Mr. Attwood of the Illinois Pension system gets the "I get it award" in the terms of institutional investing.  His interview on Bloomberg this morning (7/1/2009) should be required viewing for all Public Fund Trustees.

Good for you Mr. Attwood, getting the big picture right is far more important than the active managers attempts at adding value  by choosing between Exxon or Chevron. 

Now, the Trustees at the Alaska Permanent Fund and their new CIO get the "WTF are you thinking" question mark.  Talk about an institution that is drowning in self doubt, confusion, and has forgot what their purpose is.  One of the easy Trustee jobs in the world, all you have to is earn something and all the citizens of Alaska rejoice.  NO expectations at all, just free money from the government.  Yet, the collection of  fools tries to "maximize  total return" which has now jeapardized the dividend. 

The question is for these Trustees is: Does the hope of getting that extra one percent of return worth jeapardizing the billion dollar plus annual stimulus to the Alaskan economy?

Any sane Trustee would understand this, unfortunately, somehow Alaska has assembled six Trustees that appear clueless to their duty as a Trustees.

Living in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals district challenges once faith in the U.S. Judicial system.  The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Army Corp of Engineers permit for Coeur Alaska to put waste rock in a swamp,er e by restoring my faith that Agencies of th e

Now, I hope the Eco-terrorists:  Southeast Alaska Conservation Council, Sierra Club and Lynn Canal Conservation get the bill for Coeur's legal bill. 

A picture is better than my writing.

There is a very big case pending in the United States Supreme Court regarding the Kensington Mine  just North of Juneau Alaska.  The Court has until June 30, 2009 to decide this case.  I have noticed unusually high volume so far this month, in fact out of the ordinary.  While gold and silver explore some of the highest prices  EVER, Coeur's stock has dropped from $15 to $11?

High Volume, unusual price behavior makes this investor wonder who is leaking what  to whom?  President Obama, the Supreme Court needs to be investigated, something ain't right here. 

Charts don't lie.



I just wanted to add a couple other questions.

What is Chief Justice Roberts relationship with Juneau, Alaska Mayor, environmental activist and former Alaska Attorney General?

What relationships does Mayor Botelho have with the environmental movement, including Southeast Alaska Conservation Coalition the bringer of this case?

Something is afoot and it is not transparent.

If we are to address the realities of run-away healtcare costs, there are a number of issues that must be resolved.

First, individuals need to understand the relationship between what they do, eat, drink, ingest, smoke, expose themselves too determines most of the health issues they will face over their life times.  For example, poor eating habits either too much or too little create healthcare issues that left unattended, get worse, get more expensive and lead to the early expiration of the person.  Take responsibility for yourself and eat better, drink more water and walk a couple times a week. 

Second the legal system is a major driver of medical expense growth.  Doctors are not God.  They do not know everything, they cannot fix everything, and sometimes even make mistakes.  The lottery mentality of the legal - medical system has to go. 

Third, we have to break the lock the Doctors Union has on who provides healthcare and control on what level what education is required provide what level of service.   We need more service providers, but do they all need to be Doctors? 

Forth, insurance is a pretty straight forward concept, how it has been bastardized in the medical field is amazing.  Lets take  a look at  auto insurance as a comparison.  The more tickets, fines, accidents, DWI's you rack-up, the more expensive your insurance.  But  why is health insurance different?  Why do I pay at the same rate as a smoker with lung-cancer or a drunk with liver problems?  Why should I pay at the same rate as the snow skier who tears up their knees and ankles?  For some reason health insurance goes out  of its way not to hold the individual responible and to price their insurance accordingly. 

Fifth, why is America so fixed on healthcare?  Could it be the billions of dollars of advertising spent each year to sell us products, devices and other crap we could do without?

I could go on and on but none of it matters, unless we individuals start taking responibilitiy for ourselves and our own  health.  Then, we can go after the various industries by electing people who work for us and not lobbyists. 

With four of the six Gulf States agreeing to create a monetary union, the oil - dollar relationship is about to change radically. 

America has benefited from having oil priced in dollars.  It has given us an advantage in that everyone else had be compared to and evaluated against us US.  Rarely does the standard go through a rigorous evaluation and that is our advantage.   Look, we have tons of evidence in the past year:  GM, AIG, Citi for example. 

America is starting to be evaluated because the "Standard" is now questionable.  Anyone else with our balance sheet, low interest rates, and out of control government spending and waste would be no better than single A credit with devaluing currency.  (We do have the devaluing currency) 

Shore up our balance sheet, raise interest rates and protect  our currency Mr. President or the worldwide Carbon Market will be priced in another currency along with oil.

Interesting to see how far we have yet  to go, given how far we have come.

A picture says it all.

XLE is coming up on $52 again and I will let you see for yourself.  I do not believe in this rally or "Green Shoots" in the economy.  I am always prepared to be wrong and therefore keep a flexible and open mind.  If XLE breaks above $52, it is going to test my flexibility and force me in.  If this prints $55, you better be a buyer.  It may be a dollar play as much as anything else, I cannot believe it is a demand driven run up.

The CFO of the Municipality of Chicago was a co-host this morning on Bloomberg TV at the Morningstar Investors Conference, (I was not invited) and he brought up the Federal Government  backing Muni Paper in order to save money. 

The idea of States Rights, and other separations of governement was brought up, but he suggested those distinctions were for a different era.  I could not agree more!

Local, state and federal governements are out of control in growth.  Where the Fed's mandate state and local growth and the state mandating local  government growth.  I pointed out something like this in a previous rant where I used Thurston County Washington.  Probably about a half million people, mostly employees of a government (Olympia is the Capital) and they have a few cities:  Tumwater, Lacey, Olympia and Yelm are the largest ones.

Each city has its own police and fire departments, with county police and fire departments and then State  police also.

Now, Mason county is right next door with one "city", Shelton.  It has all the same duplications with all the same mandates and a fraction of the population.  It  just makes  you wonder what is all  the benefit  of this duplication?  Is it "Civic Pride"  I am from Thurston County, not  Mason?

As citizens it is time to evaluate how we have  government structured.  Is it serving our needs?  Do the things that need  to get done, get done in a timely and professional fashion?  Is this the most  financially efficient structure of operating and funding these esential functions?  Could we save money from consolidation of the local governemernts?

I live in Juneau, Alaska, Capital of Alaska.  It is a unified City and Borough (like a county).  Way back in 1971 in order to save money the people of the Borough of Juneau voted to consolidate its goverment operations into one.

It is time for the citizens to seriously evaluate the structure of goverment in the United States.  It is my contention we are not getting our moneys worth and with some drastic consolidation we can save the U.S. economy a substantial drag on growth and productivity.