History shows that dividends have been a powerful source of total return in an investment portfolio. Since 1926, they have represented over 50% of the total market return.

Presently, even as benchmarks hit fresh milestones again and again, investors favor dividend stocks.

That's part of the reason Goldman Sachs Group (NYSE: GS) raised its year-end target for the S&P 500 to 1,750, up from 1,575.

Goldman's chief equity strategist David Kosten explained he expects higher-than-expected dividends from S&P 500 companies to attract income-seeking investors to stocks. He cited the current low-interest rate environment "which helps dividends and stocks more generally" for the upped target.

Notably, companies paying rich dividends have fared best.

Since 2009, the highest yielding stocks (with an average yield of 6.0%) turned in a monthly average return 0.23% above the S&P 500 Index, while the lowest yielding stocks averaged a monthly return of 0.56% below the S&P.

The lowest yielding group (with an average of 0.8%) even performed poorer than those that paid no dividends at all.

But like we've warned before, this doesn't mean just any dividend stock will do...

Dividend Stocks: It Pays to Be Choosy

Given the plethora of choices, investors must be selective. Simply chasing yield is never prudent.

Here are ten things to look for when investing in dividend stocks:

• A long dividend history
• Has a worldwide market presence (providing somewhat of an inflationary hedge)
• A stable product or service
• Sticks to its core business
• A "current ratio" (the ratio of current assets to current liabilities which measures its ability to meet short term obligation) greater than 1
• Stock price stability
• A history of share buybacks
• A history of hiking its dividend
• A payout ratio no more than 80% of its earnings per share

S&P Dividend Aristocrats

For dividend stock choices, the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats is an elite list of companies that meet the above stringent criteria and have a history of increased dividend payouts for 25 consecutive years.

Since the start of 2013, the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrat Index has returned 19%, besting the 16% year-to date return for the overall S&P 500 Index.

Just comparing the 52-week low - 1,586.40 reached in June 2012 - to the 2,126.76 high hit this month - shows how investor interest is pushing dividend stocks higher.

As more money pours into dividend stocks in 2013, these stocks' share prices - and the value of the whole index - will rise.

The top ten constituents by market cap as of May 21 are:

• W.W. Granger Inc. (NYSE: GWW) yielding 1.91%
• PPG Industries Inc. (NYSE: PPG) yielding 1.52%
• Illinois Tool Works Inc (NYSE: ITW) yielding 2.13%
• AFLAC Inc (NYSE: AFL) yielding 2.48%
• Sherwin Williams Co (NYSE: SHW) yielding 1.05%
• Medtronic Inc (NYSE: MDT) yielding 2%
• Cardinal Health Inc (NYSE: CAH) yielding 2.53%
• Sigma-Aldrich Corp (Nasdaq: SIAL) yielding 1.01%
• Air Products & Chemicals Inc (NYSE: APD) yielding 2.96%
• Lowe's Cos Inc (NYSE: LOW) yielding 1.49%

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Best Investments in Biotech in 2013

Of late, the industry has indeed enjoyed a healthy showing.

In Q1, the Nasdaq Biotech Index carried over its robust performance from late 2012, gaining 16.7%. Credit significant product approvals, positive clinical trials and sold business outlooks for the sustained momentum and outperformance versus the broader market.

The Index recently hit a record high, leaving many to wonder if the sector is poised for a pullback.

The consensus views are fundamentals remain favorable, the sector still exudes strength and the biotech rally has legs.

Sharing that sentiment is Evan McCulloch, co-manager of the Franklin Biotechnology Discovery Fund, one of the best performing health care funds tracked by Morningstar.

"Biotech, especially the big companies, are coming off some very low valuations. From 2009 through 2011, the sector underperformed the broader stock market. Wall Street, having once believed drug makers were unable to make research and development spending pay, now has come to realize that it pays for companies to invest in drug discovery and development," McCulloch told Barron's.

Thanks to a more receptive Food and Drug Administration (FDA), fresh drug pipelines and resurgence in M&A activity, the sector is in a sweet spot. Big players are flush with cash, and smaller troupes are ripe with promise--the perfect combination for fruitful research and development.

Best Investments 2013: How R&D is Paying Off for Biotech

Since the discovery of DNA in 1953, and the identification of DNA as the genetic material in all life, advances in the vast area of biotechnology have been astounding.

But because of the extremely high costs of R&D, coupled with scant revenue in the early years of development, funding is tight. Moreover, companies experimenting in R&D often see their valuation diminish since they provide little return for shareholders.

Lately, however, there's been a profitable development in the sector...

Now R&D spending is a sign of huge profit potential, not a drag on shareholder returns.

According to Barron's, Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) Chief U.S. Strategist Adam Parker found fewer than 20 globally companies with market caps of $30 billion or more that engage in healthcare research. That shines a spotlight on not only the big players, but also on the little guys with ample potential.

"Ten years ago, the human genome could barely be decoded. Ten years from now, one can guess that it will be done for pennies, nearly instantaneously," writes Parker for Barron's. "We could be witnessing a substantial re-rating where instead of a discount on R&D being embedded in health care stocks, a premium could ultimately be awarded for potential option value of curing a disease."

That's some exciting stuff, and particularly exciting for savvy investors.

That's why we asked our tech specialist Robinson to share some of the best biotech investments he sees now.

He said this is definitely one of the most promising sectors for profits.

But, in noting that "a lot of individual biotech stocks have actually doubled, tripled or more-the Holy Grail type of gains that high-tech investors crave," Robinson cautions "not all biotech stocks are created equal."

But he found one play that he thinks could double your money. Just go here to check out this "pick-and-shovel play" in biotech - and get all of Robinson's favorite tech profit plays - for free!

Robinson regularly details how to avoid pitfalls when investing in this volatile sector and highlights the stocks with the biggest potential in his Strategic Tech Investor reports - go here for all his latest info on the best investments in tech.

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This set off a mad scramble between the nations with territories in that region of the globe. The countries involved include: the United States, Canada, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark (Greenland).

The once sleepy Arctic Council, comprised of the nations named above, was originally designed to promote cooperation among countries with interests in the Arctic. But because of the tremendous interest in the energy riches that lie in the Arctic region, the Council was recently forced to give six countries 'observer' status including energy-hungry China and India.

Clearly, Arctic oil has the attention of both energy companies and political leadership around the world - and should also be on the radar of investors looking for how to invest in oil in 2013.

How to Invest in the New Oil "Gold Rush"

The initial push into the Arctic was like gold rushes in the past.

In 2008, BP PLC paid an exorbitant $1.2 billion for licenses to explore only about 6,000 square kilometers in Canada's Beaufort Sea. This area is believed to contain roughly 5 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

The mad bidding period is over, but nevertheless exploration continues apace. 

Research firm Chatham House last year, in a report, estimated that investments by energy firms into the Arctic could total over $100 billion over the next decade.

That's a lot of money, even for oil companies.

Companies are doing this because studies from the International Energy Agency and Statistics Norway show that a barrel of oil drilled from the Arctic will cost between $35 and $40, which is competitive with oil drilled in deep water. 

And for those wanting to know how to invest in Arctic oil, there are a firms that are already pushing into the region, including Russia's Rosneft, Norway's Statoil ASA ADR (NYSE: STO) and Royal Dutch Shell PLC ADR (NYSE: RDS.A).

But just a few companies have snagged these most promising regions...

How to Invest in the Most Promising Arctic Region

Perhaps the most promising area of the Arctic is in Statoil's home turf. There is an expanse of the Arctic Ocean called the Barents Sea that is mostly ice-free.

The Norwegian area of the Barents (shared with Russia) is estimated to hold at least 6 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

Jarand Rystad of energy consultantcy Rystad Energy told Bloomberg that the Barents Sea prospects are "enormously exciting."

There will be at least 12 wells drilled there this year, which is equal to the combined total of wells drilled there in the past two years. Total cost should be around $1.8 billion, according to energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie.

As expected, Statoil is heavily involved there. But so is Italy's Eni SpA ADR (NYSE: E), France's Total SA ADR (NYSE: TOT) and Rosneft.

Statoil discovered the Skrugard and Havis fields in the Barents, which are thought to contain between 400 and 600 million barrels of oil. Oil is expected to start flowing from those fields in 2018. The company is also hoping to strike it rich with its Apollo well in the frontier Hoop region of the Barents. 

The Russian region of the Barents is largely unexplored. Rosneft is teaming with Statoil, Eni and Total there to search for oil.

Anyone who wants the full story on how to invest in Arctic Oil has to invest the environmental concerns. Drilling in the Norway's Barents is now a cinch - but years ago, it was hard to access due to volatile environmental conditions.

That's why many other regions aren't yet delivering profits. Companies trying to drill in the deeper waters of Canada's Beaufort Sea face a short window each year in which to drill thanks to the constantly moving floes of thick ice. Logistics in these remote regions of the globe are also a nightmare.

Oil companies like Shell and ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) have had to reevaluate their Arctic oil plans due to concerns over regulations.

Final environmental regulations are not in place as yet. But it makes sense environmentally to move cautiously in the Arctic. The cold waters there do not contain the billions of oil-eating microbes that proved so useful in the BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

But, eventually they'll catch up to the Barents. Reuters reported that Statoil senior vice-president for exploration in Norway, Gro Haatvedt, said in an interview about drilling in the Havis and Skrugard fields, "We're absolutely certain we'll strike [oil]."

Twenty years ago, that thought would have been considered laughable.

For more on how to invest in oil in 2013, read Dr. Kent Moors' analysis: Are the Russians on the Verge of a Major Arctic Oil Coup?

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Look Back to Look Ahead

In the 1990s, even though interest rates were too low from 1995 on, all was well with pension funds. The U.S. stock market zoomed upwards, so many funds' value soared far above their actuarial liabilities.

Many companies stopped contributing to their funds, and General Electric (NYSE: GE) even found a way to make profits on its pension funds goose the company's reported profits - thus siphoning more bonuses and stock option gains into management's pockets.

After 2000, the profits went into reverse. Pension funds then responded foolishly; they transferred a huge percentage of their money into "alternative investments" such as farmland, forests, private equity funds and hedge funds.

Essentially, they bought a lot of assets at inflated prices - like, well, anything to do with real estate in 2004-07 - and paid inflated fees for mediocre performance.

However, apart from the losses from the market crashes of 2000 and 2008, the real problems for pension funds came from the steady decline in interest rates engineered by Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke.

For example, even though stock prices are at record levels, and the asset sides of the pension funds ought to be doing fine, Bernanke's low interest rates have swelled the liabilities sides to enormous heights, so pension funds' funding deficit is at levels more typical of the bottom of bear markets than several years into a recovery.

What's more, the problem won't go away when interest rates rise again. That will make stock and bond prices decline, reducing the asset side of the funds' balance sheets. It will also push leveraged hedge funds and private equity funds into bankruptcy, wreaking further havoc.

No One Is Exempt

The problem of pension funds also extends to baby boomers' own retirement savings. You see, what may look good on your statements isn't usually put through the same actuarial calculations that pension funds build.

That means what looks like a fairly decent pile of money when looked at in cash, translates into an absolutely pathetic annual sum if you try to turn it into an annuity (because annuity calculations are based on the same arithmetic as pension fund accounting).

The fact is, most retiring baby boomers keep their IRAs and 401(k)s in cash, withdrawing the amounts of money they need to live on.

What needs to shouted from the rooftops is, more likely than not, the withdrawals they make are too large, and will exhaust the available funds long before the unfortunate owners expire.

Baby boom retirements are destined to be thoroughly miserable, mostly thanks to Bernanke; those with funded pension plans will find their plans in bankruptcy, while those without pensions - the IRA and 401(k) majority - will simply find the bankruptcy transferred to their own finances.

The solutions are simple, but not easy: save every penny you can, pray QE ends quickly and just in case, work till you drop.

In all seriousness, to the extent you invest, buy into emerging markets with good growth rates and no Ben Bernanke. They may have risks, but at least they avoid the Bernanke risk you have to live with in the rest of your life.

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As part of the trip, Clinton signed an agreement between the foundation and Peru's Ministry of Foreign Trade and Tourism to promote and reward hotels and restaurants that buy from local producers.

Each group will give $450,000 over the next three years to train local producers to become suppliers for Cusco's hospitality and restaurant sector. All told, suppliers should bring in more than $5 million in income over the next five years and benefit more than 1,800 people, according to the Clinton Foundation.

In Cartagena, Colombia, Clinton and Giustra celebrated the opening of a warehouse that will provide a local supply chain for the area's hospitality, restaurant, catering, and supermarket sectors, as well as the Acceso Training Center, which will train about 20,000 local residents over the next 10 years to work in the hospitality sector.

Moving beyond Latin America, other U.S. Global portfolio managers are finding exciting opportunities on their travels. When Michael Ding recently traveled to Thailand, he immediately identified a potential investment as soon as the plane touched down in Bangkok.

And with emerging Europe growing faster than its western counterparts, Director of Research John Derrick, and Portfolio Manager Tim Steinle are headed to Warsaw and Prague to visit with local companies and management. We are optimistic about many expanding opportunities in this area of the world.

Back in the U.S., no one needs to travel far to see the tremendous growth in domestic stock prices. Over the last four years, the S&P 500 Index climbed 21% annually.
But how much further should you expect them to go? The Federal Reserve Bank of New York had the same thought and delved deep into data to find out.

Would it surprise you to learn that a vast majority of equity valuation models state that stocks should head much higher over the next five years?

This is research based on 29 different equity valuation models and surveys that use varying economic and market-related data such as dividends or inflation to calculate potential future returns. Using a weighted average, the New York Fed estimated the equity risk premium over the following month.

Simply stated, the equity risk premium is the expected future return of stocks minus the risk-free rate, such as a Treasury bill. For example, if the estimated future return of stocks is 5 percent and a Treasury bond yields 4% , the premium is the difference between the two figures, or 1%.

Looking back over five decades of annualized results, there's always some premium for stocks. This intuitively makes sense, because in exchange for taking higher risk, investors expect to receive higher returns.

During these 50 years, the premium nearly fell to zero two times. One time was in 1987, when investors' exuberance toward the equity market caused stocks to rise quite sharply.

The most recent dip in the equity risk premium was at the height of the great tech boom in 2000. Many investors remember triple-digit price-to-earnings multiples. And some companies saw terrific price appreciation even though there were no reported earnings to be had at all. You'll remember Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan coining the phrase, "Irrational Exuberance."

Looking at the chart above, today we see an opposite picture. In fact, today's equity premium is at 5.4%, as high as it was in November 1974 and January 2009.

And what happened in these two time frames? Well, we saw the dramatic increase in equity prices from 2009 to today.

Back in the 1970s, investors experienced the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and "a terrible case of stagflation," says the Fed of New York. However, that didn't stop the stock market, as gains were incredible, increasing nearly 15% on an annualized basis from 1974 to 1979.

The chart illustrates a tremendous case for U.S. stocks over the next five years. Make sure your portfolio is poised to participate.

[Editor's Note: Frank Holmes is CEO and chief investment officer of U.S. Global Investors Inc., which manages a diversified family of mutual funds and hedge funds specializing in natural resources, emerging markets and infrastructure. He has been profiled by Fortune, Barron's, The Financial Times and other publications. If you want commentary and analysis from Holmes and the rest of the U.S. Global Investors team delivered to your inbox every Friday, sign up to receive the weekly Investor Alert at www.usfunds.com.]

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The Cornerstone of Every Nation

A nation's success and the strength of its middle class rests on the ability of its people to have the freedom to conduct trade and business. It also relies on a political structure that ensures long-term sustainability.

From my trip there, I can tell you the business and political climate in Argentina is utterly dismal.

For a week, I drove through the heart of Mendoza wine country, dined with Board of Trade members who ship their grains, and circled through the public markets along the Buenos Aires parks.
Given the nation's beauty and reputation as a global destination, you wouldn't know it unless you sat down and spoke with individual business people. After hundreds of conversations, not one person I spoke to championed the Argentine government's positions on improving the business climate.

This is what happens when solutions to problems created by government action is always to add more government regulation or to centralize power.

It is also what happens when the populist government has focused exclusively on a social justice platform that emphasizes benefits to the 40% of its citizens who live in poverty.

In fact, on three occasions, I was told that advocates of President Cristina Fernández would offer a pair of shoes to voters in the slums. Voters would receive one shoe before the vote, and the other when they returned and showed their ballot.

When you hear these stories, you realize that elections are not so much about fixing problems as they are about the ascension to power that politicians seek.

Argentina's core problems stem from a financial crisis in 2002, where the country effectively defaulted on its sovereign debts. Widespread panic, rioting, a devaluation of the peso against the U.S. has led to a staggering erosion of wealth across the nation. Unemployment had soared to 25%, and 60% of the country fell below the poverty level. Horrific tales of scavenging and bartering became the norm.

But 10 years later, the business climate still remains stagnate in the face of trying to keep food and product costs down and things "more fair.”

Overregulation, steep export taxes, and import bans have led to a stifling effect. Policy decisions have made it impossible to conduct business, have facilitated the destruction of its middle class, led to rampant black markets, and incentivize the offshoring of capital by the wealthiest members of society.

And while the entrepreneurial spirit of Argentina is very alive and well, the government has done everything it can to tie one arm behind business leaders' backs, while chopping the other off at the elbow.

For example, take the flight we took from Mendoza to Buenos Aires.

Our regional flight was on LAN, a Chilean carrier and competitor to the government-owned Aerolíneas Argentinas. Our midday flight was delayed by a half-hour, but not because of the rainclouds circling above Buenos Aires. It was well known by my co-passengers that the Argentine government has ordered its flight towers to delay rival airlines flights in order to raise Aerolineas' on-time arrival score in comparison to companies like LAN.

Not only was that delay induced to enrage customers, but we also faced another 30-minute delay with our baggage, which was strange considering that all of the bags were off of our plane before we were (for some reason it took an extra 20 minutes to get access to a staircase to deplane).

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that LAN pulled out of the Argentine market this week. This will only drive price increases and provide fewer options for travelers. It will also do little to improve the on-time arrival scores of a poorly run state enterprise.

Why should any of this concern Americans?...

Here' s one of the connections: During the 2009 healthcare debate, we heard quite a bit from the Left about how the U.S. needed a public-option to compete against private healthcare companies.

But the reality is that private companies can never compete with politically advantaged, crony companies or options that have no true interest in market competition. A public option would make it virtually impossible for the private market to function properly.

And over time, you will witness a downward trend where private firms go out of business, and the politically advantaged companies rise but ultimately begin to fail overtime due to a lack of competition and market accountability.

The United States already operates the V.A. healthcare system with a pathetic track-record (as repeatedly noted by Jon Stewart and the Daily Show). We also see the U.S. Post Office, the de facto version of a shipping public option. Just think about how it bleeds cash, can't break union influence, and fails to provide quality or value in its services.

Meanwhile, private companies UPS and FedEx operate efficiently, despite persistent regulations to protect the U.S. Postal Service. And these aren't the only parallels

A Myriad of Problems

In fact, Argentina's state-run airline was just the first of many logistical problems that I witnessed.

The biggest problem that I saw facing Argentinean businesses in agricultural production was the lack of a railway system. Argentina does not just lack proper rail infrastructure to ship goods from remote farming regions to its ports. It pretty much does not have any access to ship goods from anywhere by any other method but trucks.

This is because the trucking union has such an influence on the Argentine government, that they have effectively blocked any future train infrastructure. Instead of shipping goods in a more cost-effective manner, trucks dominate the logistical network, which is more costly, less environmentally sound, and leads to serious bottlenecks in logistical operations.

Cronyism has stifled market opportunities to improve its logistical network, which will only lead to long-term shortfalls as the agro-sector attempts to compete with its neighboring rival in Brazil that is solving its infrastructure problems as I write this.

Argentina is also crippled by its own trade policies. The nation has extremely high business taxes, including a massive VAT and export tax on raw commodities.

In an effort to keep food costs down across the country, the nation has made it financially unfavorable to export grains by producers. As a result, investments into the agricultural sector remains stagnate.

And, again, while the country is doing its best to suppress rising food costs, the nation is about to find itself uncompetitive as neighbor Brazil creates a more favorable environment to international investment, infrastructure development, and more liquid financial markets.

But it's the last problem facing the Argentinean economy that is the most troubling.

And we'll cover that portion tomorrow in Part Two of this examination into the Argentine Crisis and how to profit from two successful global investment strategies.

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U.S. GDP Change: More Government Manipulation

Three changes in the way the BEA calculates GDP will account for most of the difference: research and development will be counted as a capital investment instead of as a cost of making goods; investment in artistic originals like books, TV shows and movies will be counted as fixed investments; money that pension plans promise to pay retirees will be counted as wages.

Fitz-Gerald said to think of it this way: What if a publicly traded company were to restate its earnings - dating to 1929?

"The stuff hits the fan when they restate their earnings," he said. "That's what the government's doing here. This is the federal government restating its earnings. They're going back effectively on the public's P&L and saying, 'Well, you know, those statistics didn't really fit and we're restating our P&L and, oh, by the way, we're doing it back to 1929.'"

Economic expert Peter Schiff says such manipulation of statistics is typical of the U.S. government. The U.S. government has over the years repeatedly manipulated statistics for unemployment and inflation.

"That's what the government does," Schiff said on his radio show. "Now it doesn't mean that the economy is actually any bigger, but it means they can pretend it's bigger."

Consider the effect on the national debt, Schiff says: If the GDP's bigger, the national debt appears smaller in comparison and thus less of the money generated by the economy seems to go toward paying interest on the debt.

Fitz-Gerald noted the broad measure of economic growth is also used by ratings agencies to measure a country's economic health.

And Fitz-Gerald said a higher GDP will do little to help consumers who continually face higher costs.

The BEA based its decision to revise the way the GDP's calculated on an international agreement put together by organizations including the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Cooperation and Development.

The United States will be among the first to change its GDP based on the agreement.

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According to The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman that's a winning formula. 

The liberal-leaning economist recently wrote, "California is on the road to recovery due to tax and spend liberals, Republicans and conservatives are the problem, tax and spend is the way to go."

Yet, since the beginning of 2013 a total of 158 companies have left the golden state and more are lining up to make their own great escape.  That's up from just 51 in in 2009.

If this trend continues Silicon Valley may soon become nothing more than the northern extension of Death Valley as search for more profits creates a mass migration states like Oregon, Texas, Nevada, Utah and Arizona.

With considerably lower taxes, these states are welcoming California businesses with welcome arms.

One of them is Intel which recently announced that it will be investing billions to upgrade factories in Arizona, in addition to building a new factory in Oregon.

This move will create between 6,000 and 8,000 construction jobs and up to 1,000 high tech factory jobs outside the Golden State. With an unemployment rate of 9.4% that's the thing California needs. But the truth is each employee hired by Intel in these states will cost. 30% to 40% less than the same employee would in California.

In fact, even the utility bills are welcoming in Oregon. The savings in electricity alone is as much as 80% to 90% compared to California.

Then there's California's polar opposite: Texas.

A "no tax state", Texas takes it a step further by touting itself as the last bastion of freedom in this country.  To its credit, four million people have migrated to Texas in the last 10 years. 

Admittedly, it is due to a multitude of reasons but foremost is the economic opportunity Texas offers.

So how does California compare to Texas?  Here's the breakdown:

• California has the 4th highest Cost Of Living Index in the country. Texas has 2nd lowest. 
• Minimum wage is $8.00 in California. It's $7.25 in Texas.                                          
• Including taxes, $8.00 buys $6.05 in goods and services in California. In Texas the same $8.00 buys $7.25                 
• Proportionately, there are 42% more poor people in California than Texas.
• In California it is hard to start business requiring 4 to 5 years to break ground and start construction. In Texas it is 4 to 5 months.
• The gas tax is $0.49 a gallon in Cali. In Texas it's $0.20
• Median rent is $801 in Texas....$1,163 in California.
• And the median home price is $128,100 in Texas vs $370,000 in California.

But those aren't the only reasons to like Texas....

Here's another: One state is poster child for big government while is representative of free enterprise.

Here's why.  Just take a look at how each state went about building a bullet train.

It's a tale of two states: 

In Texas:  A bullet train was suggested and approved for construction from Houston to Dallas, financed totally through private business. Total cost for this venture is $10 billion with a completion date as scheduled.  No increase in fees, overages or extensions are expected.  In this case, no government funding is either anticipated or needed.

In California:  The project is government funded. The original cost for the link from Los Angeles to The Bay Area was estimated to cost $45 billion but is now projected to cost $68.4 billion. The Bullet train's original 220 mph speed has been cut to a more conventional speed due to the local environment and the agency overseeing the project is $54 billion short for completion of the project. An additional $38 billion is needed in federal tax dollars over the next 15 years. At present, The rail agency can build the track from Bakersfield to Merced since it has the $5.9 billion to complete this phase.  But after that funding is questionable at best.

At the end of the day, it appears the result could be, a high-speed bullet train that travels slowly on a lonely track thru a modestly traveled Central Valley where it wasn't really needed at all, at a potential completion cost of $68.4 billion dollars.

It is no secret, free enterprise is more efficient than big government.

So with all of California's wonders and beauty maybe it's time for the Golden State to heed the advice of the late great Margret Thatcher.
As the iron lady once said,  "The problem with socialism is, after a while you run out of other people's money!"

Unless California comes to the same conclusion, you can expect this exodus to continue.

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But when members of Congress started asking the Fed chief questions about whether those policies might be inflating bubbles in stocks and other assets, we got Bernanke testimony like this:

"To this point our sense is that major asset prices like stock prices and corporate bond prices are not inconsistent with the fundamentals..... our sense is that those issues [the threat of market bubbles] are still relatively modest."

That Bernanke would dismiss such serious concerns is no surprise; he's done it many times before, and often with disastrous consequences.

And yet, just as with Alan Greenspan before him, Bernanke's every public utterance has the power to move markets. Utterly baffling.

7 Examples That Show Why You Can't Trust Any Bernanke Testimony

Today's Bernanke testimony is only the latest example of how poorly he seems to grasp the many complex forces that threaten the markets.

The following seven statements from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's past show why no one should ever take anything he says seriously.

1. "We've never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don't think it's gonna drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though." (July 2005)
For the next two years, as the housing bubble continued to inflate, Bernanke repeatedly dismissed signs that a crisis was brewing.

2. "With respect to their safety, derivatives, for the most part, are traded among very sophisticated financial institutions and individuals who have considerable incentive to understand them and to use them properly." (November 2005)
Risky derivatives were the root cause of the 2008 financial crisis. The entire country has suffered because of Chairman Bernanke's lack of foresight on this issue.

3. "At this juncture, however, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained. In particular, mortgages to prime borrowers and fixed-rate mortgages to all classes of borrowers continue to perform well, with low rates of delinquency." (March 2007)
Bernanke also failed to grasp the seriousness of the subprime mortgage meltdown until it was too late.

4. "They will make it through the storm." (January 2008)
Bernanke was referring to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage companies that collapsed just two months later. The ensuing bailout cost American taxpayers $170 billion.

5. "Although low inflation is generally good, inflation that is too low can pose risks to the economy - especially when the economy is struggling." (November 2010)
Bernanke, like all fans of Keynesian economics, likes to see higher inflation because he believes it helps spur economic activity. That's why he continues to pursue inflationary monetary policies. But most ordinary people dislike rising prices.

6. "One myth that's out there is that what we're doing is printing money. We're not printing money." (December 2010)
Bernanke may not literally be printing up greenbacks, but its massive bond-buying program known as quantitative easing has created more than $2 trillion out of thin air. Why do you think the stock markets are at record highs?

7. [When asked what he thought of the U.S. dollar losing status as world's reserve currency:] "I don't see any sign that that's happening. The amount of reserves held in dollars is actually growing, not shrinking. I think that reserve currency status at least for the foreseeable future is very much intact." (February 2013)
True, the dollar is not in imminent danger of losing its status as the world's reserve currency. But there are plenty of signs that the Chinese yuan's growing importance is threatening that status. For example, from January 2012-January 2013, global transactions in yuan grew 171% in value. And HSBC predicts that half of all trade with emerging markets will be settled in yuan by 2015 - the same year the yuan will become a fully convertible currency in London.

Bonus: "I wish I'd been omniscient and seen the crisis coming." (December 2010)
Bernanke didn't need to be omniscient; he just needed to pay closer attention to what was happening right in front of his eyes.

If you think the Bernanke testimony is full of good info, you need to check out 5 Things the Federal Reserve Hopes You'll Never Find Out

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