Breakfast Links

UDSA Grain Report is released today at 730 AM.  You might want to follow @IndianaGrain on Twitter or Stocktwits. ($ZS_F, $ZC_F, $MON, $SFD, $ZW_F $TSN $POT, $ADM, $JD)

Paul Carr is onto gold digging women. ($GOOG)

Bill Gross on why the US will go broke and he is out of treasuries. It’s entitlements.  I was fortunate enough to meet John McCain before the 2008 campaign.  I asked him about entitlement reform, since that is the biggest line item in the budget by far.  Senator Lieberman was with him, smiled, and said, “that is exactly the right question.”.  We need some answers and fast. ($ZB_F $ZT_F)

An article on pegging the dollar to gold.  I am against this, even if it was to a gold index and not actual physical gold.  The currency market is probably the most liquid in the world.  It could be more transparent, but price is readily seen.  Price is the most important piece of the market.  If you tie currency to gold, Price becomes more less clear, and certain elements of the market will readily have more information than other parts of the market.  That being said, I do agree with seeing what’s on the Federal Reserve books and trying to strengthen the greenback. ($GLD)

Warren Buffett lost an employee.  If Sokol did cheat it’s a shame.  It always amazes that people in his position get greedy and cheat.  Berkshire already gets an edge on the rest of the market because of their cash position.  They see some amazing deals-and they should.  They are a good partner.  The Goldman deal during the financial crisis is an example of one.  Berkshire is a great M+A company and it strikes me as odd that their top employee would be “trading”.  ($GS, $BRK.A)

US M+A on the rise.  This is no surprise.  Cash is building up on corporate balance sheets and all incentives that are set up direct them to M+A.  It’s too expensive to repatriate money into the US (high corp taxes).  It’s too expensive to pay a dividend (high taxes).  Buybacks are stupid.  It’s too risky and expensive to build a factory and expand operations.  The natural follow on is look for someone to buy.  Buyout fever flows downhill.  Speculators look for the next target and load up on the stock, driving up the price.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, they should.  It spills over into the VC community too.  Cash building up on balance sheets all over is also driving higher valuations for start ups. ($MS $BOA $C $JPM)

This winter has been brutal and I am sick of it.  It’s 30 degrees and windy in Chicago and I have had enough.  Where is my global warming?

I thought about doing an entire blog on this, searching YouTube for speeches, but every president from Nixon to Obama talks about energy and does nothing.  Perhaps the free market could do it better.  Why not get rid of the Department of Energy bureaucrats, sell off all the federal land that is tied up and see where a Coaseian free market takes us? ($CL_F $XOM $ICE $CME $RDSA $NG_F)

Here is a list of theaters showing Atlas Shrugged, Part I.

Video of Obama’s economic policy in action, heh

Read more at Points and Figures