Actually there will be a QE3 and QE4. I am not as expert on this as other people, perhaps Rich can comment, however we are on a path that is pretty much irreversible.
Most people have not noticed small things but as a parent who runs the household and the books I have. To be more specific, our grocery bills are about 10-15% higher now then they were last year. While the boys are a year older we buy pretty much the same stuff.
We are told that inflation is tame but my bills do not say so. I have seen my gas bill go up as well.
The systemic destruction of the dollar will continue because the solutions are harsher then the current pain threshold. They are simple in nature, raising taxes substantially, cutting spending, and raising interest rates. However in an economy that does not have anywhere close to the capacity to create jobs there is no real fix available. Many people have also underestimated the damage that NAFTA has done with regards to factory relocations to Mexico.
Anyone in construction will tell you that substantial percentages of homebuilding product comes from China. From drywall to pvc, fasteners, plastics, all sorts of stuff. Unless we want to tax the heck out of imports to get those factories back on shore we will never ever see those jobs again.
There are only so many engineer and coding jobs available for US citizens. I do not have any answers for the job front. I do know severe austerity measures are needed to fix the debt problem. We have all heard the common argument that China will never quit supporting our debt because they will be hurt by our defaulting. At some point that will not be true.
We have been in uncharted waters for quite some time and NO political party has the will to reverse the course. Over the past year I have come to believe that the course is somewhat irreversible now. I think when the changes come they will be severe. I think that people don’t really want to face that reality because it is a hard thing to conceive of. It is kind of like thinking about not existing because you cannot really do that. We have never been in default, our country has never been told no, our credit has never been questioned and we have never had food shortages before. It is to easy to wake up, check the market ticker, shoot in a few orders, commute to work and check our bank statements every two weeks for direct deposit.
As happy as I was to see the election results the next day I was that much more disappointed as I realized it doesn’t matter who in is the govt. Those in charge are in a different echelon then society as we know it. The debt numbers currently are so staggering, the events that happen are so much larger in magnitude, that people are pretty much numb to it.
The funny thing is that as more and more noteworthy people raise alarms, there is still no real concern. Seeing people cheer for more QE events just reminds me that yes we are in deep deep sh-t.
