The lovely photos with this post were supplied by the RegenAxe northern correspondent, also know as Anne.  I especially like the blue sunset, although the sun painted ripples in the lake are great too.  I do have one question though, if Jane has just shown up at the Cabin, how come she already looks sunburned?

It seems as if everybody but me is at the Cabin or headed to it.  Jane and Rey arrived yesterday and Dan and Annie should arrive today.  This pretty much leaves me home alone here in Saint Louis.  I think that Dan and Annie plan on leaving early Saturday morning.  One of Annie’s summer jobs is running a hotdog stand outside a bar, just down the street from the ballpark.  She works nights until three.  I’m guessing that Dan will be picking her up straight from work and then head out-of-town.

Remember that often used cartoon sequence; it is the one where the cartoon’s protagonist is faced with a difficult moral choice to make.  Before the character can act, a little angel and a little devil appear on the protagonist’s opposite shoulders.  The angel asks the character to do the right thing, this usually involves not doing what the character is contemplating doing.  The devil is arguing with the angel and urging the protagonist on into doing what was originally contemplated.  In the cartoons usually the devil’s advice is followed.

Now before the reading audience leaps to some misconception, let’s translate this scene from a moral choice to and economic choice.  Not to put too fine a point on it, the question before this protagonist is where are the stock markets going?   On one of my shoulders I have my brother Chris sitting.  He called me Monday night of this week and successfully predicted this week’s stock market rally.  As he said, he called the bottom of this latest cycle.  On the other hand, or rather shoulder, sits my friend Don, also know as the Perma-Bear.  On Friday, after Wall Street’s best week in a year, he could only find dark clouds and no silver linings.  He explained that this week’s rally was just high frequency trading.  He made it sound like this week’s rally was just the death throes of a dying market.  Time will tell whether Chris or Don wears the angel’s halo or the devil’s horns, but come to think of it though it is I who will decide each advisor’s attire.  In the prototypical cartoon sequence the protagonist invariably chooses the devil’s choice, so whoever’s advice I follow must don the devil’s horns.  Also in these prototypical cartoon sequences the protagonist invariably chooses badly and later pays for this decision.