说到这里就不得不提华盛顿了。有些人曾希望一个存在分歧的政府能防止政界在增减税收和管制力度方面不至于走向极端，但大家从未想到过会是这样严重的分裂。我们的政府已经不能说是存在分歧，而是功能失调。而且它来得很不是时候，眼下我们都承受不起这样的局面。

    坏消息铺天盖地，投资者应该如何斟酌投资？尽你所能，选择自己看好的投资项目——不要选择时下流行但已大幅上涨的投资项目。

    三年前，我在《财富》杂志2009年的投资者指南中曾说过，对于那些具有财务耐力和目标投资时限为5-7年的人们来说，买美股真的是一个好主意。我认为当时要得出这个结论并不困难——只是在当时的一片惨淡中并不容易有勇气去这样做。当时标准普尔500指数是870点，2009年3月降至673点，如今已较低点反弹近一倍。

    但由于如今美股已较三年前大幅反弹，如今风险提高了。三年前我认为美股不容错过，但现如今太难讲了。

    好吧。在给出“具体该投资些什么”的建议之前，让我先说说“不该投资什么”吧（除非你是专业人士，如果是这样你应该不需要我的建议）。美国国债？忘了它吧，除非你想套牢几年，换取低得可笑的利息，并愿意承担大幅亏损。目前长期利率处于人为低位，因为美联储一直在大量买入长期国债以压低利率，同时寻求安全保障的资本也涌入了美国国债。但终有一天，美联储会修正这种行为，届时避险资本就会撤离，利率就会上升。

    简单举个例子，来看看加息、甚至是小幅加息，会会导致什么情况。假设持有当前收益率3%的30年期美国国债。如果从现在开始利率升至每年4%，你持有的美国国债市值将下降17个点——几乎相当于6年的利息。反过来，如果你的美国国债市值要增加17个点，利率必须要降至2.2%。出现这种情况的概率有多少呢？

    我的同事肖恩•塔利在去年的投资者指南中早已说过这番话。我当时完全同意他的观点。但由于前文提到的国债购买行为，长期美国国债的收益率自那以来呈现下降趋势，价格上涨。事实上，截至11月份的十二个月，长期美国国债是费城投资管理公司Aronson Johnson Ortiz跟踪的48类资产中表现最好的。巴克莱长期美国国债指数的回报率高达21.3%，是同期美股大盘回报率7.1%的三倍。但要延续超过20%的回报率，长期美国国债的利率必须在几年内跌至接近零的水平。这不太可能。

    That brings us to Washington. Those of us who longed for divided government to stop politicians in our nation's capital from going to extremes in either cutting or boosting taxes and regulatory levels, never wanted things to be this divided. We don't have divided government, we have dysfunctional government, at a time we can ill afford it.

    With all this bad stuff going on, how do you wrap your head around investing? By doing your best to pick investments whose odds are in your favor -- as opposed to investments that are popular and have already had a big run-up.

    Three years ago I said in Fortune's 2009 Investor's Guide that buying the U.S. stock market was a really good idea for someone with financial staying power and a five- to seven-year time horizon. I considered that an easy call -- though it wasn't easy to summon up the nerve to do it, given the gloom and doom prevailing at the time. The S&P was at 870 when I wrote, fell to 673 in March 2009, and has since almost doubled.

    But because the broad U.S. stock market is substantially higher than it was three years ago, it's riskier. Then, I considered it a can't-miss. Now it's a who-knows?

    Okay. Before I tell you what you might consider doing with your money, let me tell you what I think you shouldn't do (unless you're a pro, in which case you presumably need no advice from me). Treasury bonds? Forget them, unless you want to lock up your money for years at laughably low rates and are willing to suffer substantial losses. Long rates are artificially low because the Fed has been buying tons of long-term securities to force down rates, and safety-seeking capital has poured into Treasuries too. But someday the Fed will dial back, the flight capital will leave, and rates will rise.

    Let me give you a small example of what even a modest rate rise could do. Say you own a 30-year Treasury currently yielding 3%. If rates rise to 4% a year from now, your bond's market value will drop 17 points -- almost six years of interest. Rates have to fall to 2.2% for your bond's value to rise 17 points. What are the odds of that happening?

    In last year's Investor's Guide, my colleague Shawn Tully said what I'm saying now. I totally agreed with him. But because of the aforementioned purchases, yields on long Treasuries have fallen since then, and their market values have risen. In fact, for the 12 months ended in November, long-term Treasuries were the best-performing asset class of the 48 tracked by Aronson Johnson Ortiz, a Philadelphia money manager. The Barclay's long Treasury index returned a huge 21.3%, triple the 7.1% return of all U.S. stocks. But for 20%-plus returns to continue, long Treasury rates have to fall close to zero within a few years. Not likely.