Welcome to the Fantasyland issue of The 5…“Shouldn’t worry about the deficit,” assures Barack Obama… “yes we can” keep spending. Can’t balance the budget of your dreams? Call the Treasury… Atlanta’s doing it. Gold still suffering… Ed Bugos’ future fantasies for precious metals stocks. Plus, no one immune to the great housing illusion… the infamous Neverland Ranch shuts its doors.

“We shouldn’t worry about the deficit next year or even the year after,” the U.S. president-elect Barack Obama said on 60 Minutes over the weekend.

We were afraid that Barack’s message of “change you can believe in” was going to make it harder to take issue with politics as usual in Washington. But now we see he already drank the Kool-Aid and we had nothing to fear but fear itself.

“The consensus is this, that we have to do

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As I write this on Friday morning, there is scuttlebutt that several central banks could announce rate cuts on Monday morning. Though the rumors are unconfirmed, fed fund futures are pricing in a significantly higher probability of a half-point cut occurring at the late-October meeting.

Alcoa (AA) will "officially" kick off earnings season when it reports on Tuesday afternoon. The aluminum maker is expected to announce profits of 60 cents per share.

Joining AA throughout the week will be fellow S&P 500 members: Costco (COST), Chevron (CVX), General Electric (GE), Host Hotel & Resorts (HST), Monsanto (MON), Progressive (PGR), Safeway (SWY) and Yum! Brands (YUM).

The minutes from the September Fed meeting will be released on Tuesday afternoon. If a rate cut is announced on Monday morning, the significance of these minutes would be reduced. Nonetheless, the notes will be

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