by Matthew E. Karlovsky, M.D. for Health
“If you don’t you use it, you lose it” principle also applies to the muscles in the pelvis. Age, menopause and childbirth can cause weakness and looseness to the pelvic floor muscles known as the levator ani. They wrap around the anus, urethra and vagina in the female pelvis and support the organs in the pelvis: the bladder, vagina/uterus and rectum. When pelvic muscles and their connective tissue covering (fascia) weaken or tear, women may experience urine leak when coughing, sneezing, laughing or exercising (stress incontinence), or have the sense that the bladder or other pelvic organs are dropping or pushing into the vagina. Overactive bladder symptoms can also occur with a dropped bladder, such as urgency , frequency and urine leak (the “I gotta go and I can’t hold it any longer” feeling).
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by Karl Schroeder for Finance
We’ve seen some real wild swings in the dollar recently. That is largely because the ’safe haven’ trade is coming off around the world. Currency speculators are selling the dollars they bought when it looked like Armageddon was upon us and buying something that may have a better outlook. Also, there is this huge wave of bonds that have to be sold by the Treasury and they will swamp the market. Then the US is likely to enjoy a period of untoward inflation in coming years. So why would anyone be surprised if the dollar went down a bit. The issue is that the dollar has gone up a bit here lately. Part of that might be the dollar got oversold or some other currencies got over-bought or some other technical explanation (can you say Iranian elections?). Part of it could be that the scare that foreign central banks would stop holding dollars as their principle reserve currency isn’t going to pan out after all.
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by Karl Schroeder for Finance
“Too many dollars chasing too few goods,” that was Herb Stein’s definition of inflation and it is as good as any. What we’d like to see is too many dollars chasing too few stocks in the upcoming months. There are over $4 trillion in money market funds, versus about $2.5 trillion a couple of years ago. Some of that increase is just that, an increase in the amount of money people feel is an appropriate level of liquidity they need for their well-being. But, part of that money is fugitive stock market money that is hiding-out waiting for the all-clear signal that buying stocks is okay again. There are other pots of money in other liquid alternatives to cash. Sooner or later, this will get back into the equity market or some other growth vehicle.
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