I was in Vegas with my friend, Sweetness. He and I gambled too much. Drank too much gin and played a little golf.

Where were you? Did you watch the game? Perhaps you had a party? Maybe you're not an american football fan so you spent the weekend relaxing and catching up. Either way, like me, you had no way of knowing what was going on behind the scenes.

My next question is: Where was Ben Bernanke? Where was Tim Geithner? Where were the rest of the Fed governors and the heads of the TBTF banks? We may never know, though history one day may record their actions for posterity.

Why do I ask and why was February 4, 2011 so important? In hindsight, it is clear that 2/4/11 was the day that the Fed's hand was forced. A critical moment in time had come. The ruinous implications of the Fed's quantitative easing policy had been made clear. That weekend, both the dollar index and the long bond were moving toward critical, long-term support. Both could not be saved and a decision had to be made.

Sometime over Super Bowl weekend it was decided. Your monetary "officials" chose to preserve their own power at your expense. Why do I say this? Three months on, it's clear that the decision was made to support the long bond at all costs, to the detriment of the dollar. The global reserve currency was sacrificed on the altar of low interest rates and the maintenance of the Fed/TBTF/Govt ponzi. Because of this decision millions, even billions, of people will suffer. The inflation that is coming will spark food shortages and protest. This unrest may/will lead to war. All of this so that the Fed can maintain their power, the TBTF and primary dealer banks can remain afloat and the bankrupt U.S. government can continue printing and spending money, thereby allowing elected officials to escape the scrutiny that would come from actually leading. Neither history nor The Almighty will judge their selfish and cruel actions well.

Here are the charts that prove this out, beginning with the dollar or, as we call it here, the POSX.
As you can see, post 2/4 the dollar actually rallied for a week. It has since declined by almost 8%.

The critical chart on 2/4 was the U.S. Long Bond. The "long bond" is a futures contract on the 30-year U.S. treasury bond. This contract has been in an uptrend for nearly 29 years, from a bottom in 1982. The trendline lays somewhere around 114 to 115, depending upon how accurately you draw it. This was an important topic back in February. For example, here's a thread from 2/9/11:
http://tfmetalsreport.blogspot.com/2011/02/santas-pillars.html
With the decision made to let the dollar die in order to preserve The Ponzi, the long bond suddenly reversed and has since traded much higher.
Let's judge the practical, short-term impact of this decision by looking at our three favorite dollar-destruction hedges. First, here's crude:
Oh, that's right. The politicians want you to believe that its the oil companies and the evil, scawy specuwators that are driving oil higher. Anything to deflect the blame from themselves.

Now look at gold:
If you haven't yet protected yourself and purchased "wealth insurance" by buying gold, its OK. There's still time. But, if your normalcy bias and blind faith in the status quo keep you from buying some in the future in the face of all the evidence that the dollar is dying, you are the proverbial fool who deserves to be separated from his money.

Lastly, take a look at silver. As we know, silver is also being propelled by some, shall we say "enhanced", fundamentals. Regardless, this performance is stunning and reflects a grass roots, everyday-citizen demand for protection against fiat destruction. My advice is to get some, and take delivery, while you still can.
Finally, the intention here is not to say that the demise of the dollar is imminent. The death of the dollar is similar to that of a terminally-ill, cancer patient. There will be good days. There will be moments of hope. The dollar will bounce, probably from the area around 72. The long bond will peak and consolidate in the area around 124. The PMs will correct again soon giving you another buying opportunity. In the end, however, the fate of the dollar was sealed over the weekend of Super Bowl 45. The Packers won but we all lost. For the Steelers, there's always next year. For us, nothing but an uncertain and perilous future.