What women want is political key

No matter how artificial and canned the candidates can seem at a presidential debate, no matter how competent or ineffectual the moderator — the nominee’s true self will peak out at some point.

Thus did GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney tip his hand when it comes to the all-important female vote — which both he and President Barack Obama have been scrambling after. He didn’t make a huge gaffe or get ensnared in a tough debate about choice. Moving around the stage, he seemed a 1950s throwback who had wandered in from a different decade — one where men were men, women wore shirtwaist dresses (Ann Romney’s uniform) and marriage was between a man and a woman.

Of course what drove this home was Romney’s anecdote about trying to find talented women for his staff when he was governor of Massachusetts from 2003-2007. He said he actually went to a number of women’s groups “and they brought us whole binders full of women.” Though he apparently flipped this story: The groups came to him unsolicited.

However it happened, it was the telling moment, the one that has continued to dog him.

What? He couldn’t just look around and find qualified women? He couldn’t look through the ranks of his colleagues at Bain Capital or down the corridors of state power and pick out any number of terrific women? No, quite clearly he didn’t know such women because he was still operating in a world of men — the place he is comfortable.

You wonder: Did he have a clue how silly it sounded? How out of touch? You have to figure, given all the irritable and amused dust kicked up, that he will study his performance for the final debate — and try to rectify it no doubt — before the deciding third round on Monday.

That’s because the women’s vote is key to victory for both men. The famous gender gap — which opened back with Ronald Reagan when there was a decisive, divisive split between the presidential preferences of men and women — has become the Democrats’ best friend. Women supported Obama over John McCain by 13 points. Thus the dogged scramble to appeal to women, specifically women in the swing states.

A  slew of polls showed that Romney had narrowed that gap after the first debate — that he had surprised women, in particular, by appearing warmer and more approachable than he had previously. He was the beneficiary of a “surge among women in favorability,” in the words of longtime Democratic pollster Celinda Lake.

Women who went into that debate with a decided antipathy toward the smooth, distant uber-capitalist/rich kid (people were not fooled by his convention anecdotes about his and Ann’s struggles as young marrieds, eating dinner on an ironing board) came away thinking maybe he did have some empathy for their plight after all and might be able to help them.

Because the fascinating split for women and in women is: abortion versus jobs.

If choice is at the top of your list — or health care and availability of contraception and keeping Planned Parenthood funded (no surprise that Obama mentioned that organization five times) — then you will be for the president.

But concern about the debt and deficit has risen sharply on the list of female concerns. It was fourth on a list of five issues among women in a March poll of battleground states. Now it ranks second — which plays to Romney’s strength.

I heard a woman on an airplane last week saying she was absolutely pro-choice but still leaning toward Romney because she thought he might be better about creating jobs. I had never heard a woman say something like that.

Choice was The Issue, the litmus test — to use a loaded expression — for so many women of my generation. That was where the buck stopped. If a politician was against Roe v. Wade or wanted to overturn it, well that was that. He or she wasn’t going to get your vote no matter what. That one issue spoke to many women in a way no other did. They saw it as the bedrock freedom on which every other freedom hinged.

So I was amazed to hear this young woman. What’s clear is that things are shifting around there in the hearts and minds of women. Many, as the president himself pointed out, are the breadwinners in the family now. Hanna Rosin, in her provocative new book, ‘The End of Men,” writes not just about the frisky, sexually entitled and well-compensated women at the top of the economic and educational ladder (the ones Mitt Romney couldn’t seem to find without help) But she also focuses on the women in the middle and at the lower ends of the economic scale, those now often forsaking marriage and raising kids solo.

Rosin talks about the “ambiguous independence” many women feel as the old roles have shifted and the traditionally male jobs in manufacturing and the like have disappeared, leaving women to make the money. And do much else as well.

Onto these shifting sands have walked our two presidential aspirants with their Harvard degrees and lovely wives and intact families — in a way anachronisms both. The question is who can speak better to the hopes and fears of women who find themselves in this new world, specifically the stressed-out single moms who are the typical swing voters.

Romney has tried to project the patrician demeanor of someone who can look after you by managing the economy the way he did Bain. I know how to run things; I can fix what’s broke. That’s his mantra.

When he tries to be personal — something he seems to assiduously avoid — with his off-the-cuff and probably innocuous-sounding anecdotes, like that about the binder or about giving a female employee more flex time so she could be home at five in time to make dinner for her kids, he just sounds patronizing and old school.

The president, meanwhile, is hitting women’s issues with every breath — from Planned Parenthood to equal pay for equal work. Though cool, he is clearly more comfortable being personal, talking about being raised by a single mom, his grandmother and the glass ceiling, and occasionally about his daughters.

So the fight is on — for and within women all over this country. Will the long-in-place gender gap remain or is this the election in which we will see a sharp shrinkage. That will say an extraordinary amount about what women really want.

Illustration: MATT MAHURIN

Key fiscal questions nominees must answer

We can only hope the final presidential debate Monday provides less heat and more light than the previous two. Especially with regard to fiscal matters, the debates have so far not provided the substance and solutions that voters need and deserve to hear.

Our nation’s escalating deficits and debt represent the biggest threat to our national security, as I said in early 2007. Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said much the same in 2010. So the topic of the third debate, foreign policy and national security, needs to include a frank discussion of fiscal issues.

For, as our economy weakens, so does our position in the world. It will eventually compromise both our national security and domestic tranquility if not effectively addressed. Both our allies and adversaries recognize this, and we need to take action.

It’s time to see what type of leadership ability both candidates have in this critical area. Because it will require extraordinary presidential leadership and bipartisan cooperation if we expect to avoid a U.S. debt crisis.

The first step should be for the candidates to start providing substantive answers to serious questions instead of talking generalities and attacking each other. There are still many topics that need to be addressed and answers that the public needs to hear before Election Day. Consider:

Neither candidate, for example, has defined a clear goal for their overall fiscal policy. What do they plan to do and when? Will they reduce the budget deficit by a stated percentage, or reduce debt as a percentage of the economy? If so, to what level and by what year? A clearly defined goal can provide a mandate for action.

Our fiscal challenge cannot be successfully addressed without fixing our health care system — which could bankrupt the nation. So what specific steps will the candidates take to rationalize the government’s health care promises and bring down the overall health care costs?

Taxes are always a challenging topic, but neither President Barack Obama nor Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has provided enough specifics about his tax plan.

Romney needs to state three specific loopholes he would be willing to eliminate or reduce to enhance his credibility in connection with comprehensive tax reform. Obama has advocated for an additional and higher tax rate, as well as a new alternative minimum tax on the “wealthy.”

However, wouldn’t this approach just add to the complexity of our current broken tax system, while failing to generate enough revenue to effectively address the deficit?

Reforming social insurance programs like Medicare and Social Security is essential to reining in unsustainable federal spending.  Obama, however, has so far refused to offer any specific Social Security and Medicare reforms. He needs to address this critical issue.

In addition, Romney needs to say what he will do if his proposed Medicare “premium support” system fails to keep pace with the cost of health care inflation.

Given the foreign policy and national security focus of the upcoming debate, both candidates should also be prepared to state how they would reduce defense spending without compromising national security.

During my more than seven years as an ex-officio member of the Defense Business Board — a panel appointed by the defense secretary to advise on business and transformation issues — I became convinced that this is not only possible, it’s appropriate. The Defense Department is a bloated bureaucracy with significant opportunities to cut costs through greater efficiency and by focusing on future rather than past threats.

If the presidential candidates won’t address these types of substantive questions, how can the American people make an informed choice as to who can best lead a long overdue transformation of the federal government? Tough choices are necessary, and declining to provide specifics on key issues like these is both inappropriate and a failure of leadership.

Both candidates need to start providing real answers. They should begin Monday night.

Phot0: A 2011 U.S. Individual Income Tax Return form.  Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

The real winner: Inflation

I buy none of the post-election, prime-time hokum that what decided the presidential race was the Latino vote, women’s issues, the next Supreme Court justices, the view from the fiscal cliff or how drones are winning the War on Terror. This presidential election was, as always, a contest between gold standardists and inflationists.

The victors were the forces of cheap money. William Jennings Bryan would be proud ‑ as would bimetalists and Weimar Republicans.

Inflation won because it is the panacea for all that ails the body politic: a short-term cure-all that promises economic growth, the possibility of paying off runaway national and international debts, new-found prosperity for the middle classes and liquidity for the impoverished, who otherwise would be voting in the streets with rocks and burning tires.

Think of it as doping for those wanting to win political races.

Cheap money defers many liabilities. Real wages for industrials workers have declined since the 1970s.  True unemployment ‑ including those too discouraged to look further and others working part-time for unlivable wages ‑ is closer to 22 percent than the official figure of 7.9 percent. The national debt, $16.3 trillion, exceeds the gross national product. With unfunded entitlement programs, such as Medicare and Social Security, the government is eventually on the hook for an additional $46 trillion, which it would rather not pay with pieces of eight.

The hard-money men have not been able to win many elections since the 19^th century, arguing as they do for reductions in the monetary supply; an asset-backed currency (preferably with gold) and policies that lead to deflation. These are a boon to lending institutions that want to get repaid with readily convertible cash, not watered stock.

The magic of inflation, before it turns everything to dust, is that it papers over a number of intractable financial problems. The United States is now able to run monumental trade and budget deficits, fight multiple foreign wars, vote tax cuts, extend unfunded pension and healthcare benefits to citizens over age 65 and spend money with Medici-like munificence on myriad federal programs by printing money or borrowing in national and international capital markets.

Were the dollar unacceptable as a reserve currency in investor portfolios here and abroad, these financial sleights of hand would have ended long ago. Imagine the consequences if the Chinese demanded gold, diamonds or barrels of oil as collateral for their U.S. dollar bond investments. Already, the dollar is badly depreciated against many currencies, including the Swiss franc and the euro.

The reason lenders to the American dream don’t demand hard assets in exchange for their full faith and credit is that most marketplace debt, as well as the circulating currency, comes with the guarantee of the U.S. federal government ‑ perhaps why a pyramid is printed on the back of a dollar bill.

Think about it: Bank deposits, mortgages, the balance sheets of large banks and hedge funds, Social Security, Medicare, defense spending and General Motors all fall under the rubric of being “too big to fail.” They have the implicit aval (endorsement) of the federal government, which pays its obligations with inflated money ‑ as opposed to doubloons carried around in a sack.

Why, then, does the economic data never show inflation as a problem, one that might have become a discussion point in the election? Since 2000, the consumer price index has shown inflation hovering between a manageable 2 percent and 4 percent per year.

The reason the inflation statistics alarm few is because it is far easier to manipulate economic data than it is to control runaway inflation, which ought to be synonymous with four-year college tuition at $200,000, one-bedroom apartments in New York City priced at $1 million, gasoline at $3.46 a gallon and carts of groceries that routinely cost at least $250. Nonetheless, the September consumer price index showed inflation at a modest 2 percent per year.

Another reason inflation enjoys such electoral pull is that it allows the political classes to maintain the illusion of power and authority. Without the ability to print and circulate paper money to balance the books on $16 trillion in national debt and $1.4 trillion in budget deficits, U.S. presidents would be riding Greyhound on their appointed rounds, not the magic carpet of Air Force One.

Inflation carries the swing states of the American imagination because the tenets of a democracy are not consistent with deflationary politics, which favor landed and moneyed interests. In the 19th century, when deflation had its halcyon days, the winners were the railroad trusts, J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller, all of whom demanded gold-based assets in settlement of obligations due in their favor.

The reason inflation finds so many willing partners is that, initially, it seems a painless way to pay off thorny debts; raise the illusions of prosperity (“Wow, I got a raise”) and provide society with a veneer of fairness. Nonetheless, inflation is best understood as a direct tax on the savings of American citizens, especially those of the middle classes, who lack hedges against its effects ‑ large real estate portfolios, say, or vaults of gold.

What stops the inflation Ferris wheel is when the currency is reduced to worthlessness. During the worst of Weimar’s inflation in the 1920s, robbers would steal suitcases of money  and throw away the cash before fleeing.

In the case of the United States, the economic carnival will end when the dollar is no longer acceptable as a reserve currency, first in international markets and later domestically.

Part of the reason that a barrel of oil costs $85, not $10, in world markets is because traders discount the value of the dollars that they will receive when accepting payments. The only reason the Chinese hold debts denominated in dollars is because it helps them maintain the artificially low exchange rate of the renminbi.

Whether or not the United States goes over the fiscal cliff, it will remain unified as a nation of debtors for whom the goal is always to repay their loans with debased currency.

Adam Ferguson, in the introduction to his book, “When Money Dies: The Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation, and Hyperinflation in Weimar Germany,” writes: “This is, I believe, a moral tale. It goes far to prove the revolutionary axiom that if you wish to destroy a nation you must first corrupt its currency. Thus must sound money be the first bastion of a society’s defense.”

No wonder Adolf Hitler, when he led a beer hall putsch in 1923, spoke of addressing “the revolt of starving billionaires.” For that kind of money, he could have also paid for a political campaign.

PHOTO: William Jennings Bryan, celebrated for his “Cross of Gold” speech, standing on stage to deliver a campaign speech.   LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The economy needs a ‘unity Cabinet’

The election left us with a status quo political lineup, one that failed to make any meaningful fiscal progress over the past two years. So is it realistic to expect that we can avoid the fiscal cliff and achieve some sort of “grand bargain”? Yes, it is possible, and here is how to do it:

First, President Barack Obama should form a “unity Cabinet” to demonstrate to the public and Congress that he wants to bring the nation together and accelerate progress on key challenges. It should include Democrats, Republicans and independents. All should be respected in both parties, have meaningful private-sector experience and credibility within and outside the Washington Beltway.

These criteria are especially critical when it comes to the president’s top economic team. Obama will almost certainly change the leadership at the Treasury Department, since Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has talked about leaving after the first term, and the Office of Management and Budget. Smart appointments could help reboot Obama’s relationships with Congress and increase the chance of success.

Since a unity Cabinet would include members outside the president’s party, who may not have supported his policies, these officials must be willing to accept the president’s agenda and vigorously promote it across the country ‑ after a healthy internal debate.

This “war cabinet” approach has been used by great leaders ‑ including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill ‑ during challenging times in the past. America’s deficit problem represents a serious national security threat that deserves similar bold leadership to rally the country.

Obama also needs to take a page out of President Bill Clinton’s playbook and pursue a bipartisan national education to bring about a grand bargain. In 1998, Clinton held town hall meetings across the country to promote Social Security reform. Obama should also meet regularly with congressional leaders from both parties to broaden and deepen his relationships and increase the chances of achieving bipartisan support. This is critical to ensuring that reforms are viewed as fair by the American people.

There is some cause for optimism. Obama does not have to worry about re-election, and he genuinely wants a grand bargain. It would help extend his legacy beyond Obamacare, and the president also knows it’s the right thing to do for the future of our country.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) wants to achieve a grand bargain as well, and he surely does not want the GOP House to be seen as obstructionist by voters in the 2014 election cycle. In addition, while the Democrats hold the Senate, it’s not clear who will control it in 2015.

Given the relative closeness of the popular vote, the return of a Democratic Senate and a GOP House and the lack of real specificity from the presidential candidates about how to address the fiscal cliff and abyss (the president’s campaign pledge to end tax cuts for the wealthy is far from sufficient), no one can credibly claim they have a mandate for their “fiscal plan.”

At the same time, the American people have made their views clear regarding what our elected officials need to consider.

I heard the public’s views during my recent nationwide fiscal responsibility tour. Voters want Washington to constrain current spending and significantly reduce projected spending ‑ without increasing the poverty level or shredding the social safety net. They want to accelerate economic growth and job creation and avoid another recession.

In addition, they recognize that we need to significantly reduce our projected deficits and debt burdens over time and that social insurance reforms and additional revenue will have to be part of that equation.

So how can we maximize the chance that we will avoid the fiscal cliff and achieve a grand bargain?

First, we have to be realistic about what can be achieved in the coming lame duck session of the Congress. It is unlikely to achieve a grand bargain in 2012.

Nonetheless, we can avoid the fiscal cliff while creating a bridge to an agreement that could help put us on a sustainable long-term fiscal path. This should include not extending certain items (the 2 percent temporary payroll tax cut and extended unemployment benefits); passing an alternative minimum tax patch and Medicare physician payment fix; and reducing defense and other spending, though significantly less than demanded under sequestration. Congress should defer most other tax increases and spending cuts, pending agreement on comprehensive tax, social insurance and other reforms – issues the new Congress should take up in January.

Any additional taxes on the wealthy can be achieved through reducing tax preferences rather than increasing tax rates. For example, Congress could limit overall deductions for the wealthy. But this should only be a bridge strategy that should be coupled with a commitment to real spending and tax reforms in 2013 that will reduce the ratio of public debt to gross domestic product to 60 percent by 2024, in a manner that will ensure such a level can be sustained over time.

This will require reforming our major social insurance programs ‑ Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security ‑ in ways that address both the aging of our population and out-of-control healthcare costs.

We must also modernize our tax system so that more people are paying some income tax, but under a more progressive tax system — where the wealthy pay a higher effective income tax rate and end up paying a greater share of total federal taxes. This can be done while reducing top marginal tax rates ‑ as long as it is coupled with the elimination and reduction of various tax expenditures that disproportionately benefit the wealthy, such as the differential tax treatment for carried interest and capital gains.

The same approach of reducing rates and closing tax expenditures can be taken on the corporate side to improve the competitiveness of our corporate tax system. This should generate federal revenue above the historical levels as a percentage of the economy (18.1 percent of gross domestic product) while not placing undue tax burdens on the middle class.

Washington stalemate does not have to continue. There is a way forward that can help us expand the economy, generate more jobs and put our financial house in order.

After all, the people are ahead of the politicians. They are also starved for truth, leadership and solutions. It is time that they got all three from their president and other elected officials in Washington.

PHOTO: President Barack Obama speaking in the White House Rose Garden, as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner looks on in April 2012. Jason Reed / REUTERS

One big reason for GOP optimism

There are 25 reasons for Republican optimism in the wake of a disappointing November. Twenty-five is the number of states next year where Republicans will have unified control of the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the legislature. Up from the current 24.

The significance of this is already clear in Michigan — where state lawmakers are seeking to make it the nation’s 24th right-to-work state.

Governor Rick Snyder announced Tuesday that right-to-work will be on the docket during the Michigan legislature’s lame duck session this month.

This underscores that the states are where the most significant policy reforms will likely take place over the next two years. Exhibit A is Michigan, which President Barack Obama won by 9 points — despite its being the home state of GOP nominee Mitt Romney. This state is now on the cusp of enacting a labor law reform that the White House and its allies vehemently oppose.

Right-to-work laws give workers freedom from being forced to join a union and pay dues. Prior to the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which permitted states to pass right-to-work laws, all American workers could be coerced into joining a union as a condition of obtaining and maintaining employment.

While the idea has been floated for years, until recently it seemed as though efforts to pass right-to-work in Michigan, traditionally home of the automobile industry and a bastion of organized labor, were futile. But recent developments have caused this important reform to finally gain traction.

Vincent Vernuccio, a Labor Department lawyer during the George W. Bush administration who is now director of labor policy at the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy, explains that when Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels enacted right-to-work laws in February, it had a serious impact on Michigan.

“Michigan’s neighbor Indiana,” Vernuccio said, “became the 23rd state in the country to give workers the freedom to choose whether or not to pay a union and still keep their jobs. As a result, employers, job creators and businesses that once passed Indiana over now gave the state another look.”

Vernuccio cited  Caterpillar as one example. The heavy equipment manufacturer recently moved its plant from London, Ontario, to Muncie, Indiana.

“Indiana’s new right-to-work law,” said Vernuccio, “played a large role in Caterpillar’s decision to locate the plant in that state. Incidentally, if any equipment had to be moved, it probably traveled through Michigan to get to its new home.”

Vernuccio also points to Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing that since January, Indiana has added 43,300 jobs, while Michigan has lost 7,300. One wonders: How many of Indiana’s new businesses had to travel though Michigan?, and how many would have stopped early if Michigan had a right-to-work law?

Facts and history demonstrate that right-to-work laws are just as important to a state’s economic competitiveness as a sound and hospitable business tax climate. From 2000 to 2008, approximately 4.7 million Americans moved from forced-union states to right-to-work states, according to a Cato Journal study by economist Richard Vedder.

Right-to-work states are indeed witnessing greater prosperity. Between 1977 and 2007, per capita income rose 23 percent faster in right-to-work states than in non-right-to-work-states.

The advantages don’t end there. Right-to-work states outperform non-right-to-work states in practically every metric of economic health, according to National Institute for Labor Relations Research data, from lower unemployment rates to greater after-tax purchasing power and beyond.

Passage of right-to-work in Michigan would be an economic game-changer for the state, which had the dubious distinction of being home to a single state recession even during boom years of the last decade — largely because of then-Governor Jennifer Granholm’s disastrous policies. At the beginning of the 2008 economic collapse, for example, the national unemployment rate was 5.8 percent, but Michigan’s unemployment rate was already at 8.3 percent. Snyder has slowly but surely begun to right the fiscal ship of state since being elected two years ago.

The tax relief for employers that Snyder signed into law last year was a good first step. But enacting right-to-work would provide a momentous shot in the arm for the economy by immediately making the state far more attractive to employers looking to move or expand their operations in the region.

The chattering classes in Washington and the Acela corridor crowd are fixated with the happenings on Capitol Hill. Yet, with one party having total control of government in more than three-quarters of the states, expect the most meaningful reforms to happen at the state level — starting with Michigan.

PHOTO: Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, here introducing presidential nominee Mitt Romney at the Republican National Convention, wants to enact a right-to-work law in his state. REUTERS/Rebecca Cook

Roll losses swallow up commodity inflows "The Great Debate"

Total assets under management in commodity-tracking indices and exchange-traded products (ETPs) have stalled over the last nine months, as roll losses swallow up fresh money inflows.

There has been little change in total money committed to index-like investments or its distribution between long and short positions, according to the latest quarterly figures released by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) yesterday, which show positions as of 30 June 2010.

The data is based on a special call sent to all known index operators and firms offering futures and options-based exchange-traded products. It is the most comprehensive measure of total funds under management in the passive sector, but excludes physically backed ETPs such as the popular SPDR Gold Trust .

Investors had a total of almost $264 billion in commodity indices and ETPs at the end of Q2 2010, down from the $271 billion at the end of Q1, but little changed from the $263 billion reported at the end of 2009.

Investments were split in a ratio of 4.11:1 with $212 billion worth of long futures and options positions and $52 billion worth of shorts. The ratio was slightly more bullish than at end-March (3.95:1) but essentially identical to the ratio reported at the end of 2009 (4.12:1).

In energy, the long/short ratio climbed from 3.88 to 4.37, the most bullish since 2008. But the jump was due to profit-taking by shorts after a profitable period characterised by declining spot prices and a pronounced contango structure in futures markets. On a net basis, there were no new long positions. Investors’ long exposure fell reflecting roll losses.
Commodity futures markets have reached equilibrium. Fresh money is still flowing in (evidenced by the fact assets under management have remained steady despite roll losses associated with the contango structure). But inflows have been offset by the contango structure, ensuring little upward pressure on prices.

Much greater switching in the proportion of funds allocated to individual commodities indicates that the investment focus is switching away from indices with fixed weightings towards dynamically re-weighted products or single-commodity indices and ETPs that enable a more active and tactical approach to take advantage of particular trends or futures market structures.Total assets under management in commodity-tracking indices and exchange-traded products (ETPs) have stalled over the last nine months, as roll losses swallow up fresh money inflows.

There has been little change in total money committed to index-like investments or its distribution between long and short positions, according to the latest quarterly figures released by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) yesterday, which show positions as of 30 June 2010.

The data is based on a special call sent to all known index operators and firms offering futures and options-based exchange-traded products. It is the most comprehensive measure of total funds under management in the passive sector, but excludes physically backed ETPs such as the popular SPDR Gold Trust .

Investors had a total of almost $264 billion in commodity indices and ETPs at the end of Q2 2010, down from the $271 billion at the end of Q1, but little changed from the $263 billion reported at the end of 2009.

Investments were split in a ratio of 4.11:1 with $212 billion worth of long futures and options positions and $52 billion worth of shorts. The ratio was slightly more bullish than at end-March (3.95:1) but essentially identical to the ratio reported at the end of 2009 (4.12:1).

In energy, the long/short ratio climbed from 3.88 to 4.37, the most bullish since 2008. But the jump was due to profit-taking by shorts after a profitable period characterised by declining spot prices and a pronounced contango structure in futures markets. On a net basis, there were no new long positions. Investors’ long exposure fell reflecting roll losses.
Commodity futures markets have reached equilibrium. Fresh money is still flowing in (evidenced by the fact assets under management have remained steady despite roll losses associated with the contango structure). But inflows have been offset by the contango structure, ensuring little upward pressure on prices.

Much greater switching in the proportion of funds allocated to individual commodities indicates that the investment focus is switching away from indices with fixed weightings towards dynamically re-weighted products or single-commodity indices and ETPs that enable a more active and tactical approach to take advantage of particular trends or futures market structures.Total assets under management in commodity-tracking indices and exchange-traded products (ETPs) have stalled over the last nine months, as roll losses swallow up fresh money inflows.

There has been little change in total money committed to index-like investments or its distribution between long and short positions, according to the latest quarterly figures released by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) yesterday, which show positions as of 30 June 2010.

The data is based on a special call sent to all known index operators and firms offering futures and options-based exchange-traded products. It is the most comprehensive measure of total funds under management in the passive sector, but excludes physically backed ETPs such as the popular SPDR Gold Trust .

Investors had a total of almost $264 billion in commodity indices and ETPs at the end of Q2 2010, down from the $271 billion at the end of Q1, but little changed from the $263 billion reported at the end of 2009.

Investments were split in a ratio of 4.11:1 with $212 billion worth of long futures and options positions and $52 billion worth of shorts. The ratio was slightly more bullish than at end-March (3.95:1) but essentially identical to the ratio reported at the end of 2009 (4.12:1).

In energy, the long/short ratio climbed from 3.88 to 4.37, the most bullish since 2008. But the jump was due to profit-taking by shorts after a profitable period characterised by declining spot prices and a pronounced contango structure in futures markets. On a net basis, there were no new long positions. Investors’ long exposure fell reflecting roll losses.
Commodity futures markets have reached equilibrium. Fresh money is still flowing in (evidenced by the fact assets under management have remained steady despite roll losses associated with the contango structure). But inflows have been offset by the contango structure, ensuring little upward pressure on prices.

Much greater switching in the proportion of funds allocated to individual commodities indicates that the investment focus is switching away from indices with fixed weightings towards dynamically re-weighted products or single-commodity indices and ETPs that enable a more active and tactical approach to take advantage of particular trends or futures market structures.Total assets under management in commodity-tracking indices and exchange-traded products (ETPs) have stalled over the last nine months, as roll losses swallow up fresh money inflows.

There has been little change in total money committed to index-like investments or its distribution between long and short positions, according to the latest quarterly figures released by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) yesterday, which show positions as of 30 June 2010.

The data is based on a special call sent to all known index operators and firms offering futures and options-based exchange-traded products. It is the most comprehensive measure of total funds under management in the passive sector, but excludes physically backed ETPs such as the popular SPDR Gold Trust .

Investors had a total of almost $264 billion in commodity indices and ETPs at the end of Q2 2010, down from the $271 billion at the end of Q1, but little changed from the $263 billion reported at the end of 2009.

Investments were split in a ratio of 4.11:1 with $212 billion worth of long futures and options positions and $52 billion worth of shorts. The ratio was slightly more bullish than at end-March (3.95:1) but essentially identical to the ratio reported at the end of 2009 (4.12:1).

In energy, the long/short ratio climbed from 3.88 to 4.37, the most bullish since 2008. But the jump was due to profit-taking by shorts after a profitable period characterised by declining spot prices and a pronounced contango structure in futures markets. On a net basis, there were no new long positions. Investors’ long exposure fell reflecting roll losses.
Commodity futures markets have reached equilibrium. Fresh money is still flowing in (evidenced by the fact assets under management have remained steady despite roll losses associated with the contango structure). But inflows have been offset by the contango structure, ensuring little upward pressure on prices.

Much greater switching in the proportion of funds allocated to individual commodities indicates that the investment focus is switching away from indices with fixed weightings towards dynamically re-weighted products or single-commodity indices and ETPs that enable a more active and tactical approach to take advantage of particular trends or futures market structures.

With the Boston bombing, fear returns

So another day with another infamous history:  April 15, 2013. That date has now been internalized in our collective guts. This is, alas, an easy one to remember. Tax Day. The Boston Marathon — a race that will never again be run without a shiver of fear, a dark cloud.

Something so darkly grim about runners losing their limbs. One wonders if he or they who planned this thing thought of that — if that gave them their own perverse extra shiver. Hard to know.

It took us a long time from Sept 11, 2001, to calm down, but finally we did. Finally we started to relax, grumbling more about taking our shoes off in the endless airport security lines. The irritations of navigating around started to trump the fear, even though, deep down, none of us really thought 9/11 was a one-off. We were lucky; that’s how it felt. That’s over.

Now it starts again: the fear, the looking around, the suspicion, the sense of our fragility –singularly and together.

I called a friend as soon as I heard. She is a marathon runner but wasn’t in Boston. “I love you,” I said.  She laughed; she hadn’t heard.“Don’t run anymore,” I said. As if that would solve anything. As if the very point of this kind of act is its randomness, its ability to hit here, then there. Never the same place twice. Keep them guessing. Keep them alert. Keep them terrified.

And we are. We have moved back into the zone of fear. We are horrified but not shocked. We are no longer the abashed innocents. We are past that.

The country that went through a tragedy on Monday was not the country of a dozen years ago.  On some level, we have been waiting for this, nerve-endings on alert no matter how life normalized and got taken up with the more mundane worries. We are sad, of course, above all, for those who were killed or lost a limb and for their families, sad, too, for our own children, be they in Los Angeles or Omaha or El Paso. They are getting their induction into the new reality, this, of course, on top of Sandy Hook. This is their world now. Madmen with guns, mad men with bombs with ball bearings in them.

I hear the psychologists talking on TV. They are mediagenic, full of Band-Aids and bromides. The men have coiffed hair, the women have buffed arms. Their makeup is perfect. Remind your kids, they tell us, of all the good people there are, the first responders, the trauma surgeons. Listening to them seems surreal, reassuring pap.  Because what you hear, if you listen, is a wail from the parental heart of America.

We cannot keep our children safe.  Yes, we can tell them they are good people and bad people, etc. etc. But we cannot keep them safe. That is the new reality. An eight-year-old boy died on the streets of Boston where he had gone to hug his father at the end of the race. This is your country now.

We grieve over our new sophistication, as it were. We are horrified, but we are growing calluses, getting to used to seeing the preternaturally calm face of our president speak to us again about the loss of lives–particularly of children.  For them he will show tears.

We are on notice again: looking at backpacks and trash cans and vehicles left too long on our streets. Even I will do that again with heightened attentiveness, here in suburban L.A., where the crime has been decidedly down for a stretch of years.

Certainly I will be vigilant in a mass setting. One unhappy dividend of our new reality is that we are now crowd-phobic, knowing that in a group, we are a more appealing target for someone who wants to kill or maim as many of us as he can. A mall, a ballpark, a rock concert.

We are an odd lot, individualistic; we bowl alone.  And then we venture forth and take unexpected pleasure in being part of an event, an audience, together. Look around. Everyone’s laughing in synch, eating hot dogs or running a marathon. Thousands of Americans doing something together, clapping, rowing, running. Kaboom: Thank you for making such a nice target. Can you hear it: the sick laugh of the murderer?

One thing we hate is knowing we are hated. In the fiber of most Americans is that enduring sense that we are the good guys — if not always perfect.  There are those who take refuge in the notion that we are indeed perfect, exceptional, no matter what.  In recent years, one has often heard a more balanced or nuanced read.

We have our own ugly images to deal with: Abu Ghraib, waterboarding (and go back, if you will, to slavery and to what was done to American natives).

No one is suggesting such things condone for one second on this earth what happened Monday.  Only that we as a people have had to assimilate these images in our own self-image.  For all that, for the darkness, for the crazies in the movie theaters and classrooms with their deranged minds and AK-47s, we still hold our country in a sacred place.

We honor it.  We love it.  We think it still, with whatever flaws, a moving and miraculous experiment in democratic ideals. We do. I do.  For my country to be hated–enough, by someone who could do what was done yesterday — is wounding on both an immediate (what will happen next?) level and an existential one.

A rage bubbles up.  A deep rage-filled sadness. How will this end? How can we protect ourselves? How can we protect our children?  We have so many questions now and not a lot of answers.  We are the can-do guys, tall in the saddle, ready to fight for freedom. But this enemy is shadowy, popping up here and there – this time in the middle of a bright spring day on the streets of Boston.  Where next? We try not to ask ourselves, alert when we check our email or turn on the TV, for the next act of terrorism.

We hear, of course, the plucky rejoinder in the random interviews of people, the “we will not let the terrorists win” mantra. But underneath that bravado and, I suppose, admirable survival instinct, is a grief, not just for those maimed or lost, but for the sense of safety, of pleasure, of being able to congregate and celebrate without trepidation, without the sense of being vulnerable, hated, a potential statistic.

Three people were killed yesterday on the streets of Boston, 176 were injured.  This is a different country today than it was yesterday. There has been the hope that somehow the law enforcement brigades with all their sophisticated equipment and surveillance were going to be able to keep us safe.

Even as we held our breath, have been holding it for over a decade and change.  Yesterday, in sorrow, we exhaled.

PHOTO (Top): Blood in seen on the sidewalk in front of a candy store advertising a Marathon Monday sale a day after two explosions at the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts April 16, 2013.  REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi

PHOTO (Insert): Flowers are seen at the barricaded entrance at Boylston Street near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts April 16, 2013. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton