The Big 3: Stocks vs. Bonds, Medicare vs. TARP, And Big City vs. Ruidoso

1. Stocks vs. Bonds

2. Medicare vs. TARP

3. Big City vs. Ruidoso

1. Stocks have been hanging pretty tough. Corporate bonds have been crushed because investors don’t think they’ll get paid back the money they lend from company cash flows. Treasuries are still paying about zero percent as investors flee to the only place that has a printing press of dollars that can pay them back – and they’re willing to take 99 cents on the dollar. Not sure the money bet’s that stocks are gonna higher. Be careful.

2. Numerology of the day: $454 billion. You choose – that number’s both the total welfare we spent on all of medicare in 2008 in this country. Or it’s just 25% of how much the Treasury and Fed have already given to the bankers and car companies who blew up this economy. Welfare don’t make bull markets in any case.

3. The U.S. Conference of Mayors recently gave Congress a list of 11,391 projects worth more than $73 billion. My hometown’s been needing a new waste treatment center to stop polluting into the rio Ruidoso for decades. Why do I expect big city mayor’s are going to get their needs met first, just like big business gets its needs met first. Spending by politicians and bureaucrats is never bullish.