We’ve talked about this before.

Remember, I’ve told you that our government can raise taxes without actually raising taxes by closing loopholes, not renewing some tax breaks, and by playing around with our retirement.

It’s already started with some breaks not being renewed, and I am hearing that those of us who work and contribute to 401(k)s may be on the chopping block.

I would think that a “scaling back” of contributions, as the politicians like to call it, may be in order. Why? Well those of us who work and save and are prepared for retirement are apparently in the minority. Let’s not let those bad people save too much for retirement.

The 401(k) is thought to be one of the costliest tax breaks allowed. Look for limits on contributions to 401(k)s to be lowered.

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As I write this on Thursday, the stock market continues to charge ahead. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has gone up about 8,000 points since 2009, and has hit a new all-time high.

Generally the broad market in the United States is up well over 8 percent as of Wednesday. A lot of people hate this market, the money managers who missed it and the investors who are not in it.

Speaking of that, my friends at Fidelity Investments said in a recent article that in the final two months of 2012, as the stock market was going up, money market mutual funds assets increased by $151 billion ... in two months.

There are probably a lot of reasons for that but I continue to believe that some investors are seeking the perceived safety of money market funds returning basically nothing, of course. As I see it, investors may have gotten even or maybe a little better since 2007-2009 and are saying “I am not going through this again. I am not going to lose a lot of money so I’m going to cash.”

I have not seen much of that personally, it’s just a guess.

Wonder what would happen if those billions and billions of dollars ever flow back into the market?

If that ever happens, I hope I am around. I like full speed ahead.

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With only two months gone in the year, it is really early to identify specific stock trends. The trend that I do see is up, that could change but that’s the way it is now.

In the commodity area, again a little early for trends, but cattle prices are down a little, hog prices are down over 7 percent, soybean prices are up almost 5 percent, and wheat is down a whopping 13 percent.

That’s a little good news for those of us who like to eat.

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Back to the subject of the stock market performance.

The Dow is up around 8,000 points since March 2009. As the market goes up, some investors are asking, “Should I be taking some money out of the market and putting into something with very little or no risk?”

The deal is they are still afraid of losing money.

They look back at 2007-2009 and shudder. I don’t know any more than anybody else. But having said that, it seems to me that this is a great time to take another look at your portfolio.

Maybe you have gotten the money back that you lost back then. I can’t tell you whether you should raise cash or what. I don’t know your particular financial situation.

What I do know is that the trend for the past 4 years or so has been up. It is normally not smart to fight the trend.

What should you do? In my opinion you should have your portfolio structured so that in the event of a 20 percent market loss, which has happened many times, your portfolio performs as expected.

If you need to make changes, do it now, not after the market has fallen. It’s a lot more fun to sell when the market is going up than it is to sell when the market is going down. Trust me on that.

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The wife came striding into the man cave the other day. She always wants to know what I am doing.

I told her that I was reading about a well known chemist who had passed away. I asked her, I love doing this, if she knew what they do with chemists when they die?

She gave me one of those looks and said “No, what do they do with a chemist when he dies?

I said, “They barium.”

She doesn’t think I’m funny.

Howie Pentony is a Saxonburg client portfolio manager.