The second epic short-squeeze in a little more than a week has sent bears a clear message: If you want to get rich betting on the sure thing, you had better be prepared to die trying. The Dow Industrials popped for a 420-point gain yesterday, driven as always by hysterical short-covering. Compounding the bears' shock and awe was the fact that the catalyst for this latest rally was a news announcement that should have disappointed investors. A 100-basis-point easing had been all but ordained by the bond markets, but the actual cut came in at 75 basis points. Rather than plunging in despair, however, stocks sold off only moderately in the gratuitous gyrations that followed. Bears need only have looked in a mirror to see what was holding stocks up. So why is shorting this market a 'sure thing'? We've cited a growing list of reasons and now note that even the relative optimists have conceded that the most important of those reasons, the ongoing real estate collapse, is looking more and more like a 1930s-style dreadnought. Adding to the gloom is that no seems able to imagine a decisive end to it, only the suspiciously vague prospect of an economic rebound 'in the second half.' There is also abundant statistical evidence of deepening recession, plus a string of would-be bank failures that have been growing more colossal by the week. As for that vast army of bozos who have always believed that the Fed 'would never let it happen,' evidence grows that the crisis is bigger not only than the Federal Reserve, but much bigger, even, than all of the central banks acting in concert to try and stop it. Uncle Sam alone has thrown a trillion dollars at the problem so far, manifestly failing to restore confidence in
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