On the surface, spending money is a great way to jump-start a weak economy. Ever since the government became such a large part of the economy (can you believe we didn't even have an income tax before 1913?) government tax and spend policy (AKA fiscal policy) has been used to "manage" economic growth.

If you recall from the last few issues of the Powerfund Portfolios, we talked about the panic investors felt when the Dow was in the low 7,000's, and how everyone had become severely risk averse. Much money piled into "safe" government bonds, lowering yields. Recently, as the market rallied back sharply, many of these same investors forgot all the things that made them scared in the first place - corporate scandals, a weak economy, looming war and terrorist threats, and lackluster earnings (to name just a few).

While there has been good news on some economic fronts, the sad fact is most of the activity in the markets is primarily from two forces: 1) the alternatives to stocks are bleak 2) the nagging feeling among investors that they if they don't get in now they could miss out on some action.

The conservative portfolio continues being our best performing portfolio, which is how you'd want a safe portfolio to do in a down market. Dragging it down are weak performance in the few stock funds in the portfolio. We are concerned about the future of bonds given that we see little room for rates to go anywhere but up from these levels.