This has to be one of the most depressing weeks that people in our country dread…tax week.\u00c2\u00a0 It is not just the day where we submit a huge chunk of our earnings but it is the misery leading up collecting all of the right information, forms and then filling it out.\u00c2\u00a0 This is not even considering the agony of doing it yourself or the stress that comes with the uncertainty if you did everything correctly according to the several thousand page IRS tax code.\u00c2\u00a0 All I can say it good luck to those who are filling it out and I hope you are owed a refund and that you actually get it.\u00c2\u00a0 There have been rumors that some states will be holding onto these refunds until they can get out of the woods.\u00c2\u00a0 I live in one of these states, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m ok, because I know I owe them money.\u00c2\u00a0 I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stand giving Uncle Sam an interest free loan.\u00c2\u00a0 I am truly amazed at the amount of people that rely on their refund.\u00c2\u00a0 It is just a sign of the times that people have to rely on the government to take their money away from them so they will not spend it, and then give it back to them without getting paid any kind of interest or return.\u00c2\u00a0 I better watch what I say or I will end up with an audit next month.<\/p>\n
The macro – problem that I see is two fold: this is just not a one state problem and the problems are not lack of revenue.\u00c2\u00a0 The problems stem from years of overspending and delaying payments to pension plans.\u00c2\u00a0 Now that there is a lack of tax revenue it is only highlighting the true neglect that has gone on for years. This can not be blamed on one party because most of these issues go back through many administrations.\u00c2\u00a0 This is similar to our national government, but they can create money out of thin air.\u00c2\u00a0 Over the past two years we have seen our interest rates a nearly zero, but long term bond rates are being forced higher by our international counter parties.\u00c2\u00a0 This is something we have written about over the past several weeks.\u00c2\u00a0 Foreign countries who are natural buyers of our debt are demanding higher yields.\u00c2\u00a0 This will drive up the cost of funding our national deficit.\u00c2\u00a0 We talked in depth on the ^TNX (CBOE Ten year Note Interest Rate).<\/p>\n
I read an interesting article over the weekend that pointed out that we have not had a 1% pullback in the market for over 45 days on the S&P500.\u00c2\u00a0 This has really only happened about 15 times in the past 20 years.\u00c2\u00a0 The bull markets in 1995, 2000, 2003 and 2007 all had similar rallies.\u00c2\u00a0 What can we infer from this\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6not much.\u00c2\u00a0 There is no clear pattern, but the longest run was 67 days without a 1% pullback.\u00c2\u00a0 Now that we are above 11k on the DJIA, all is good in the world.\u00c2\u00a0 No need to worry about those people on unemployment or the rise in your healthcare costs. Maybe a 1% pullback is in the works between now and our 67th<\/sup> day.<\/p>\n A follow up from something we have been covering for months and mentioned in last weeks webinar on the differential between the physical and paper gold and silver markets.\u00c2\u00a0 The NY post wrote an article on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Metals are the Pits.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n