At 3:10 EST – oh, screw it, this is my blog I'm going to use my own time zone – at 12:10 PST, I was up $60,000 for the day. When the market closed, fifty minutes later, I hadn't made a dime. Believe it or not, it isn't so much the destruction of paper profits that bugs me; it's the waste of time and emotional energy.

Trading in a market like this requires a lot of concentration, emotional energy, and dedication. If you can score five-figures in a day every now and then, it's worthwhile. If it's for a $0 payday (or, worse, a loss), it's a gigantic, disappointing waste of time.

The market doesn't owe a penny to anyone, but this kind of action disgusts me:

Now all of you know what cutesy little government musing caused this to happen – – the government plan to squander whatever wealth the nation still has and pick up the check for all the homeowners who aren't paying their mortgages anymore. So people like me – who haven't missed a payment in their life – look like idiots. And the sitcom-watching dimwits who bought at the top of the market, sucked six-figures out of their house in home equity loans so they could buy trucks and televisions, and then ignore their bills each month, leave it to the nation to pick up the tab.

Oftentimes there is a lot of handwringing about the debt being shoved onto the unborn grandchildren and great-grandchildren of our once great land. Listen, I don't lose any sleep over that. Why? Because I'm not sticking around for my progeny to suffer the penalites for such idiocy.

I am loyal to values, not a flag. The values I honor are freedom, opportunity, honesty, industry, creativity, productivity, and applied intellect. Those used to be American values, but not anymore. So if I wind up taking me and my family out of the US, it will be because I have decided the values I cherish are embodied better elsewhere.

And that, my friends, is the kind of brain drain that is only going to speed up this nation's demise. Because, look, I know I don't mean anything to the US. No one cares if I'm here or not. But what if 100,000 families like mine do the same?

And what do families "like mine" represent?

I can tell you what mine does. I created a business. I created employment. I created products. I am an aspect – – just one, for there are many – – of what America used to mean. So what happens if a country creates a circumstance for itself so that tens of thousands of people like me, and their families, get the hell out of here? I think you can reach your own conclusion.

What is happening around us is horrible, and I fear the rash decisions being made, all in the name of "helping out", are simply nails in the country's coffin. The United States is a country, not a prison. If things keep spiraling out of control like this, I'm not sticking around to get stuck with the tab. And I'm certainly not letting future Knights get stuck with it either.

Well, with a half hour in the trading day left, and insanity has struck the market once more. The Dow was down 230, and now it's down "only" 130 (and who knows where it will close?) The /ES rocketed 15 points higher in the span of what seems like just moments; my Orson-Wells-sized profits are now simply William-Shatner-sized. I hope they don't disappear with the day altogether!

I'm tied up for much of the afternoon but will do a post this evening. Keep jive-talkin', everyone.

During the dark times of 2006-2007, one of the most hackneyed expressions to get tossed around, ostensibly from investment banking twerps, was: "These days, it's Shanghai, Mumbai, Dubai, or Good-Bye."

Idiots.

So in that smirky little phrase, they unwittingly laid out three Capitals of Despair that would get wiped out when the music stopped playing.

I was just reading this interesting article in the Times about Dubai's plunge – – what caught my eye was that people were afraid of being thrown into debtor's prison. Debtor's prison! I thought those went out of style with the chastity belt. But, in the land of the Religion of Peace, they still have such a thing. Incredible.

Why anyone would ever elect to live somewhere hot is beyond me. I think those who choose to be in, say, Phoenix or Las Vegas are simply nuts. Of course, I prefer mild weather, and plenty of fog and rain, so perhaps this is just a quirk of mine. But to choose to live in a place where it is regularly over 100 degrees seems odd to me, since it would necessitate hiding indoors all the time.

As for Dubai, in retrospect, it was all-too-obvious they were headed for a fall. Besides the aforementioned ditty, one would often hear the tired carping about how XX% of all the world's cranes were in Dubai, which I frankly never cared a whit about. I imagine Dubai will be the new Houston – – overbuilt and full of see-through buildings.

Surely at some point you've seen the "before" and "after" of the place:

….as well as the indoor skiing…..

Pride goeth before the fall. It happens every time. So the (clearly Freudian) need to build the World's Tallest, Thickest, Widest, Most Turgid building is behind us. Perhaps those remaining can survive the empty desert landscape from the top tower and drink in the view for a few years.

I saw there was chatter in bull-land about the marvelous turnaround in retail sales. Let's take a look, since those on this blog actually know how to read a chart instead of make a lot of conclusions on a single month's percentage change.

The arrow shows the sensational, explosive turnaround in retail. Take a look at a stock like SKS or ANF to see how well retailers are raking it in. For your viewing pleasure, I've tinted in prior amazing turnarounds.

Bears: the trend is your friend.