The Market is going up and up.

Never one to make forecasts, here is one for the record. The stock market is going up and up. It is going up for the wrong reasons, but if you are in it, who cares? Yes, you are going to pay more taxes. Yes, the health care bill will be passed in some fashion and it will cost all of us more money one way or another. Yes, unemployment will stay where it is in reality, but the administration will eventually redefine the unemployment rate measure so it will seem to decrease. Yes, financial reform will be a flash in the pan. The administration “reformers” all want high bonus paying jobs with the banks when they leave the administration so they are not going to put holes in their future golden parachutes. Nothing new here under the sun. Same old. Same old. But, the market will go up.

Obama will interpret the rising stock market as proof that his hopes and dreams for this country are being realized. He will take credit for it for awhile, but eventually recognizing the huge problems, he dodged; Obama will decline to run again. Why test blind luck? He will announce he can do more in the private sector as CEO of the largest health care insurance company in the world that will be formed a year from now by an aggregation of the largest global insurance companies who became integrated to form a greater risk pool. It will become the beginning of a global health care insurance provider operating in 50 countries. Get sick anywhere in the world. Get treatment anywhere in the world. And pay with the new global currency. Global health care is part of our manifest destiny. Whew that was a lot to say and even contemplate!

The banks will win and you will continue to pay exorbitant interests on your credit cards. Global warming will cost more money and we will still be paying through the tooth for foreign oil, despite having more oil than we can drill in Alaska. So what!

With all this in mind, the market has no choice but to go up. Why? Because real estate investment is dead. The banks pay less than 1% on a $100,000 2 year CD. CD investment is dead. Treasuries are dead. Yesterday, I , the typical average investor, called BofA and withdrew one of my CDs paying 0.59%, that is $590 annual interest for letting them have $100,000 for 12 months-which they loan to some sucker on a credit card at 15%, 30 times more than they pay me. Do you see my point?

The only place remaining to put your money, with a modicum of chance to make a decent return on investment is the stock market. And average investors like me are running to equities to make a little more than the bank. Equities often pay dividends as well as the opportunity for price appreciation. For example, Garmin just announced a $1.50 annual dividend at a stock price of $36, which is 4.5% annually-8 times more than a bank is paying on CDs. Citibank used to be $50 per share. It is now $4. And so on and so on. Money is flowing into the market because that is the only place to go. Millions of people saved millions of dollars for retirement based on earning 6-9% interest to live on. They are turning to the market as the only place left to realize their retirement dreams.

For all of the above reasons, the market is going up the rest of the year. But just in case I am wrong, please do not hold me responsible for believing all that you read.

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A struggling writer.