Today’s big headline news is that Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in a suicide attack on a campaign rally. As Bhutto was leaving the rally, reports say, she was shot in the neck and the chest. The gunman then blew himself up, killing 20 others.

Of course, geopolitical instability such as this is sure to have an effect on the markets: stocks are down, and gold, oil and bond prices rose on the news this morning.

Crude oil reached above $96 a barrel this morning, on the news of the assassination in Pakistan and on the Energy Department’s weekly inventory report, which said, “oil inventories fell by 3.3 million barrels last week, more than double the 1.3 million barrel decline analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had expected on average.”

Dragging down stocks was the weak increase in durable goods; economists were hoping for a 2.2% increase and only got 0.1%.

*** And here’s the shocker of the day: consumer confidence is up in December, says the Conference Board report.

MarketWatch reports: “The consumer outlook on business conditions, employment, inflation and stock prices ‘improved marginally,’ according to Lynn Franco, director of consumer research at the private Conference Board.”

But – wait...there’s more. The report also says that consumers remain “far from optimistic.” That sounds about right.

According to our currency counselor, Chuck Butler, there are some people who are optimistic...about the U.S. dollar, of all things.

“I read an article today that really got me fired up,” Chuck tells us. “The big brokerages like the ones we’ve been talking about that are taking infusions of cash from Sovereign Wealth Funds, are now saying that this will continue, and thus we should see an end to the dollar weakness in 2008.

“I would bet a dollar to a Krispy Kreme that these guys calling for a dollar rebound are long dollars!

“Oh geez...because these knuckleheads all had to beg for help...oh, never mind, I just don’t want to get into this stuff. But if they are all saying it...it’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. These guys are calling for a 3.3% rise in the dollar next year. Of course they don’t say when that happens...and I, for one, wouldn’t be surprised to see a 3.3% rise after the euro hits 1.50!”

So, Chuck isn’t buying the whole ‘end of the dollar weakness in ’08’ talk, and neither are we. This isn’t a surprise to long-time DR sufferers, but we’re still sticking with gold.

Bill Bonner is the President of Agora Publishing. For more on Bill Bonner, visit The Daily Reckoning.