I heard an interesting interview last night with Don McAlvany, who has his own newsletter about the financial markets. He's definitely a doom and gloomer kind of guy, and here's some interesting factoids he let loose, which of course the major news media outlets are not even talking about.

There were 1.6 million personal and corporate bankrupticies last year, the largest number in US history.

With the collapse of the and internet and tech stock bubble in 2000, $8 trillion dollars of wealth evaporated, although $2 trillion of that loss has come back since then.

Stocks right now are trading at 32 1/2 times earning, which means in a bear market they're still overvalued. They should be trading at 5-8 times earnings.

10-12 million Americans are currently unemployed, and the Fed is understating the unemployment rate saying it is 6.5%, when it should be closer to 9.5%.

Boeing by the end of the year will lay of 40,000 people.

The US is losing its manufacturing base, and these jobs will not be replaced in the US.

There's a real estate bubble with over $5 trillion invested in real estate mortgages. The mortgage interest rate has gone up from 5% to 6.5% in 1.5 months, which isn't a good sign.

The long term bond market collapsed, and saw its lowest prices worldwide since 1927 in the last 90 days, and lost $6 trillion in value.

Currently, there is $200 trillion invested in the derivatives market, which investors use as a hedge against the stock market, rising interest rates, etc. The collapse of the long term bond markets is sending shocks waves through this sector.

The Feds are flooding the markets with printed money, hoping to ignite another stock market bubble, which could lead to rising interest rates and hyper inflation.

If interest rates rise, watch for the real estate market and derivatives markets to both collapse, along with the stock market.

Now I'm listening to my favourite Grateful Dead songs, Scarlett Begonia and Fire on the Mountain.

Jerry .... Jerry, we love you, they scream!

I have cds in my collection that I haven't listened to in years, and sometimes I forget the group even sounds like.

I'm playing this cd from Rusted Root entitled When I Woke.

It's good. Here's what the Amazon review says, "Imagine the Gypsy Kings as hippies from Pittsburgh and you'll have a handle on Rusted Root. Energetic, largely acoustic worldbeat jams like "Ecstasy" and "Martyr"."

I was afraid I was going to put music on that I don't even like anymore, but I still like it. It's definitely an homage to the hippie stoner world beat phase of my life. Brenda the elf girl hippie chick ... what a hoot!

I went out for a walk at lunch time, and here's an example of stupid things I wonder about.

I once watched a porno movie with a boyfriend, who kept going on and on about how he liked when the porn chick's breasts moved. Like it really made him excited. Why this was such a big deal to this guy is something I've never been able to figure out to this day, but that's neither here nor there.

So I'm wondering on my walk if the breasts of women who have fake racks, the big plastique kind, shake when they're having sex. Do they jiggle, do they bounce up and down? And if not, are guys like my ex-boyfriend not getting turned on by pornos anymore, or at least that aspect of the porno movie? I mean, it's so interesting to me, only because the exboyfriend freak was so entranced by the whole breast movement thing.

I wished I'd kept in touch with the freak, because I'm totally wondering about this issue right now.