Ouzilly, France

Today, we take a break. Yes, dear, dear reader...there will be no reckoning today. Nor for the rest of the week. Elizabeth needs help preparing for her big hullabaloo. We’re expecting about 150 people for a soiree on Thursday night, about which, more below...

Before we leave you, though...we have just a couple thoughts...

We’re sticking with our views and our investments — either until we’re proven wrong or we go broke, or both.

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Our view is that the great dollar-based credit expansion of the last half century is coming to an end. And our guess is that it will end with BOTH a bang and a whimper — that is, both a deflationary contraction...and an inflationary blow-off. A deflationary contraction is the market’s normal response to an inflationary boom. And an inflationary blow-off is the market manipulators’ normal response to a deflationary contraction; but, we hasten to add, there is no guarantee that they can pull it off.

So, as usual, we live in a world of great unknowns...and lesser unknowns...and things we don’t even know we don’t know. What we do know is that stocks have not yet bottomed out (they are no where near their low points)...and bonds are still expensive (people still lend to the US government for 10 years at less than 4% -- that’s substantially less than the current consumer inflation rate)...and the dollar is still treated with respect, even though its long term value is zero. There is a lot that can go wrong that hasn’t gone wrong yet, in other words. Until it does, we’ll stick with gold.

*** Meanwhile, back at home, people are already coming and going so fast — we can barely keep up with them. Jules came home last night. Henry is leaving today — as a first year student at the University of Virginia, he has to show up early. And as a "foreign student," he has to go earlier still.

"Are you sure you’re a ‘foreign student,’" we wanted to know?

"Yeah...I haven’t lived in the US since I was 6 years old. And I’ve only studied in French. So I’m considered as a foreigner."

Tomorrow, cousins...daughters...and friends arrive for the big party.

The original reason for the party was a big birthday milestone. Your editor turns 60 in a couple of weeks. Then, we realized that most of our friends and family couldn’t make it to France...so we planned another party for Annapolis, Maryland a week or two later. But since the party in France was already underway, we turned it into a "summer celebration." Celebration of what? Well, we’ll have some explaining to do...

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