The Bon Vivant

In the old days we would short against the box to protect a taxable position. That is harder to do today.

Lets start with the facts first:

-Poor leadership in Iran has their inflation running through the roof....literally..house prices are up 30% in recent weeks as people pour remaining cash into hard assets as their currency plummets.
-Poor leadership in Venezuela forces their fifth devaluation of their currency since 2003....and under their current president their currency has been devalued by 992%. Yet gasoline is still sold for 12cts a gallon....talk about buying votes!
-Poor leadership in Japan has allowed their currency to be devalued some 20% in the past 90 days....and their stock market goes higher too.
-Poor leadership in Argentina has forced food price controls across society and not allowed that country to access critical global debt/ fixed income markets.
-Poor leadership in India is raising taxes again on the rich....only 35 million people in India file a tax return with a country of well over a billion folks.
-Poor leadership in China has allowed total public and private debt to explode to over 200% of GDP....a debt bubble??
-Poor leadership in Canada has a probable housing bubble bursting there now as well....especially in Toronto....Vancouver prices have started to fall.
-Poor leadership in Australia has the two largest property developers writing off $600 million in their properties in the past two weeks.....their banks are amongst the largest in the world. Their high taxes are slowing their economy.
-Poor leadership in Britain has their pound at two year lows and their economy at recession levels...

Globally demographics are starting to become an issue and will be hard to address with all this debt!

Do you see a trend here?? If you adjust global "growth" after inflation there is no growth....The tape is suggesting an earnings peak...and the yield chasers will be stung.....each day bonds go down and utilities go up is a warning sign...the market feels like it is struggling in this current rotation.

The Great Lakes are at their lowest water levels since recording began in 1918. Off an incredible 17 inches in the past year alone. If we do not have enormous spring rains the Mississippi will not function soon. The Great Lakes store 84% of this nations fresh water.

It is hard right now to find "the best house in a poor neighborhood." Patience will be rewarded.

As the current Captain of the great baseball team said, "It's not like I go out saying, I've got to prove something, I just want to continue to improve. That's the approach I've always taken."

Imagine if the world had more folks like this in a leadership position representing common folks who are clueless to incredibly poor policies and tax being hammered into place...and how much better their lives could be!

The most celebrated investor of our time said this morning the 30 year Treasury bond is the worst investment of the day......he also said go out and buy a house and get as big a 30 year fixed mortgage as possible locking in current low interest rate....and of course we agree.

Danny Boy seen here ready for action.....it is coming to those yield chasers!