What the heck

Well the best thing I can say about this week is that it's finally over.  A horrible, miserable dive off the cliff fittingly ended with a debt downgrade from the erstwhile S&P, whose managers I'm sure will now all have to get unlisted phone numbers and join the witness protection program.  Thank God the markets are closed on Saturday.  And Sunday too.  At least the Ess-n-Pee  had the decency to drop their debt downgrade bombshell after trading ended on Friday, giving us the whole weekend to reflect on the implications.

And their statement was rather odd too, I thought.  It seemed to be more an indictment of America's admittedly Kafkaesque political system than its economic might.  All that aside from the bizarre question of a minor $2 trillion arithmetic error that may or may not have occurred.  In any case, thank you very much, Emperor Nerobama, Harry Reidboehner, and the rest of you Gang of 435 for tanking America.  We'll remember you all come next Election Day.

So what does this all mean for next week?  Who the heck knows.  I feel like one of those cartoon characters who has a little angel sitting on one shoulder and a little devil on the other.  The angel is saying "it's not so bad, this has already been priced in, all this does is remove some uncertainty from the market".  And the devil is saying "This is it, it's time to panic, you think last week was bad,  the market is going to be decimated come Monday".

I guess the only clue we're going to get is when the futures start trading again tomorrow evening.  Personally, it seems like taking the pessimistic view has been the winner lately.  For now, with the VIX at its current crazy levels, I will continue to stand aside until some semblance of sanity returns to this psychotic market.