The S&P finished April pretty much right where it started. Earnings season has not given the markets the boost for which analysts and investors hoped. Volatility has remained under control, but volume also remains low, indicating many investors are still on the sidelines.

Earnings season will wrap up in the next couple of weeks. So far, it has not inspired investors to flood the markets with cash. That could be a bad sign for the upcoming summer, and could push a meaningful market recovery out to this fall. Safer stocks and reasonable dividend-yielding investments will be the place to spend the summer in that case.

While we're on stocks...a couple of thoughts on the upcoming Facebook IPO. Several clients have asked how they can get in on it. The simple answer is, they can't. All the stock being sold by Facebook has already been spoken for by the investment banks and brokerages who are underwriting the IPO. In order to make a lot more money than they've spent, they will slowly release (sell) small quantities of their stock as demand heats up and drive the price much higher. The only way folks like us can play it is to buy and sell it on the open market with all the other people that think it's going to go through the roof. If you want to trade the Facebook IPO with the millions of others who will try, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

The April jobs numbers showed further deterioration in the economic recovery. Analysts, the news media and the White House were quick to trumpet the 115,000 jobs created, and the reduction in the unemployment rate from 8.2% to 8.1%. Unfortunately, they completely (or conveniently) ignored the over 340,000 unemployed people whose benefits ran out or who left the workforce because they were too discouraged to continue looking for a job.

As I've written earlier, a reduction in the unemployment rate for this reason is a move in the wrong direction. Let's look at the number actually used to calculate the unemployment rate. Since January of 2009, the labor force has increased by 129,000, and the total number of employed people has declined by 322,000. At the same time, the employment-to-population ratio has declined from 60.6% to 58.4%. Assuming a population of 300 million people, that represents 6.6 million fewer folks working, which is never good as long as the population continues to grow; and the numbers are even worse for blacks and hispanics.

Dr. Alan Krueger, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors to the president in talking about this month's employment numbers said that extending unemployment benefits allowed people to stay in the job market longer and that the benefits helped them pay bills and stimulate the economy.

The president believes, and has surrounded himself with advisors and cabinet members who say that government handouts help stimulate the economy. That might be true if they were being given out of a government surplus, but even then, they're still short-term, temporary band-aids for a problem that needs a long-term fix. As long as money is being borrowed from taxpayers and adding to the national debt, there is no lasting stimulus effect. Adding interest and government overhead only makes the problem worse.

I mentioned the GAO's (Government Accounting Office's) first-ever audit of the Fed last month, and I did download and skim it. If any of you want a copy, I can send it as a rather-large PDF, but I gotta warn you...it is not the most exciting reading. What it does show is an awful lot of taxpayer dollars being loaned to banks outside the US...most of which has never been repaid.

That, combined with the French and Greek electorates voting for continued benefits and moving towards increased socialism is not likely to end well. Looking back at the first quarter abroad, at least three western-European countries are now in recession and investors are worried that France and Greece may pull the rest of the union down. Surprisingly, the White House asked them not to raise taxes on the rich and increase spending because of the damage it could do to the fragile economy. Ummm...has anyone at the White House looked at their own plan lately? Did someone comment about a month ago that it didn't seem like the president's economic advisors were comparing notes? I'm just sayin'...

In honor or Tax Day a few weeks ago...just a few thoughts on the president, taxes and the "Buffet Rule."

Thinking the revenue generated by the proposed Buffet Rule is going to solve our deficit problems is just ignoring reality. We could take from each millionaire ten times what we are told is their "fair share" and not cover this irresponsible and out-of-control government's deficit spending for six months. This means we, sorry, our grandchildren continue to go further into debt...assuming we somehow avoid a complete economic collapse before they're old enough to pay taxes.

It is estimated the Buffet Rule would generate $47 billion in revenue over the next ten years. Got that? Remember, this year's deficit is already over $1.3 trillion; and we're going to "fix this," and make everyone pay their "fair share" in order to generate $47 billion over the next ten years? Is all this grandstanding and posturing really over paying back a whopping 0.4% of this year's deficit? That won't even cover interest. Meanwhile, we're still hurtling towards $20 trillion in debt...just at 99.6% of full throttle.

Consider this...eliminating all automatic increases and cutting just 1%, across-the-board, in all federal government expenditures from this year's spending levels carves $35 billion or about 5% from the deficit next year...not over the next 10 years. Unfortunately even that does almost nothing to offset runaway deficit spending.

There may indeed be no way out of the monumental disaster we've allowed our representatives to create, but if we want to be out of long-term debt as a nation in 30 years, one way would be to immediately cut all federal spending by 40%. Then we'll have to collect an additional $520 billion in taxes, that's roughly 25% above and beyond what we're already been paying, every year for the next 30.

You want fair? OK. Every income-tax bracket increases by 25%, including those paying nothing right now. Those of you on fixed retirement income in the 15% bracket? Welcome to 40% tax land. Evil corporations and rich folks paying only 35% and 38%, try 60% and 63%. Unfortunate AMT and estate-tax payers at 55% can say "hello" to an 80% tax rate, for the next 30 years. This ignores interest rates and includes the wild assumption that our economy wouldn't grind to a complete halt under that tax burden.

Or, let's assume a 30-year solution is unreasonable. Let's make it 100 years and force the next four generations, including my great-great-grandchildren to suffer for our irresponsibility. Then my 25% hike drops to around 7.5% across every bracket for the next hundred years. Again, I made a lot of assumptions, rounded and approximated, and ignored interest on our debt...because it only makes things more depressing. Alas, all this doesn't amount to more than an exercise in financial futility unless no future congress or president engages in deficit spending again, ever.

My sincerest apologies if the preceding is overly negative or depressing. I'm just getting a little tired of hearing folks talk about "fair" when almost half pay nothing, and when those paying themselves very well to fix the problem do nothing that has any real chance of fixing it.

I'm not the biggest Warren Buffet fan in the world...especially when his company has been fighting with the IRS over almost a billion dollars in back taxes while he's saying the rich should pay more, but he usually says a few interesting things at his annual voters meeting. My three favorites from this year's address follow.

"If you own an ounce of gold now and you caress it for the next 100 years, you'll still have an ounce of gold. It's very hard for an unproductive investment to be productive for any period of time. When Berkshire started, gold was at $20 and Berkshire stock was at $15. Now gold is at $1,600 and Berkshire is at $120,000."

"American banks are in a far, far better position than they were three to five years ago. The U.S. banking sector is in fine shape. The European banking system is gasping for air."

"The beauty of stocks is they sell at a variety of prices. That's how Charlie and I have gotten so rich. The market is a psychotic drunk, and sometimes Mr. Market does very strange things. It's built into the system that stocks get mispriced. Don't behave like the psychotic drunk. The stock market is the most obliging, money-making place in the world."

Until next month, we'll keep scouring the "psychotic drunk" market for underpriced stocks and other good opportunities. As always, please call or e-mail if you have questions.