Vitamin D and Alzheimers

Thanks to the Instapundit for pointing out this article at FuturePundit:

Evidence For Vitamin D As Alzheimer's Risk Reducer

A scientist argues for prospective studies in the ability of vitamin D to cut the risk of Alzheimer's Disease.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands, May 26, 2009 – There are several risk factors for the development of Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia. Based on an increasing number of studies linking these risk factors with Vitamin D deficiency, an article in the current issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease (May 2009) by William B. Grant, PhD of the Sunlight, Nutrition, and Health Research Center (SUNARC) suggests that further investigation of possible direct or indirect linkages between Vitamin D and these dementias is needed.

i am going to be pounding down Vitamin D for the near future.

Treasury Curve Steepens To Record

Bloomberg:

The difference in yields between
Treasury two- and 10-year notes widened to a record on concern
surging sales of U.S. debt will overwhelm the Federal Reserve’s
efforts to keep borrowing costs low.  here to continue

i believe at least half of the 100 basis point move since march in the ten year is due to the rape of the bond holders in the Chrysler reorganization. The Obama administration trampled the rights of bond holders demonstrating once again his total disdain for anyone that tries to earn money. corporate debtholders must confront the fact that under this administration there is no protection of law or by contract. There is only what does Obama want and whose vote can they buy. No investor in his right mind should put money with in reach of the socialists who now run our government.

The Check Is In The Mail, No really!

Bloomberg:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner committed to cutting the budget deficit as concern about deteriorating U.S. creditworthiness deepened, and ascribed a sell-off in Treasuries to prospects for an economic recovery.

Geithner must be planning to run against Obama in 2012 because this administration has no plans to cut spending.

Short Term Rates Are Not Going Up aAnytime Soon

From Bloomberg:

Fed Funds Rate May Be Near Zero for Years, Fed Researcher Says

The U.S. main interest rate may need to stay near zero for several years given the recession’s depth and forecasts that unemployment will reach 9 percent or higher, said a researcher at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

I agree because I believe economic recovery will be so weak that raising those rates will be very politically unpalatable. This should cause a steepening of the curve even from these levels and very good profits for solvent banks. ( read small banks)

Donal Coxe May 22 audio.

click here

Bye Bye Pelosi?

Speaker Pelosi may have handed President Obama with the perfect means of eliminating half of the worst Congressional leadership ever: nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.
Obama should have been chomping at the bit to lose those two anchors and put his own people in place. Pelosi's now involved in a controversy concerning her knowledge of interrogation techniques that in retrospect whe wishes to disavow. Boomberg

Mr, President this is an opportunity to serve the country -- dump Pelosi.

Another reason Public Pension Funds are underfunded

From Bloomberg:

May 18 (Bloomberg) -- After raising more than $1 billion
for Democratic candidates, Eileen Kotecki transformed herself
into a marketer for hedge funds and private-equity firms,
eventually racking up more than $6.5 billion in sales.

Within weeks of wrapping up the 2000 campaign, Kotecki’s
own attorneys said later in a lawsuit, she had begun “seeking
to exploit” an “impressive network of contacts” gained in
part from “extensive experience as a political fundraiser”
to sell investment services to public pension funds and
endowments.

Taking advantage of political work for private gain isn’t
illegal. Yet Kotecki’s career shift from former Vice President
Al Gore’s chief fundraiser into the placement-agent business
illustrates how it has become the province of the well-
connected, including campaign operatives, out-of-office
politicians, former public pension officials and even a Pro
Football Hall of Fame wide receiver.

Throw all the bums out of office in the next election. All of them from both parties.

Charlie Munger Being Charlie Munger

Thanks to Between The Hedges for poin6ing out this article at Naked Capitalism:

Stanford Law Review has a great interview with Warren Buffett's longstanding partner, Charlie Munger. Munger offers much less corn pone and more direct opinion than Buffett does.

The entire piece is very much worth reading, but I wanted to hone in on some key topics. One is the neglect of the role of what amounts to accounting fraud in this mess. Much of this is technically not fraud under the current regime but would be if the standards of 20 years ago were still in place. We now live in a world where everyone knows that the authorities simply will not take down any of the Big Four. Four is now deemed to be the minimum number of big accounting firms permissible. So we de facto have accounting firms "too big to fail", which means "too big to be asked to eat much liability, not matter how indefensible their conduct." So if they do something bad, they might have to fire a few partners and pay a moderate fine.

So effectively, we live in a world that echoes the Nixon Presidency. If the Big Four does it, it must be legal.

Click here to read the whole thing.

Tim Price nails situation in makets.

The Price of Everything

It’s not just what you know, it’s who you know. And it’s not just who you know, it’s who you pay off.

Click on the this to read it all.

Also for those people fighting the market uptrend, which is most of the professionals, "it is the stimulus stupid". As I have said again and again the huge stimluls put in by the Bush administration has been cyclcling through the system for almost 8 months and it is leakking steadily into the stock market. The stimulus has a much bigger and faster effect on the stock market than on the economy. The money has to go somewhere and some of it is going into equity investment. Some of a stimulus that large is a lot of money. Later on, 4 to 8 months from now the Obama stimulus is going to have its effect and we get a surge from that too. It is all artificial and will eventually go bad, very bad, when they initiate their huge tax increases on a tiny minority group and simultaneously try to shrink the Fed balance sheet. Better get your skates on for that one.

Here come da Fuzz, the Tax Fuzz

Bloom:berg

President Barack Obama proposed raising money to pay for his health-care overhaul by imposing $58 billion in new taxes on securities dealers, life insurance products and Americans with valuable estates.

The eight new proposals, outlined in budget documents released today, are in addition to more than $1 trillion in tax increases over the next decade the president wants to impose beginning in 2011. Those would include higher rates for top earners and restrictions on tax-avoidance techniques commonly used by U.S.-based multinational corporations.

The President has decided to turn the country into a better smelling version of France. He wants an entrenched aristocracy to have all the power and money and the rest of us can eat cake. At least now that he has got his.I wrote sometime last fall that we had just put in the low, the low in tax rates. Obama's legacy may well be that he made sure far fewer people could ascend to affluence.

Grantham: The Last Hurrah

jeremy Grantham's latest quarterly is out at the GMO site. This is a superb piece and should be read by any investor. I have been arguing the case for weeks that this rally would continue because the real driver behind it was the stimulus put in place by the Bush administration in early fall. There has only now been enough time for the effects to show up. Obamas stimulus moves will suffer the same fate; it takes 6 months to a year for monetary stimulus to work its way through the economy. But Grantham demonstrates the power of stimulus on the stock market by looking at the presidential cycle and how little stimulus it takes to move the market.
Mr. Grantham also makes the case that while this rally can be much more powerful than generally expected it is only a rally and that the market is likely to languish for years.
by clicking on the GMO link above you will go to their site where you will be asked to register. this is free and over several years I have never been emailed or solicited in anyway. You will find some very good research on the site which is made available generously for free.

Gartman: Who Pays Their Fair Share?

Thanks to Dennis Gartman of the Gartman Letter for this chart and his commentary today on who really benefitted from the Bush tax cuts and who really pays income taxes in the U.S. The statistics from the government show how unfair our system is. but it is not what you have been told by Obama and the Democratic party. They have lied and continue to lie.
from Mr. Gartman:

Further, where the taxes paid by the top 20% was a
new all time high, the taxes “paid” by the bottom 80%
were all time low percentages.
To counter the Left’s thesis that the “rich” are only
paying more income taxes because they improperly
and unwarrantedly “took” too much of the nation’s total
income, we note that the top quintile’s share of pre-tax
income did indeed rise… from 54.8% of the nation’s
total to 55.7%. This, as the math shows, is hardly some
massive leap of good fortune, but is instead an
increase of only 1.6%. During that same period, their
share of federal income taxes paid rose from 81.2% to
86.3%, or an increase of 6.3%; thus their share of
taxes paid rose 3.9 times faster than their share of the
nation’s income.

under the administration's plans this imbalance will be increased and soon more than half the people will et more from the government than they give. Remember any Obama willing to rob Peter to pay Paul can count on the vote of Paul. The formal policy of the Democtatic Party is to use taxes to enslave the wealthy for the benefit of the indigent or slacker. A policy which is the antithesis of everything that made this country great. Time to speak out, join a TEA party.

Bespoke: Gold

From Bespoke:

Gold Breaks Short Term Downtrend

link to image

weekly commentary from Jeff Saut

raymond James
cpmmentary from Jeff Saut

May 1 Donald Coxe audio

link to audio

Fairly good swine flu news'

Bloomberg:

Swine Flu Expands to ‘Virtually All’ U.S. as Global Cases

The good news is not that it is spreading but that it so far hasn't manifested as a sever disease just one that is very communicable. imagine if SARS had spread this easily.

Coxe and Basic Points

thanks to Market Folly for making Donald Coxe's Basic points for april available.

Krugman being brilliant and correct.

Short and excellent illumination of the cowardice and dishonesty of Pelosi and her crowd with regard to torture and waterboarding.

Torture? No. Except . . .

Very cool jobs lost chart on Slate

Slate

An interactive map of vanishing employment across the country.

This is a great chart dynamically showing job losses over time by county.