Your best investment yet

On Jan. 27, U.S. postal rates are poised for another increase. A Congressional deal to avoid the so-called "fiscal cliff" has hiked payroll taxes for workers. Gasoline isn't getting any cheaper. (The air, at least is still free).

But there is one cost-effective entity we can always count on, year after year: The squirrels.

Thanks to something called the Rodent Multiplier Effect, a little-known mathematical marvel, squirrels make it easy to maximize many of your investments with a minimum of effort: How else could you expend one walnut and get back 10 squirrels? (Note: This is only a theoretical model, actual results may vary.)

And with what other investment could you establish one simple wooden nestbox in a tree and, in no sooner than a week, discover you have attracted at least a half dozen occupants? The Rodent Multiplier Effect is not only foolproof, it is often swift beyond measure.

The most dramatic, if not chaotic form of investment, is to hang a birdfeeder: The almost immediate return comes as an ample supply of squirrels -- admittedly they are often the unintended result of such an avian-friendly gesture, but nonetheless they do comprise an excellent return on your investment. Stocks and bonds, money market funds and precious metals seem, by contrast, as flighty, mercurial and unstable as a member of the U.S. Congress.

It's sad that financial planners never advise their clients to consider a Grey Market investment. Still, in boom and bust economies, the squirrels are a constant - better than an annuity, and with minimum maintenance fees attached. Never mind if the Dow is up or down, squirrels are steadfast, hanging on your screens, looking in your back window, waiting on your front porch. You can count on it.

In these changing economic times, this is a comfort. Squirrels' characteristically high interest rates are unrestricted by law. And it's a certainty that their activity will climb: for them, the only way is up.

As we teeter between regression, recession and depression, we can find some peace in knowing that scratching sound we hear isn't coming from a wolf at the door -- just a 2-pound financial adviser who's eager to get down to business, squirreling things away for the long winter ahead.