I am in London finishing my new book, The End Game, which will be out after the first of the year, as soon as Wiley can make it happen. Working with my co-author, Jonathan Tepper, we are making good progress. We intend to quit (a book like this is never finished) tomorrow afternoon.

I am going to beg off from personally writing a letter this week, but will give you something even better. Dr. Lacy Hunt offers us a few cogent thoughts on the unemployment numbers. The headline establishment survey came in much better than expected, but the household survey was much weaker. In addition, Dr. John Hussman wrote a piece last week that I thought was one of his best, on liquidity traps and quantitative easing, and that’s included here, too. We are embarking on a course through uncharted waters. No one (including the Fed) has any idea what the unintended consequences will be.

I remarked a few weeks ago that the Fed is throwing an inflation party and not sure whether anyone will come. Last night at dinner, Albert Edwards of Societe Generale noted that not only do they not know whether anyone will come, they do not know what they will do if they do come, how much they will drink, or when they will leave.

My quick takeaway is the $600 billion is not all that much, and the buying is concentrated in the middle of the curve, where it is likely to do the least in terms of lowering rates (they are already low!), so also likely to do the least damage. Mohammed El-Erian thinks that if nothing happens the Fed will be forced to continue, which is a dangerous thing. I wonder whether they might just shrug their shoulders and say, “We tried, and now it is up to the fiscal side of the equation.” We shall see. It will be important to listen to the speeches of the Fed governors to get some idea.

Before we jump in, let me give you a few thoughts I am picking up in Europe. The yield spreads on Irish and Spanish bonds are blowing out even as we speak, as well as those on the rest of the periphery. While all eyes are on the Fed, the real action may be in Europe. We will visit that thought in the near future. Now, first to Lacy.

Is it different this time? Can it be that trade deficits do not matter? Or is our collective debt going to end in a period of financial crisis and tears? Is Alan Greenspan right when he says periods of low risk premiums end in woe for the participants?

For readers in the middle of this conversation, we are in a series on the debate held at a London restaurant between Charles and Louis-Vincent Gave (father and son) and Bill Bonner. The Gaves openly declared that "This time it's different," much to Bill's amusement. We all know that it almost never, ever is. They make their argument in a book called "Our Brave New World." I did part one of a review two weeks ago and will finish reviewing that book today.

This week we are going to examine in some detail Alan Greenspan's speech given today in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I was working on an entirely different letter when this speech hit my inbox. I think it is so important that I am going to start over in the middle of a letter, which I cannot remember ever doing.

For better or worse, Alan Greenspan is one of the most important men in the world. His views matter and are taken quite seriously by the market. This is one of Greenspan's more significant speeches (it may come to be seen as his most important) and a departure from his usual opaque (or in Texan: clear as mud) style.