In The Weekly Commentary of April 5, 2010, we discussed several issues: The economic stimulus coming out of Washington will dry up as the year unfolds.  What will the economy do?  Will it stagnate and perhaps fall back into recession (the so called “double dip”)?  Or does the economy have sufficient “escape velocity” to continue a healthy expansion as the economic stimulus is used up?   And, how about the income tax increase scheduled for January, 2011 – will that be the straw the breaks the economic camel’s back?  Investors are debating whether a double-dip will occur during the next 12 months.

Meanwhile, I was on vacation last week in western Pennsylvania.   I had to regularly feed my addiction for economic and investment information. Over the course of a few days I started the process of preparing our “mid-year review” – a report we intend to supply to you in The Weekly Commentary on Tuesday, July 6.  I ran across several economic studies reported on by John Mauldin.  (I love it when someone else does the work for me while I’m on vacation!).  These reports address the questions posed in the previous paragraph.  Stay tuned next week for this mid-year review.  I tend to be an optimistic individual, but …..