Today is the 8^th anniversary of the murderous Taliban attack on my native city's financial center. And the financial center is busy ignoring the date, helped by amnesia worldwide.

     Europe rose for a 7^th day in a row and Asia hit an 11-mo high based on good Chinese retail, production, and industrial output growth data which apparently offset a reduced Japanese Q2 growth figure.

     Like many observers, I take Chinese economic data with a grain of salt. With a command economy, Beijing gets the statistics it wants from the local Communist officials around the country. The numbers may not jibe with reality.