Light the coals; it’s the Fourth of July and the bull is set to be slaughtered. The SP500 is trading at 19 times earnings, spurning reports that both manufacturing and construction look like they’ve been on high doses of Avastin. With everyone from Wall Street pros to Charles Schwab customers frothing optimistically, I’m donning my rubber boots ahead of the great bloodletting. True, Greenspan cut rates again, but with Federal Funds at 1%, how much lower can they go? At least with the terrorist-alert rainbow, the government can keep adding colors. But the Fed can’t push interest rates below zero. The bond market has figured this out, raising the Ten Year Treasury yield by 20 basis points. So now, unfortunately, the bank is now more likely to repossess your house than to refinance it.

Don’t try to bury your financial worries in a bag of Oreo cookies. Even though a California lawsuit banning the frosting sandwich was tossed out of court, an avalanche of class action suits are terrifying snack food makers and fast food outlets alike. McDonald’s survived the first round, but the writing is on the wall (presumably in pudding) that fat people with diabetes, heart disease and, evidently, no form of self-restraint, will keep suing until a tobacco-like settlement can be carved out of the food industry’s flank.

So Kraft has announced plans to reformulate and repackage their snacks – reducing the amount of fat and sugar in their offerings and shrinking serving sizes. So now to achieve porcine status one will need to eat six bags of cookies and potato chips a day instead of merely three. Kraft’s nutritionists hope that the calories burned by tearing open the extra packages will lead to weight loss and lower cholesterol levels. I may just try some of these new treats as soon as I get the olestra stains out of my Calvin Kleins.