Friday, December 7, 2007

Joy in Crabtown


It's official - Navy has now defeated Army six times in a row, something that neither school had ever been able to do in the more than 100 years of the greatest rivalry in college football. This picture shows Reggie Campbell scoring one of his touchdowns. He was personally involved in almost every point Navy scored, running back a kickoff for a touchdown, scoring from the run of play himself, setting two key blocks that allowed others to score, and even returning a punt 51 yards to set up a field goal with just seconds remaining in the first half. Now we go on to demolish Utah in the Poinsettia Bowl in San Diego on December 20.

Here in Japan, the game kicked off at 2:00 a.m. I managed to stay awake for all but the last five minutes of the game, when victory was already assured. 38-3 sounds like a dominating scoreline, but Army actually outplayed Navy on both sides of the line of scrimmage for much of the game. Army dropped an easy pass in the end zone, missed a 28 yard chip shot field goal attempt, and it seemed to me had at least three questionable officiating calls go against them on critical plays that either kept Navy drives going or killed promising Army drives. Hence our eternal gratitude to Reggie Campbell, the one man Army-destroying machine!

Army's strong play, plus the almost certain loss of our outstanding coach to another team that can pay him much more money sometime prior to next season, does not bode well for next year's game, but with Army-Navy, just like Red Sox-Yankees, you can always throw out the records and expect a hard fought contest. What a year so far - the Red Sox win the World Series, Navy beats Notre Dame for the first time since Roger Staubach was our quarterback, and we also beat both Army and Air Force to win the Commander-in-Chief trophy. Go Navy, Beat Utah!!!

On the not so cheery side, the world financial system continues on its inexorable path over the cliff. Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley, among others, are all technically bankrupt. It is only a matter of time, most likely sometime early in the New Year, until even the mainstream media figures this out, and that is when gold will take off on the next leg of its bull run, if not before. If you haven't gotten some gold yet, now is a great time, as gold is in a consolidation phase that is offering a great entry point. If you haven't diversified out of dollar-based assets yet, the dollar is in the midst of a counter-trend rally that probably won't make it much higher than 80 on the US Dollar Index that offers a great chance to convert your dollars into stronger currencies like the Japanese yen, Swiss Franc, Canadian dollar, and Chinese yuan. See previous posts for the best ways to maximize your returns on these macro trends that will be with us for some time.

If you still doubt that the US dollar really is roadkill, and toxic waste in your financial portfolio, consider that the best performing currency against the dollar so far in 2007 is the Philippine Peso.

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