating housing news this week.  It is difficult to see how the US economy is going to truly pick up (I mean without the use of trillions in freshly printed government funny-money) without a recovery in housing.

The government and the Federal Reserve have been doing all they can to help housing, but, unfortunately, houses do not trade on a paper exchange, where prices are more readily subject to intervention and manipulation.

The Federal Reserve is on track to buy up $1,250,000,000,000 of mortgages and another $225,000,000,000 of agency debt from the GSEs (Fannie, Freddie, and the FHA).

The aggravating part of the news cycle was the admission that the FHA is about to run out of cash and become (yet another) drain on the US Treasury.  I say aggravating, because many months ago I was writing about the obvious fact that their new policy of allowing 3% down and ultra-low credit scores was a dead-certain recipe for disaster.

There was a huge amount of press and follow-up to the Guardian article of the leaks.  This theme is important enough to continue exploring.  Anybody who has seen the Crash Course does not need any more information about Peak Oil itself.

Instead, I am most fixated on when a tipping point in global awareness about Peak Oil might occur.  That’s why this revelation and all the press it has been getting has been extremely interesting to me.

The first article helps to provide some more context and backing for the ‘leaks,’ which turn out not to have been very original leaks, since others were told this same information as early as 2007.

After digging around and sifting through the things both said and not said, I have come to the conclusion that what we are seeing are the likely effects of a rescue operation.

By this I mean a large injection of stabilizing cash to one or more parties, possibly related to the recent large bankruptcies.  Two of my friends, who have been actively trading for more than 20 years between them, threw in the towel this week, as their patterns and methods are no longer working.

Their conclusion is the same as mine; this market is not trading like it used to.  It is trading chaotically, counterintuitively, and as if there’s some sort of distorting influence involved.

First, we might just wonder if this isn’t the impact of a rogue firm with entirely too much power moving the market for its own benefit.

This insider has been opened to allow for intra-day commentary on what is going on in the markets.  As I see it, there is something quite profound going on at the moment; I just don’t know what it is yet.

As I wrote in the last Martenson Report, the behavior of gold was quite noteworthy, as it ran counter to both the dollar and the stock market.

As of this writing, gold has suddenly vaulted to a new, all-time high, even as the dollar remains in positive territory and the stock market is negative.  Silver is following.

Here are the relevant charts.