Kass: Dry Your Tears With Cold Hard Cash

My ursine crowd would also emphasize that the conspicuous, forward and leading indicators of weakening growth, such as yesterday's horrible ISM manufacturing survey, coupled with a large jump in the prices-paid component, surging gold prices and a $100 print in crude signal blahflation -- that is, a period of uneven and inconsistent growth mixed in with stubbornly high inflation.

As well, we bears would add that investors shouldn't believe in the decoupling theory, as investors should recognize the important role that the U.S. consumer plays on worldwide growth as well as observing the emerging drain due to developing weakness in the Western European and Japanese economies.

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From my perch, investors should consider the idea that it might be high time to face the market's melancholy music -- and start raising some cash.