Worrisome stuff, vhf.

A good part of the story behind the German billionaire Merckle committing suicide over his crumbling business empire included him being massively short Volkswagen shares whose price spiked when Porsche revealed they had a huge position on their way to trying to take control of the company. Talk about a squeeze. I believe VW shares surged from roughly 120 euros to over 1200 in just two days and Merckle was out hundreds of millions of euros. And his problems just multiplied. So, short squeezes are still around. Maybe gold will be next.

As an aside, I'm reminded of one of the good/bad things, IMO, about New York, having spent a career in New York City. Though the Wall Street crowd made billions each year in salaries and bonuses, the city and state took over 12% of that in taxes between them. So for every billion in salaries and bonuses, the city and state would rake in at least 120 million.

Add that to the bazillion in tax revenues from almost every transaction and deal occurring on Wall Street and the city/state were in the chips for years on end. Not so any longer, so its no wonder the "b" word for bankrupt is beginning to surface, at least for the state.