Tracy Caldwell Dyson - astronaut, russia

A Soyuz descent module carrying Russians Alexander Skvortsov and Mikhail Korniyenko, and NASA's Tracy Caldwell Dyson came back to Earth September 25, 2010 from the International Space Station and landed safely in Kazakhstan, a day after an initial attempt to return was aborted after latches holding the Soyuz TMA-18 craft to the orbital station failed to open.

Why are companies bulging with cash and should gov borrow more or less?

From Jason Thomas article in National Affairs.  There are 2 theories about why companies have amassed so much cash right now and are not spending it.  One is that there are no customers right now and so why build new plants and shops?  The other is a David Ricardo theory that when businesses see an increase in government debt, they start to save more because they know taxes will rise in the future.

Which is true?  If the second one is true then the almost $1 trillion stimulus program by the fed gov is bad because it will make things worse because gov had to borrow more to get the money for the stimulus.  So instead of stimulating, the stimulus will cause businesses to invest even less in new projects and save more. This is because the businesses will see that they will have to pay even higher taxes in future due to the higher gov debt.

Also, even more borrowing by US fed gov could finally exhaust the willingness of bond holders (like Chineese gov and others) and make them demand higher interest to keep buying US bonds.  Interest rates are very low right now (fall 2010).  If rates go up enough it will cause recession and crush US economy.

But others say that US gov should continue or even increase US gov debt level because to start to balance the Fed budget (by lowering gov spending) as was done between 1936 and 1938 will cause a massive slow down and drop in output that will cause an increase in unemployment.

Bought International stock fund for GTNC

TOday I bought $45,000 of VGTSX Vanguard Total International stock fund for GTNC.  We had too much cash and bonds, so I bought some stock. Share price was $16.09.

sold intermediate bonds for GTNC Vanguard account

Todat I sold 250k of intermediate bond fund VFIDX and bought short term bonds VFSUX.  I did this because I still anticipate interest rates going up at some point.

Bought Ivy fund and more municipals from John Snowden

Yesterday John Snowden called me and told me I had 100k in cash in account due to sale of longer term municipal bonds.  I told him to buy 30k of Ivy New Opportunity fund (INOAX) which he had told me about, and 70k of municipal bonds less than 5 year maturity.  This is in Morgan Keegan non IRA account.

Bought VEUSX today for Macon road

Today I bought $50,000 of Vanguard European Stock index fund (VEUSX).  That fund follows the MSCI Europe Index.  We need more stock (as opposed to bonds and cash) in the Macon road portfolio, and we already have some US large cap and US small cap.  We also already have some Pacific and emerging markets index funds.  I picked the amount of $50,000 because that's the amount of the money I recently sent to Vanguard that came from the Macon road CD at Cadence.