U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was quoted yesterday, as in the Bloomberg News story appended here, as saying that the U.S. government would use "'all the tools at our disposal' to protect the financial markets". ...

Hopefully most of you out there who have been following what I write will understand why I believe such a statement to be inherently ridiculous.

Why? Because true financial markets do not need protecting. Such a statement is akin to Isaac Newton saying,. "I will use all the tools at my disposal to protect the laws of mathematics."

True finanical markets function like gold and silver function. They, by their unfettered existence, create an incorruptible standard. They exist and function at the highest possible level as they must, and therefore can NEVER need "fixing."

Indeed fixing such a standard is impossible, because nothing better than the natural function can exist.

The very fact that Paulson feels he needs to protect the financial markets is a demonstration that his and others' ineptitude and interference are what have caused disequilbria in the financial markets to begin with.

It only follows logically that the source for the solution cannot be identical to the source for the cause.

Bull