I'm sure that readers are familiar with the term “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” from the Bible's Book of Revelation. It seems to me that the “end times” for the long-standing bull market in stocks was caused by what could loosely be called “The Four Horsemen”.

While not an apocalypse, the stock market is back to where it was in 1997. 1997 was, of course, the year that Alan Greenspan made his now-famous utterances about “irrational exuberance”. “Irrational exuberance” sure seems to have been wrung out of the stock market.

I have a friend who really enjoys science fiction. I asked him the other day, “Do you ever watch anything besides the SciFi Channel?” He replied, “I do. I also watch CNBC.”

I know that my friend is not much of an investor so I asked him why the heck he watches this channel.

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king punished by the gods. In the Greek equivalent of hell, named Tartarus, Sisyphus was cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill – only to watch it roll down the hill again. Sisyphus' punishment was to repeat this task throughout eternity.

In the midst of this punishing bear market, I think that many investors who read Bourbon & Bayonets are probably feeling like Sisyphus right now. Many investors have seen their accounts, such as their 401k, back down to levels last seen a decade ago. Like Sisyphus, they have had their investment accounts “roll back down the hill”.

The Thieves' Guild

What do I think of when I think of our nation's capital - Washington D.C.? The word thieves quickly comes to mind. It doesn't matter the political party. Both political parties are filled with scoundrels.

I'm sure that movie buffs are familiar with the snake oil salesman character which appeared in many Western films. He was a “doctor” with dubious credentials that traveled by covered wagon from town to town. The fast-talking salesman would sell “medicine”, such as snake oil, using lots of marketing hype and bogus “evidence.”

In order to enhance sales, the snake oil salesman would also always have an accomplice in the crowd (a shill) who would attest to the marvelous beneficial effects of the snake oil. The snake oil salesman would, of course, attempt to leave town before the swindle was discovered.

Dumb and Dumber is the title of the 1994 comedy film starring Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels. The title could also be applied to the current behavior of both institutional and individual investors. Both type of investors are cowering in the corner, afraid of the bogeyman – deflation. Both types of investors are eagerly purchasing Treasuries at zero per cent or even negative interest rates.

One of the few things I can say for sure about investing is that the crowd always ends up being the long-term losers. And the deflation trade is extremely crowded right now. I challenge anyone to show me when the consensus opinion was ever right in the long term.

Classic film buffs will be familiar with the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire, which starred Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh. My favorite scene in the film involves Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) and Stanley Kowalski (Marlon Brando).

Blanche DuBois is a fallen woman – her family fortune and estate are gone. In an absolutely classic line, Blanche says to Stanley Kowalski - “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers”.

In this week's article, I wanted to follow up my article from last week – Predictions for 2009 - and this time offer some offbeat predictions for 2009. First, however, I wanted to make a few observations about making prognostications. Many times prognosticators look to the past for patterns which will repeat themselves in the future.

I myself look to history quite often, searching for parallels to what is happening today. However, I always keep in mind that famous Mark Twain quote - “History doesn't repeat itself, at best it sometimes rhymes”. The consensus Wall Street deflationists are ignoring this bit of wisdom.

In the closing weeks of 2008, Americans have once again been shocked by a massive Wall Street scandal. Former Nasdaq chairman, Bernie Madoff was arrested for masterminding a $50 billion fraud. The "Bernie Mad(e)off-with-investors'-money" Ponzi scheme is just the latest Wall Street scandal to see the light of day.

I firmly believe that the Madoff $50 billion Ponzi scheme will be just the first of many Wall Street frauds that will be revealed in 2009. In the past, Americans trusted their hard-earned savings to Wall Street bankers, brokers, fund managers, and so-called professional money managers.

The year 2008 is coming to a close. Good riddance! 2008 will be remembered as the year that the chickens came home to roost for America's brand of “elitist capitalism” and will long be remembered as the year where the greed of so few penalized so many.

In 2008, the vast majority of pension plans and retirement accounts incurred losses of one quarter to one half of their value because of the greed of Wall Street. To me what is most sad is that Wall Street's greed not only devastated the savings of a generation of Americans but has also shackled future generations of Americans with the bondage of enormous amounts of debt.

This is an enjoyable time of the year. It's when families gather together to share a wonderful holiday meal and exchange presents. After all, who does not love to tear the wrapping off their presents to see what's inside? It is really fun to see the excitement of small children as they open their presents.

This type of excitement was on display this past week as little Ben Bernanke unwrapped his present. It brought a tear to my eye as I saw the sheer joy on little Ben's face as he gazed at his present – a shiny, brand-new helicopter! Little Ben screamed “Mommy, mommy, look at my new helicopter! Now I can dump all the money I want out of my new helicopter and make everyone happy”!

In Greek mythology, there were two monsters that lived on either side of a narrow channel – Scylla and Charybdis. Sailors who attempted to avoid one of the monsters were then subject to attack by the other monster. This myth is probably the origin of the saying “between a rock and a hard place”.

This Greek myth can be applied to how many Americans must feel today. They are caught between one monster – Scylla (Washington) and the second monster Charybdis (Wall Street). People familiar with the myth will recall that Scylla was a hideous multi-headed monster, which definitely reminds me of government in general and Congress in particular.

This article is another in my series about common mistakes that the average individual investor makes in his or her overall portfolio allocation. For these articles, I drew from the 20 years of experience I had at Charles Schwab in dealing with clients face-to-face and helping them meet their financial goals.

In previous articles, I wrote about two areas which were dramatically under-represented in most clients portfolios – commodities and international securities. There is a third area which I found to also be under-represented and that is fixed income investments. Many clients had little or no exposure to fixed income investments.

As Americans this week sat down to their traditional Thanksgiving dinner, the real feast was once again being enjoyed by the Wall Street elite. Citigroup (C) received a heaping helping of government aid from the world's two most famous turkeys – Bailout Ben Bernanke and Handout Hank Paulson.

The US government is now guaranteeing over $300 billion worth of Citi's loans. It is obvious what will happen next on the road to Bailoutville, USA. Next will be a literal stampede of all the other American financial turkeys looking for a similarly juicy deal from Uncle Sam. By the way, do turkeys stampede like cattle or do they simply go into full panic mode?

Great Expectations is the title of a classic novel written by Charles Dickens in 1861. It is regarded as perhaps one of his greatest novels. The title “Great Expectations” can also be applied to President-Elect Barack Obama, our soon-to-be 44^th President.

President-Elect Obama will be expected to cure our country's economic ills and quickly. I believe that the nearly 1,000 point stock market sell-off this past Wednesday and Thursday was due to Wall Street 'disappointment'. The cry-babies on Wall Street were disappointed that President-Elect Obama did not hit the ground running and immediately appoint the future Treasury secretary.

This past week saw a remarkable occurrence. The cost of insuring against a U.S. default via credit derivatives hit record levels. It now costs more to insure against a U.S. default on their debt than it does to insure against a default by McDonald's (MCD). Ronald McDonald is deemed to be more trustworthy than Uncle Sam!

This is understandable in the light of the trillions of dollars in additional debt that Uncle Sam will soon be adding to its balance sheet. Yet, the lemmings on Wall Street continue adding to their U.S. dollar positions. Don't be surprised to see a bailout down the road for these Wall Street bets, which will have also gone bad.

Last week, scientists switched on the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. The Large Hadron Collider is the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator. Scientists are hoping it will help unlock some of the mysteries of the universe. Non-scientists were fearful that it may create a black hole which could possibly  swallow the Earth.

It looks like the non-scientists were right on the mark. A black hole appeared right in the middle of Wall Street and swallowed Lehman Brothers. The black hole also forced the Merrill Lynch Blundering Herd into the arms of Bank of America and giant insurer AIG into the arms of Uncle Sam.

The coal-seam gas producing companies in Australia are currently enjoying boom times. The largest company in this sector is Santos (STOSY). The boom times are occuring because of strong Asian demand for Liquified Natural Gas or LNG. Australian companies such as Santos aim to turn their coal seam methane gas into LNG and sell it to countries such as Japan, China,India,and Taiwan. LNG is popular in these countries because it is a fairly clean burning fossil fuel.

Asian companies continue to eagerly invest in Australian natural resource assets. In the latest major deal,Santos signed a $2.6 billion partnership with Malaysian energy company Petronas for a LNG project in Queensland. Under the deal,Petronas will take a 40% stake in Santos' proposed Gladstone LNG project. This project is expected to have an initial capacity of 3 million tons per year,with first exports expected by 2014. This deal marries Santos' huge coal gas reserves with marketing power of Petronas which is Asia's largest LNG producer. This deal fits right in with Santos' new strategy to greatly expand its LNG business in a bid to gain from rising prices and a forecast surge in global demand for LNG. With the financing from Petronas,this deal also seems to make Santos currently the best positioned player in this space.

UK-based energy company BG Group seems to be dropping off the radar of many US-based investors. The company de-listed from the NYSE last year and that was reason enough for Wall Street to forget about it. It still trades in the US on the over-the-counter tier known as International OTCQX. It trades under the symbol BRGYY.PK.

BG Group is an energy company with bright prospects for the future in both their exploration & production division and their liquified natural gas division. BG is currently exploring in many corners of the globe but the biggest excitement regarding the company is their exposure to the possibly huge oil fields lying offshore of Brazil. BG Group has seven concessions in the Santos Basin,offshore Brazil. Their interests in these concessions range 20% to 60%.Since they began drilling in the Santos basin,BG has found nothing but success.

Norwegian-based Yara International (YARIY.PK) is thought of as a fertilizer company, but it is much more than that.