Or, if you don’t have access to a real casino, why not double your money playing casino games online !

You’ll find a wide variety of games, payout statistics, and great ways to make your small paycheck into a bigger one! As always, you are taking your risks for yourself, but at least with a casino you know that you will get the statistics ahead of time.

Really this kind of surgery makes all the difference when you want to make a good decision it helps to be able to see what it is you are deciding on.

For those interested, here is some additional information to help you decide to get this procedure done.

- *Lasik normally has no pain.
– *US Lasik results data is available
– *General Lasik information and surgery video available at
– *Stahl Eye Center has been serving patients for more than 35 years.
– *The Stahl Eye Center doctors’ patient outcomes have been independently verified by nonprofit Lasik patient advocacy USAEyes to meet or exceed the national norms for Lasik results. Fewer than 100 doctors nationwide have attained this certification.
– *Stahl Eye Center doctors are graduates from top universities such as UCLA, John Hopkins and Yale.
– *Doctor information is available
– *Stahl Eye Center has three locations in New York including Manhattan and Long Island.

It’s our hearty recommendation that you double your paycheck today.

I had NearVision CK done in a doctor’s office in about 20 minutes and the recovery was only a few hours. There was no no pain.

I visited the Stahl Eye Center which has been serving patients for more than 35 years. It ha been independently verified by nonprofit patient advocacy USAEyes to meet or exceed the national norms. Fewer than 100 doctors nationwide have attained this certification.

Want to read the newspaper again? Maybe you should check it out.

-Jaypee

The biggest decision of the economic recovery will be made in the next six months, and Barack Obama will have almost nothing to do with it.

Forget the debate over TARP, and never mind the questions about a second stimulus. This decision is about when to pull out $1 trillion that’s propping up the U.S. banking system. And it will be Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and his Fed colleagues who make the call.

That’s hard enough for a White House that knows its political fortunes rise and fall with the economy.

What’s worse is that Bernanke and Obama – like many presidents and Fed chairmen past – won’t necessarily have the same goals for this trillion-dollar decision.

Fed chiefs worry about inflation. Bernanke wants to take the money out quickly enough to prevent the economy from overheating and causing a jump in prices that strangles growth. But move too fast, and the economic recovery runs out of fuel.

Presidents worry about jobs. Obama probably wouldn’t mind a little overheating, say, next summer – when voters are starting to make up their minds about the 2010 congressional elections, and he hopes the economy can shake the 10-percent unemployment rate doldrums.

“Any chairman of the Fed will do what’s right for the country, not what’s right for the administration,” said Ernest Patrikis, a partner at the law firm White & Case who spent 30 years at the New York Fed. “That’s his job – that’s why he’s apolitical.”

“The exit will be so difficult,” said economist Joseph Brusuelas of Moody’s Economy.com. “Bernanke wants to engineer a recovery that does not include inflation. Obama wants a more robust recovery and like many political actors may be willing to forgo a little inflation for a little more employment.”

The White House is already worried that jobs won’t be coming back fast enough next year, Fed or no Fed.

Obama economic adviser Christina Romer warned a congressional panel Thursday that the jobs picture will remain “painfully weak” through 2010, with a seriously elevated unemployment rate for another year.

So all the White House can do is watch and wait, and hope it doesn’t pay a political price for any missteps by Fed officials they can’t control.

“It’s a dicey thing to do, and they know it,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee. “They have to be careful.”

The Fed’s moves are shrouded in secrecy, their prerogative to move the levers of the economy closely guarded – so much so that there’s been a recent a rise in populist anger about this all-powerful agency that exists largely outside the democratic process.

But because the Fed is an independent agency, it’s even considered bad form for a president to talk much about it – and indeed, the White House refused to comment for this story.

Last fall, the Fed injected $ 1 trillion-plus into the nation’s banking system – at times, by providing financial institutions with cash to cover their losses as the global meltdown spread. Now Fed officials are already talking about the need to withdraw the funds injected into the economy during the darkest days of the crisis, moves that are credited with largely saving the United States from plummeting into an economic depression.

“Given the highly unusual economic and financial circumstances, judging when the time is appropriate to remove policy accommodation, and then calibrating that removal, will be challenging,” said Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Donald Kohn in a speech to the Cato Institute on Sept. 30. “Still, we need to be ready to take the necessary actions when the time comes, and we will be.”

Translation: “policy accommodation” is the cash, and “the necessary actions” are the decision to ease it out of the economy.”

And is the Fed prepared to the pull the trigger? “We will be” seems to cover it.

Already, the Fed is already showing some signs of restlessness. On Monday, the New York Fed tested its “reverse-repo” process — one tool the Fed could use to use to pull the money out when the time comes. The test run was widely interpreted as a sign the Fed is getting ready to act – but when, nobody knows.

The Fed can also tap on the brakes at the first sign of inflation by raising interest rates, now near zero. The Fed has said it will keep the rock-bottom rates for an extended period, but it won’t be more specific when they could go up – a decision that is bound to be controversial when it comes.

Patrikis thinks the Fed will make a decision on withdrawing liquidity either during the second quarter of 2010, or after the November elections that year – but that it won’t make any dramatic moves in the run-up to Election Day.

Still, he said, it is too early to predict what the Fed might do. And Patrikis points out that Obama will have indirect input into the decision, because there are two vacancies on the Fed’s board now that Obama will fill in the coming months. The president will surely select board members whose economic judgment he trusts.

Between the two vacancies, a member who Obama appointed earlier this year and Bernanke himself, the president will likely have named four of the seven members of the Fed’s Board of Governors by the time they make the call.

But the Fed knows actions like that can have political consequences. “There are few politicians who like higher interest rates,” said one former Fed official. “And President Obama is a politician.” That said, the official continued, “I suspect they will be broadly on the same page.”

That’s because Obama, too, has a longer-term time frame in mind: 2012, when he will be running for reelection. It’s in Obama’s interest for the Fed to take inflation prevention measures now so that he doesn’t have to run a tricky reelection campaign in a high-inflation environment.

Tensions between Presidents and Fed chairmen are nothing new.

In the 1980s, Fed Chairman Paul Volcker declared war on inflation. His strategy: raising interest rates. Volcker jacked the Fed funds rate to 20 percent, which contributed to the deep early 1980s recession that caused howls of protest from the White House and incumbent Republicans on Capitol Hill. The Fed, grumbled then-Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker (R-Tenn.), should “get its boot off the neck of the economy.”

Nonetheless, Volcker’s strategy worked, and the Fed broke the back of the inflation cycle. Ironically, Volcker is a top economic adviser to Obama today.

In the 1990s, President George H.W. Bush blamed Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan for his election loss to Bill Clinton. Bush didn’t believe Greenspan was lowering interest rates fast enough to pull the nation out of a recession – which gave Clinton, with his famous “it’s the economy, stupid” campaign, an opening to trounce the elder Bush.

Mark Gertler, a professor of economics at New York University, says the lesson of history is that politicians should not interfere with the central bank. “If the Fed doesn’t act independently, the economy is endangered,” said Gertler. “It would be dangerous if the administration appeared to be interfering with the Fed.”

Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) doubts they’ll be any daylight between Obama and Bernanke – who Obama just reappointed over the summer at a time when Wall Street needed a signal that there would be continuity at the Fed.

He argues that Bernanke and Obama will have the same agenda in 2010: fixing the economy.

“I think they are very much in sync,” said Frank. Asked about potential divergence between the Fed and the White House, he said, “That reflects a journalist’s hope that there will be friction. Obama and Bernanke have both argued that at some point they’re going to unwind this.”

As Rick Perlstein writes, “the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.

I couldn’t agree more. For instance, we keep hearing how the economy is set to rebound, but look at the data and you see something quite different:

More than 15.2 million U.S. mortgages, or 32.2 percent of all mortgaged properties, were in negative equity position as of June 30, 2009 according to newly released data from First American CoreLogic. As of June 2009, there were an additional 2.5 million mortgaged properties that were approaching negative equity. Negative equity and near negative equity mortgages combined account for nearly 38 percent of all residential properties with a mortgage nationwide.

To me, this looks like Katrina is ready to strike again.

You didn’t really believe it could be that easy for everyone to own their own home did you? Even my crack dealer knew that was a lie.

The Obama administration, in a major shift on housing policy, is abandoning George W. Bush’s vision of creating an “ownership society’’ and instead plans to pump $4.25 billion of economic stimulus money into creating tens of thousands of federally subsidized rental units in American cities.

Based on our economic data and the opinion of my crack dealer, “Mojo”, I am fairly certain that the bottom of the housing market is still nearly five years ahead of us. Real unemployment sits at nearly 25% (because remember, the figures you hear elsewhere are only those collecting benefits, which run out, so when it seems that the numbers are getting better, just the opposite is true. Now they are unemployed and incomeless too.)

All of that is why we recommend that you buy and hold. No one else is going to.

Stocks are plunging and Treasury prices are soaring in the early moments of trading Monday as investors around the world fear that consumers are too skittish to help lift the economy into recovery.

U.S. stocks are down sharply after overseas markets extended the heavy selling that began Friday. That pullback followed a weaker-than-expected reading on consumer confidence.

After sending stocks higher for five months on expectations of an economic recovery, investors are now worried that they have been too optimistic given consumers’ continuing reluctance to spend.

By Heather Havrilesky

Aug. 02, 2009 |

Money makes the world go ’round. Maybe that’s why we resent money so much. It controls our fates. It kicks us when we’re down. It makes us feel helpless, especially when we’re depressed and need a two-hour back massage, a custard-filled doughnut and a brand-new Lexus LX 570 to bring us happiness and fulfillment.

That’s why we Americans worship self-made billionaires. These are people who took revenge on money, bent it to their will, and now they disrespect it right to its face on a daily basis by wasting huge amounts of it on things they don’t really need.

No matter how much we pay lip service to the common good, we all secretly want to be like these billionaires and make money our own personal sniveling handservant. But until we come up with some brilliant product or book or scheme that we can promote on Facebook and tweet about and become instant trillionaires like everyone else who truly understands social networking tools, we’ll continue to be oppressed by that merciless dominatrix, the mighty dollar.

It’s so no-fair! Day after day, we sally forth to do money’s bidding and win her favor! Night after night we wonder if she’ll ever let us live in peace! And still, we can’t help daydreaming of being free to roam the world unafraid of credit cards and retirement goals, free to eat huge plates of overpriced food and have our idle bodies massaged by a team of highly trained minions, free to gloat and brag and swagger through this godforsaken world like only a disgustingly wealthy human can!

Finally, we’ll be able to give back to society, mostly by barreling around town in our luxury SUVs, blasting Dr. Dre and snorting cocaine until we bleed from our ears. When the cops hunt us down and throw us in the slammer and we pay some miserable thief of a lawyer to get us out of it, that’s when we’ll know we’re living the dream, at long last.

You younger folks out there may not understand this fantasy of mine, so let me explain. Back in the olden days, when people “talked” to each other — that’s the old-fashioned word for real-time oral texting of tweets to an adjacent member of the Twitterverse — “banks” or “financial institutions” used to let regular people like you and me “purchase” enormous “homes” by extending us gigantic “loans” that we could never afford to “pay off.” Nonetheless, we viewed these gigantic debts as “investments” and borrowed against our imaginary “equity” to “create” more “wealth,” which we then used to “purchase” luxurious cars and spa vacations in Belize. Instead of worrying about the whole crazy financial circus going tits up one day, we spent our time flat-ironing our hair and downloading more Chingy ringtones.

But now we all look like serious assholes! How did that happen?

Personally, I blame Mark Burnett, who, during the same time period, made actual, concrete stacks of cash by crafting parables and cautionary tales of American greed using a brand-new genre, reality TV — and he did it all without the help of social networking tools, which hadn’t even been invented yet! Incredible.

Instead of treating reality TV like the filthy whore that it longed to be from a very young age, Burnett respected it and bought it shiny things and sent it to live in a castle, like a princess. He didn’t just film shows on his flip cameras like most reality producers do today. No, no, he used really good cameras and hired people who actually knew how to use them. He also hired experienced editors who knew how to cut together a proper narrative, one that might pound home the same moral over and over again: Greed corrupts. Meanwhile, Burnett spent his time, like all unbearably wealthy humans do, getting his ears waxed and drinking fantastic wine and bedding optimistic nymphs and marveling over the countless charms of artisanal cheeses.

But apparently Burnett has grown bored watching his money grow, so he’s back with a new televisual morality tale, this one a direct and firm “Nanny nanny boo boo” to those who have dared to try to create towering stacks of cash without the superior wisdom and insights and crafty business acumen of Burnett himself. Burnett rightly recognized that America was filled with such struggling fools — misguided entrepreneurs and inventors, armed with foolhardy business plans and no real understanding of marketing (or the market system, for that matter), borrowing against their houses and their retirement plans just for a chance to do right by their kids, mostly by speeding around town in a luxury vehicle, bleeding from every orifice.

Interestingly enough, Burnett sold his new TV show to ABC, aka the Lady-Scented Network, revealing that the man knows us even better than we know ourselves: Ladies love obsessing about money. This time, though, Burnett threw out the costly extras — the pricey cameras, the high production values, the tasteful, subtle sets — instead favoring a look and tone roughly similar to that of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” or “Deal or No Deal,” but with some cheap voice-over talent in place of the pricey interpersonal stylings of your Regis Philbins and your Howie Mandels. He employed background footage of his contestants that looked like it was cobbled together from interviews shot on some personal assistant’s cellphone, interspersed with stock footage of ducks milling about a pound in Anywhere, USA. The concept, roughly Billionaire Assholes Give Aspiring Billionaires Wedgies, Make Them Weep Into Their Hands, was obviously a sad souvenir from some long forgotten time, a weak little shout-out (remember those?) to the easy money and “Greed Is Good” mentality of the post-dot-com-crash boom. (It’s telling that America’s financial high points sound like the script of a particularly lively skit from “Zoom.”)

And yet, ABC’s “Shark Tank” (premieres 9 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 9) is easily the best new reality TV show to air this summer (which, admittedly, isn’t saying much). Despite the rewarmed concept (“American Inventor,” anyone?), the bad set, the cheap voice-over and almost everything else, Mark Burnett still knows how to do one thing really well: Find ordinary people who are uniquely qualified to hold forth in front of the camera.

For “Shark Tank,” which is apparently an adaptation of a popular Japanese series called “Dragons’ Den,” Burnett brings face to face two groups of people whom we Americans can never get enough of: 1) billionaires who think they know everything just because they’re rich, and 2) regular people who want to be billionaires, but who are missing some crucial piece to the puzzle, whether it’s a solid business plan, adequate start-up capital, savvy marketing ideas or just common sense.

Now, the ugly secret is that most of us long to be demeaned by a really condescending billionaire. We want him or her to tell us exactly why we’re working like dogs instead of sniffing fantastic wines and appreciating artisanal cheeses right now. Where did we go wrong? Is it the unprofessional image we project, with our frizzy hair and our Chingy ringtone? Or is it the fact that we can’t get out of bed in the morning without picturing the cheese Danish we’re going to buy ourselves as a reward for getting out of bed in the morning?

The nice thing about most billionaires is that they’re self-important assholes, and therefore will never hesitate to tell regular non-billionaires about the sorry choices they’ve made to get where they are. But Burnett’s team of billionaires — henceforth known as “sharks” — are special. These are people who make us want to be billionaires all the more, because they’re charismatic and quick-witted and unapologetic but also surprisingly diplomatic. These are people who shamelessly congratulate themselves on their own genius, but do it in a way that we’re confused into thinking someone else said it. They’re like expert ventriloquists whose dummies blow smoke up their asses every few seconds.

Even as we’re told that Kevin O’Leary started a software business in his basement that he sold for $3 billion or Barbara Corcoran built an enormous real estate empire using only a piece of already-chewed bubble gum and a plastic replica of the Empire State Building, we immediately recognize that these people’s most notable talent is not their enormous, unyielding belief in themselves, but their ability to make other people believe in them. They have the right look in their eyes. Their tone of voice is half radio announcer, half priest. They’re impeccably groomed — groomed not just for TV, but for the handling of enormous stacks of cash. Yes, yes, Kevin Harrington is the “king of infomercials,” Daymond John created a trillion-dollar, international clothing company from a $5 bill he found in the gutter, Robert Herjavec formed an Internet company from stray pennies and sealing wax, then sold it for quadrillions. We instinctively recognize that those facts are beside the point entirely: These human beings are plainly better than us in every way, and we long for them to explain why, in detail, so we can feel even shittier about ourselves than we already do.

This is what the aspiring businesspeople who enter the Shark Tank want, too. The entrepreneurs, a mix made up of roughly one part charming underdogs to two parts hopeless losers, present their businesses or business ideas to the panel of sharks (billionaires) and the sharks either invest their own money (which is sitting right in front of them in great big piles, naturally) and own a stake in the businesses, or they tell these people why they’re deluded idiots who should go home penniless and start searching the want ads for a new profession.

But no one leaves until they leave it all on the floor of the Shark Tank – and by “it all” I mean their hopes, their dreams, their dignity, everything. Hell, even the more successful business owners who enter the Shark Tank have their low moments. Take Tod Wilson, a guy who makes delicious-looking pies out of a small store in Somerset, N.J. When Tod tearily recalls how he took too many risks in his pursuit of success and “spent the next four months living in my car,” Kevin interrupts him: “Tod, never cry about money. It never cries for you.” Kevin, the Simon Cowell of “Shark Tank,” disrespects money so much that he puts words into money’s mouth whenever he feels like it.

“Kevin’s wrong,” says Robert, the Robert Wagner of “Shark Tank.” “If you’re emotional and you’re great at something, the money will follow.”

“I don’t get emotional about money,” says Kevin. Money is Kevin’s little bitch.

I’m immediately envious of Kevin. I am money’s needy girlfriend, the one who wastes all her time wondering why money doesn’t call more often. I can’t face the fact that money is just not that into me.

Next up is Darren Johnson, the inventor of the Ionic Ear. The Ionic Ear is basically a cellphone that you get surgically implanted into your ear. As soon as the sharks figure this out, they’re chortling openly, right in Darren’s face. How do you charge that thing? One of them wants to know.

“Well,” Darren explains, “you plug an AC cord into your head every night, of course.”

Robert’s not sure he heard that right. “You stick that needle into your head every night to charge it?” Yes, replies Darren. That’s exactly what you do.

“What happens if you miss, Darren?” asks Kevin.

“You can’t miss,” says Darren. Meaning you can’t miss without electrocuting yourself?

“How do I do an upgrade? I go back and get another operation?” asks Robert.

Yes, it seems you’ll need another operation if you want a better phone. But who among us doesn’t crave unnecessary surgical procedures, paired with electrical cords sticking into our heads every night for the rest of our lives?

“The first time you heard of breast implants, what did you think?” asks Darren, trying to gain control of this sinking ship.

“I love it!” shouts Daymond, and all of the sharks are reduced to hysterics.

Next we have Kevin Flannery from Cary, N.C. (Apparently Kevin lives very close to some ducks and a pond that look remarkably similar to the ducks and ponds in Somerset, N.J.) Kevin has developed something called Wi Spots – hand-held screens that sit in the waiting rooms of doctors’ offices and spit out games and “content” (red flag!) and also lots of advertising, so that bored patients can learn about Chef Boyardee products instead of sitting around doing nothing. Immediately, a mere ignorant bystander can see that even if this is a good concept (which looks unlikely), it’s not something that Kevin has patented or owns or is even the ideal person to develop.

This is the point where we all think of That Friend, the one who always has a “brilliant” idea that he has no patent for, doesn’t understand and has never really researched. Or, if he has spent time on it, he only did the fun stuff (Package design! Cool product names!) and never learned the basics of balance sheets and profit margins and all of that other crap. Now, granted, we don’t know anything about that stuff, either, but at least we know that we don’t know anything and therefore wouldn’t waste our time and energy on something that depends on said knowledge, so that we can dedicate most of our time to daydreaming about cheese danishes instead.

This is what I love about “Shark Tank.” You get to see the same look of recognition on the faces of all the sharks at the same time, as they simultaneously realize (a few seconds before you do, typically) that this product or business concept is hopeless or overvalued or just ill-conceived. These people understand the basics of business, and they’re more than happy to drop their knowledge on the confused humans standing before them — or congratulate them and throw money behind their concepts, occasionally even outbidding each other for the chance.

Sadly, though, Kevin’s story goes from funny to tragic in seconds. “I left my previous position so I could put all of my time, energy and effort into Wi Spots,” he says. Then he explains that he funded his business by mortgaging his home twice, cashing out his kids’ college accounts, emptying his 401K, and putting a ton of debt on his credit cards.

The sharks cringe. It’s time for the Simon Cowell shark to interrupt. “Stop right there,” Kevin the Shark tells Kevin the Naive Pilot Fish. “I’m going to do you a huge favor. Here’s how I think of my money: Soldiers. I send them out to war every day, I want them to take prisoners and come home so there’s more of them. Your army, every soldier dies that you send out every day.”

Hmm. Let’s see. So he’s saying … Be more of a demeaning sergeant to your money, and less of a mourning widower?

The lessons of “Shark Tank” are not always crystal clear, but the moral is: You’ll never be a billionaire unless a billionaire takes you under his wing and demonstrates the proper ways to insult, demean, ridicule and torment your money into submission. In other words, “Shark Tank” is “The Rules” for the wannabe rich: You let your money know that you’re too busy and important to care all that much about it, and suddenly more and more money is following you around, trying desperately to get into your pants.

Mark Burnett knows television. And just as these haughty billionaires have earned the right to laugh in the faces of those who would dare to reach for the tall dollars, so, too, has Mark Burnett earned the right to laugh in our faces as he produces for us yet another cautionary tale of greedy excess (this one produced on the cheap, it being a recession and all, to keep profit margins meaty). Mark Burnett knows television and he knows us, and “Shark Tank” is chum for the poor man’s soul.

Unemployment levels are reported significantly higher than expected and the market swoops up more than 150 points to nearly 9500. It’s highest level since these shenanigans began.

Ohio has not been the state hardest hit by the U.S. recession that began in December 2007, but it is not far off.

Unemployment in the state of 11.5 million people reached 11.1 percent in June, compared with the national rate of 9.5 percent, making it the seventh highest rate in the country. Michigan was first with a rate of 15.2 percent.

Ohio’s unemployment has nearly doubled from 5.7 percent in January 2008.

We can tell you that the stock market is actually a way for the rich to take the poors money. We suggest you instead start growing marijuana hydrologically. Like they do in Florida:

California may be the center of the marijuana trade and the controversies over its legalization. But Florida has surpassed it in one important category: the Sunshine State is now the country’s leader in indoor marijuana cultivation. It is a potent distinction because most of the marijuana grown this way is cultured hydroponically – that is, mostly without soil and with a carefully calibrated cocktail of chemicals and lighting – to create some of the highest level of highs on the market.

In 2006, Florida law enforcement here discovered 480 homes growing marijuana indoors. Last year, 1,022 grow houses were busted. “This isn’t your grandma’s marijuana,” quipped a Miami-Dade narcotics officer at one bust as he tossed garbage bags stuffed with confiscated marijuana into an unmarked police truck. Levels of THC – the agent in marijuana that produces feelings of euphoria, and in some users mild hallucinations and paranoia – have risen dramatically because of indoor techniques. Thirty years ago, most marijuana contained about 7% THC. Today, indoor growers boast THC levels of 25% or higher thanks to the additional care that indoor plants receive. (See pictures of 4/20, the unofficial pot holiday.)

Indoors, high-powered lights that stimulate growth can remain on all day, their nourishing rays reflected off the metallic-coated paper covering walls. The chemical fertilizers used are just as powerful and nourishing, spawning fast-growing plants that produce more THC than those raised outdoors.

Full story at Time.com

We also feel that there are some solid investment opportunities out there for the creative investor. For example, consider this story and imagine what it says will be a good investment:

WASHINGTON — The federal government isn’t prepared for a potential outbreak of swine flu this fall, a Government Accountability Office report released to Congress concluded Wednesday.

Furthermore, said the GAO, Congress’ nonpartisan investigative arm, federal agencies haven’t addressed nearly half of the 24 recommendations it made last month.

William Coor, the deputy secretary of Health and Human Services, disputed the findings.

“Given the speed at which the virus has spread we felt our work and coordination has been outstanding,” he said. However, Jane Holl Lute, the deputy secretary of Homeland Security, acknowledged that, “We still have work to do.”

The GAO agreed, saying that if a severe outbreak struck:

* Federal, state and local governments would have trouble coordinating with one another.

* The number of beds and medical supplies would be insufficient, and plans to protect federal workers aren’t adequate.

Health officials worldwide acknowledge that the virus has reached pandemic proportions and could strike more severely in the fall. In the U.S., more than 43,000 people have contracted the virus, and so far, 302 have died.

What to invest in? Pharmaceuticals? Nope. We recommend kleenex, toilet paper, and emergency hospital beds. Think about it.

Another great new product will be useful in calming people down during the panic:

Slow Cow is the exact opposite of the energy drinks that cause hyperactivity, anxiety and the jitters. The anti-energy drink contains ingredients like theanine, chamomile, valerian, passiflora and other ingredients known for their calming effects. Slow Cow promises to help people destress and relax, while increasing mental awareness at the same time.

1) Invest in beef today.

King Soopers grocery stores are recalling approximately 466,236 pounds of ground beef products — including pre-made hamburger patties — that may be linked to a 14-person outbreak of antibiotic-resistant salmonellosis in Colorado, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.

This particular strain of Salmonella, Salmonella Typhimurium DT104, is resistant to many commonly prescribed drugs, which can increase the risk of hospitalization or possible treatment failure in infected individuals.

2) Invest antibiotics that don’t work. When they don’t work, people will buy more of them because they will still be sick. Then they will die, so you don’t have to worry about them asking for a refund.

3) Invest in thermometers, the old kind filled with mercury.

The United States still exports surplus elemental mercury, the purest form, often to developing countries with less restrictive environmental regulations. Then-U.S. Sen. Barack Obama sponsored a bill last year to bar mercury exports beginning in 2013, and President Bush signed it.

The bill also requires the Department of Energy to identify a safe, long-term storage site for up to 17,000 tons of mercury, which is so dense that it would fill less than half of an Olympic-size swimming pool. That includes stockpiles held by the federal government, as well as commercial supplies.

Officials are considering sites in seven states: Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Missouri and South Carolina. Six already operate as federal defense or nuclear sites, but residents are swiftly voicing opposition because mercury is such a toxic substance.

3) Logging. With a Democratic president, it will be easier to pass legislation that opens up areas that were off limits to Republicans to logging and mining. Of course, the President still has the same bosses and incentives, so that means the watchdogs are called off and our work can go forward. Why isn’t Obama’s EPA reversing unhealthy Bush-era mercury pollution levels from coal power plants, or western Colorado’s picturesque Roan Plateau leased for oil and gas drilling? Further, this White House isn’t fighting the destructive dumping of leftover tailings into mountain steams by Eastern strip miners. Why? Ah yes, we love it.

“Obama Administration Approves First Roadless Logging Contract In Alaska’s Tongass National Forest.”

Of course, “roadless logging” makes no sense: old growth forests are old and pristine because they don’t have roads. Wild, isolated forests we call Nature: roadways (our government at work) transform placid trees into timber that, like mining and ranching, costs far more than users pay.

We are certain that the best investment at the moment is going to surprise most of you. Our analysts feel that the greatest investment potential is in California real estate.

The California budget crisis has created what may be the single greatest opportunity since the Gold Rush of the 1840′s.

Land in California is dirt cheap and the state is almost completely broke. This situation has led to serious consideration of legalizing marijuana in the Golden State. Legalization will not only create opportunities for tax revenue but will also create a situation where farmers will suddenly be able to realize huge legal profits on what has been the number one cash crop of the state for the past five decades.

In addition, every stoner from coast to coast will be making the journey to the new Mecca of Mary Jane. California will outstrip Amsterdam as the destination of choice for those who like to smoke ganja. This incredible tourism opportunity will create a tourism boom in a state that already offers beautiful beaches, Yellowstone, the Redwoods, several mountain ranges, scenic deserts, and Disneyland.

The market will be especially ripe for low budget accommodation for short term and long term visitors. Every Okie that has left the state will be returning and bringing their incredibly high kin with them along with every piece of crap they can fit on the top of their Dodge trucks.

The rental market will also see renewed growth as California releases hundreds of thousands of prisoners who are sitting in jail cells for crimes related to possession or dealing small amounts of marijuana. These one time jailbirds will be prime targets for savvy slumlords and will probably manage to pay the rent since they will have access to high quality marijuana which they can then run across state lines to Nevada, Oregon, Arizona, and Washington state.

So, we are telling our clients to invest heavily in California real estate. At the top of our list is farmland or houses that have enough space to grow hydroponic gardens. After growth space, we recommend flop houses. Finally we think inner city slum areas where existing drug kingpins live will reach amazing levels of gentrification as the other drugs reach ‘new highs’ on the California black market.