Becoming Venezuela, aspiring to Cuban....................from Rico

"Painting the tape" is a Wall Street staple. - End of month, and end of year it masks spotty actual performance and assures better bonuses. This year, 2013 ends with a simply stellar example of it. Look at the DJIA chart for the last trading day of 2013. - Note the 'magical' end-of-day ramp-up before the close. This allows the FTV and other teleprompter readers and talking heads to crow "the Dow ended it's best year snce 1995" (while ignoring the +39% increase in the Fed's balance sheet). There was a corresponding effort to smash Gold and Silver to create 'lows' in Gold and Silver for 2013 to mark a clear contrast to equities. - Just to drive the point home for the slower Muppets that 'paper good, physical bad' and for the sheeple tht 'everything is swell, no worries' in case they were to doubt the power of the Fed and the intellectual capacity of their betters. All said and done, in a Socialist Centrally Planned Paradise there is no point in worryig about facts or reality when there is an ample supply of misinformation, delusion, propaganda, and wishful thinking to get you through hard times! - The markets are UP, huzzah! We be better off now. Ahem. Tell that to the Venezuelans. - The Venezuelan market jumped +475% in 2013, and is UP 350,000% since 1992. See? Socialism is not only GOOD for you, but 'for your own good' too! [Pssst! Wanna buy a watch? Maybe a nice bridge?] Please to ignore that almost the last industries functioning in America now are tattoos, burger-flipping, and banking [looting edition]. 2014 will see a change from America becoming Venezuela, to becoming Cuba...thanks to Obamacare, but that is another topic.