[Lion Den Dan]

If the performance of my portfolio over the last year and particularly the last quarter indicates recession, then recede away. Retirement never looked so good.

[businessprofessor]

In the long term, I am pessimistic about a rat takeover. The combination of the pending baby boom retirement and the terrible rat policies does not look good to me. I will probably move out of the market in 2008 because of my pessimism unless it looks like we will have a winning Republican presidential candidate. If the rats grab firm control of the federal government, here are the policies that await us:

- Huge new entitlements: health care, prescription drugs, student financial aid, education (especially pre K), mortgages, telecommunications, and family leave
- Amnesty leading to open borders and a huge surge of welfare
- Dramatic tax increases on capital gains, dividends, earnings, estates, and corporations
- Energy mandates and hard limits on CO2 levels
- Further restrictions on development of oil (including refineries), natural gas, coal, and nuclear power
- Relaxation of litigation restrictions in health care, securities, and transportation

[cherry]

my husbands’boss apparently doubled the value of his stocks last year, and quadrupled his wifes’....I don’t know how he did it, but he did it on his own, and I think he was heavy into RIMM.