Achoo

• Home sick today.  It's 6pm PST, and I've been sleeping most of the day!  A head cold it seems.
• The market was down because of... Broker downgrades?  Well, okay.  Oh, and Yahoo Finance is down to generalities... Economic Concerns.
• Yesterday I blogged briefly about watching for some government intervention the housing and foreclosures situation.  Keeping an eye on some agreement there.  I think that's the most interesting thing going on.
• Mark Hulbert:  How do you play a Santa Claus rally? 
• Just my thoughts... I'm not sure about this whole Santa Claus rally or January Effect thing.  I haven't been able to make much sense of what's supposed to happen and why. 
• John blogs over at The Trading Goddess, Cast Your Nets to the Asian Financial Sector.  Singapore ETF!
• Interesting blog entry up at the Wall Street Journal about jobs and the economy.  But he sees few signs of an impending recession. Business orders aren’t dropping. Overtime hours for temp workers haven’t dropped substantially. Warehouses aren’t filling up with inventories, which would be a sign of falling sales. And customers’ needs in distribution centers and call centers haven’t fallen off. “The forward demands are not shrinking,” Mr. Camden says. “They’re not drawing them in like they did in the last recession.”
• Of course, you'll have to temper some of that with a dose of Barry Ritholtz:  Retail Fading.
• Again, I do agree with the WSJ entry more than Barry.  I do think the economy is slower than we'd like due to energy and real estate, but I don't see a recession.  But then, I have the benefit of not having a PhD in economics, so I tend to see things more clearly.
• Where do the Presidential candidates stand on Social Security?
• I've had a couple of liters of diet-7up today.  Fizzy!  Why does 7up seem to hit the spot when you're not feeling well?  And wouldn't that 7up be even better with a few shots of Seagrams Seven in there?  Too lazy to go get some, I am.
• President Bush admits our intelligence departments are a bundle of suck.  And Michelle breaks it down with links and HOT AND STEAMY NEO CON COMMENTARY! 
• And even if Iran doesn't have a nuke program, but is developing nuke materials that would allow it to create a bomb two years out or so?  Well, two years is a very long time away.  Right?  Isn't it like not making chocolate chip cookies, but having flour, eggs, sugar, Crisco, baking soda, salt, vanilla, and choc chips in the pantry?