The Market On Thursday

  Good morning. It is 69 degrees and foggy here in Upstate NY. The forecast still shows rain, every day, for the next ten days. Is this unusual? The answer to that is, not anymore. Global warming is changing everything. The Supreme Court appears to be having fun at the expense of the American people - improve gay rights, that's good, but then insure Red State GOP governance by removing voting rights which in turn is causing GOP led states to force restrictive voter ID laws. Barriers to voting is a Red State tradition, please, perhaps the Supremes were just trying to bake some old timey American apple pie for sentimental reasons.

  At 8:00 a.m. ET futures are modestly higher and the price of oil per barrel is higher. The market is poised to open higher.

  The market has seen two days of strong gains, can they make it three. Investors will shortly see the first time weekly layoff numbers which is always telling followed by data on consumer spending. It is a consumer driven economy as they say. I can't help but recall this week's article stating that 75% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck with virtually no money saved to get them through a crisis. Sounds rather third world-ish - would you agree. From the GOP side of the equation that must mean that it's not 49% of the country that are slackers, it's really 75% of the country who are slackers. Yet somehow, the consumer driven economy is thriving. We are programmed from birth to buy junk, frequently and way beyond our means. That, is the tragedy.

CNN: Stocks: Will the momentum hold?

...the Commerce Department will release a report on Americans' personal income and spending for May.

Asian markets ended mixed.