Ding Dong Ding! Silver Tops $40; Oil Knocks On $112; Fukushima 2.0 In Onagawa; Official: Japan's Economy In "Severe" Condition; A New Car and a New Home May Wash Up On California Coast; Pursuing Higher Education Not What It Used To Be; Malls Going Bust;

Update 2: Freaky Friday: Oil about to break through $112 and close there. That explains why Silver Eagles are selling for $51 a pop on eBay. Or maybe the May 8th debt ceiling deadline?

Update 1: Radioactive mushrooms, strawberries are among 5 food items in California found to have Cesium 137. Just in case you didn't get the memo from Ann Coulter, Cesium 137 is one of those healthy radiations.

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Break out grandma's silverware! It was only a matter of time before the poor man's gold would hit our initial target of $40 set a while back (As an update, if conditions continue unabated, we will simply add a zero to the $40 and make our next target for silver $400. Only kidding... but are we really?)

Anyone with just half a radioactive brain knows when the Fed is pumping billions of fiat dollars into the stock markets on a daily basis to keep them afloat via POMO and the M1 monetary supply is on coarse course to break some sort of Weimar Republic record, all commodities and especially precious metals, will go ever higher. The inverse correlation to all of this means the purchasing power of the world's fiat currencies, from the US Dollar to the European Euro to the Japanese Yen will continue to decline. The most important metric a savvy investors needs to keep in mind is the price of gold and silver (tangible assets) price in fiat currencies. Remember, since that dark day in September 2008, it has been a race to devalue the fastest and no Central Bank is going to just sit back and watch their fiat currency go higher and higher. How can the average citizen protect himself from this madness? PM's of course.

With the war in Libya just beginning and the aforementioned inflationary pressures building, you can see why it will cost almost $90 to fill up your SUV next week. Recipe for $112 oil: combine war in Libya with endless printing of fiat, stir, blend with a dash of Middle East uprising, being careful not to add too much, and there you have WTI oil at $112. A delicious recipe, guaranteed to lower your caloric intake. Perhaps we can start a new fad diet and get Kim Kashmachine to sponsor it - we'll call it the Oil Diet. Every dollar higher the price of oil goes, your total intake drops by 25-30 calories. Next week, the recipe will change for sure and $120 WTI oil will be on the menu.

Oh, did we mention the black swans swarming overhead? That ingredient can be added to any recipe if one prefers to heat things up a bit. Think of a black swan as the Tabasco sauce used in a Bloody Mary. This week, black swans are the Chef's Special in Japan as Fukushima 2.0 in Onagawa begins to heat up. Oh, wait. You didn't see anything about that other nuclear plant leaking radioactive water on the 10 o'clock news? That's why they call it a black swan.

Remember in the days following the catastrophe in Japan when all the talking bimbos on CNBS and investors like Warren Buffet were saying that this event will somehow be bullish for the global economy and it will even jump start Japan's already dormant economy? Do you remember that? Of course you do. Surprise surprise! Today, the Japanese gov't issued a warning saying Japan's economy is in a "severe condition... with no quick recovery in sight." Now why on earth would they say that? Could it be the supply chain disruptions we discussed here weeks ago are starting to be felt globally? Could it be all the factories, not only in Japan but also around the world that are shutting down due to a lack of parts? Could it be power outages across Japan? Could it be the fishing industry being halted due to radiation? How about the hundreds of square kilometers of uninhabitable land where hundreds of thousands of people once worked and and lived? Could it be the droves of tourists fleeing the country? The list of is endless. Really then, what makes this catastrophe of epic proportions "bullish?"

The answer is the Keynesian unlimited printing of fiat money. That is it - which ironically brings us full circle to the rising commodity prices mentioned at the onset, which in turn brings more uprisings, which in turns brings more economic disruptions etc etc etc in an endless cycle. You can read more about this in detail in my article posted the week of March 7th.

To be fair however, Californians will be getting something out of this besides healthy iodine/xenon radiation - houses, cars, boats and shoes which are floating in a giant debris field and heading towards Kalifornia. Who knows what they'll find? Definitely not silver or gold.

And finally, two more tidbits of interest:

1- Oh, the drama! Government shutdown looms. Thousand of workers to celebrate with the purchases of new iPad2s.

2- Your favorite shopping malls may soon be closing as vacancy rates set to skyrocket. Definitely bullish for retails such as Abercrombie and Fitch which is at a 52 week high. With cotton at a record high and climbing, we wonder what super textile they use in place of cotton. Or are margins of no concern?

More updates soon.