While Michael Jackson is referred to affectionately by fans as the "King of Pop" . He could have just as easily carried the title "The hardest working man in show business" except for the fact that elder statesmen of the music world, the late James Brown earned that title first.

While recriminations are being thrown around about the specific cause of Jackson's death, the primary reason he passed away may really have been overwork. In truth, his sleep disorder, eating disorder, drug dependency and seemingly bazaar behavior at times may have all stemmed from his obsessiveness. He truly gave his fans everything he had in him right to the very end.

Many of us have been accused of being workaholics, some worse than others. Michael Jackson was an extreme example pushed by his perfectionist attitude and the fact that he always felt the need to surpass his already high performance level.

The second quarter is now behind us and for the most part it was a positive one in terms of the market pushing higher almost 40%. This is the second review of my 2009 stock picks through June 30 (see: Chasing Value: 9 picks for 2009 -- APC, GE, ISRG, WFC and more). There was a lot of talk about green shoots this past quarter as Wall Street was looking for any small bit of optimistic data to support the market.

The federal printing presses continued to run at full speed pushing the dollar lower and oil prices higher. While the feds were printing money to cover their deficits, the States do not have that same luxury and many of them are having trouble balancing their budgets to the tune of billions of dollars.

This is unbelievable! California (my home state) is going to issue I.O.U.'s to seniors, disabled and welfare recipients starting tomorrow because our State Legislature cannot agree on a budget. This is outrageous beyond belief!

Next time someone refers to California as the "Golden State" the laughter from all corners of the nation will be deafening. They say that California Bonds and Schools will not be affected.

What I want to know is whether the politicians will be getting paid in I.O.U.'s. There are many people in the land of the petition and ballot initiative that would be in favor of a law that says the politicians do not get paid for twice the time it takes to settle the budget beyond yesterdays (June 30) deadline.

Profits up in the heartland; at least for General Mills (NYSE: GIS) as they doubled in the fourth quarter beating analysts estimates by promoting their strong brands to consumers as management understood well the economic headwinds they were facing.

This contributed to GIS income for the year making it into positive territory as it reported this morning that net income edged up to $1.3 billion, or $3.80 per share, from $1.29 billion, or $3.71 per share, in the prior year. Annual sales climbed 8 percent to $14.69 billion from $13.65 billion.

In April, I did a series of posts on Williams Companies (NYSE: WMB) starting with Chasing Value: Williams has the pipes and it's not blowing smoke.

I have also been writing about my investments in naked puts.

Now, I want to share one of the things I have done this year that has helped me obtain over a 100% return for 2009 at one point last month, which has since fallen back to 82%. This is not something I could have predicted, but I am not complaining.

The federal government, for better or worse, has been increasing the money supply as fast as it can in an attempt to prevent a collapse of our financial system, stabilize the housing market, improve the employment outlook and rehabilitate our nations infrastructure.

Most economists have some fear of inflation as a result of this, even if the fear is not for three to five years. To combat the increase in money supply we need to balance it out with an increase in productivity.

This is a continuation of a theme I have been writing about this year involving stock options referred to as naked puts.

This allows investors to take a position in a stock, most often below its current price, but depending on market sentiment. That sentiment remains relatively negative so the spreads are attractive.

I have been following BHP Billiton Ltd ADR (NYSE: BHP) the largest mining company in the world, with headquarters in Australia, for a while but I do not own the stock today. I view all mining companies as an opportunity because I think the diversified raw materials they control are the best hedge against inflation. I do not think inflation is imminent, but with the extreme increases in money supply and debt being created I do not think it will be avoidable a few years out.

For those of you who are able to trade options, I have been writing more and more about naked puts, "selling to open" stock options that I have been doing all year with great returns due to an overabundance of fear.

Yesterday I reviewed one example in Chasing Value: GE -- maybe not eating out of trash cans after all, and today I review some of my favorite ways to make money and improve my portfolio.

Let me start with United Parcel Service Inc. (NYSE: UPS), a company with a great balance sheet, strong management, and trading 29% off its 52-week high, about where I sold it last year. I bought it earlier this year at the bargain basement price of $44, and now wished I had bought more.

This week I closed out an option on General Electric (NYSE: GE) I had discussed four months ago regarding the absolute fear in the market place that I felt had driven investors off a cliff (see Chasing Value: Will we be eating out of trash cans?).

At the time I had noticed that GE naked puts, a "sell to open" put option, would pay me, on the spot, 52 cents a share if I would commit to buying the shares if they dropped below $2.50 by January 2011. This meant that my break-even position was $1.98 a share when GE was selling for five times that.

Billions of investment dollars are sitting on the sidelines for fear of entering the market at the wrong time and losing more money after taking a bath last year. However, the market seems to have hit bottom last March and many investors missed the 40% gain from that point to now.

Market prognosticators are spewing out opinions faster than the public can grasp, or understand. I choose to stick with basic fundamental value propositions and ignore the noise.

I have been buying for the past eight months and riding the market waves, good and bad, to huge gains -- so far. Maybe I will be giving some back, maybe not, but I have also been encouraging readers to take something off the table, in several recent posts.

We live in amazing times. Consumers are earning more; at least the ones with jobs. They are also saving more than they have in the last 15 years. The savings rate, which was hovering near zero in early 2008, surged to 6.9 percent, the highest level since December 1993. I think that is fantastic!

Ben Franklin said, "A penny saved is a penny earned". If that is true, then people are improving their economic condition day by day. Strange as it might seem, the government is troubled by this.

The government and many economists are worried that without greater spending by consumers any economic recovery will be stalled that much further. During our recent manic economy, over the past decade, consumer spending was responsible for about 70% of the GDP.

I say to all my readers, let others spend -- YOU KEEP SAVING -- and reducing debt. You will be glad you did. The consumer led economy was a false economy. The world is mourning the sudden death of Michael Jackson who passed away yesterday from yet to be determined causes leading to cardiac arrest, reportedly $400 million in debt. You think he was under any stress?!

Wednesday, Bernard Madoff requested leniency through his attorney Ira Sorkin, who suggested a sentence of 12 years would be a sufficient penalty for his client's crime of stealing billions of dollars in one of the greatest frauds in history.

Sentencing by U.S. District Judge Denny Chin is set for Monday June 29, and the eyes of the world will be upon him. So will the eyes of the yet-to-be discovered fraudsters everywhere.

My thoughts on the subject are relatively simple and have little to do with revenge or payback. In cases like this I often remember a very old quote from another time and place.

There are better companies and better stocks to invest in these days than Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), but it would be silly of me to leave this company totally out of the picture just because it is not in my top ten.

The market is down a few percentage points as I write and MSFT is down in sync with the market. Many investment gurus have stated that they think a 10% correction is in order after the huge run-up since March 9, 2009. I am not so sure there will be a 10% correction or any particular correction just because the market was on a hot streak.

It was reported on Sunday, June 21, that Anglo-Swiss mining company Xstrata has proposed a merger of equals to the board of Anglo American ADR (NASDAQ: AAUK), hoping to create a new, more competitive mining giant. Rumors have been milling about for a while.

Together, Anglo American and Xstrata would have a market capitalization of approximately $68 billion, (AAUK's $35 billion + XTA.L's $33 billion) and be larger than Rio Tinto plc ADS (NYSE: RTP), which ended the trading day last Friday with a capitalization hovering over $42 billion.

It really matters little what the outside world thinks about the current conflict in Iran over the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or whether the people in Iran are crushed by the totalitarian form of government that has been adopted. This is not a matter of opinion. It is a matter of fact by definition. There is a supreme ruler and what he says goes.

Nothing is more important to the ruling elite than remaining in power -- not the economic well being of it's citizens, not the education of the rural population, not the personal freedoms of the man in the street, and certainly not the rights of Iranian women.