The problem with the profits growth story is for a lot of companies, this is due to cutting costs and mergers and acquisition and stock buy backs. If you look at a lot of large corporations, there hasn’t been any revenue growth at all during these past 5 years and it has almost all/bulk to do with stock buy backs, cost cuts, etc…(IBM comes to mind).
I don’t have the report or links, but it’s pretty easy to find I believe and reported often.
I suppose a lot of this is also a gut feeling and intuition from watching bloomberg all day every day for the past few years and just following news in general (and here, even though the demographics here tend to be middle/upper income).
I think some people will continue to do very well also and the wage/income/asset gap will worsen, but since Japan happened and we’re sorta doing the same thing, I just think it’s human nature to do the same thing as them and it’ll be a long long time before rates go up (all IMO).
Also, I think the fed is pulling back on the housing QE because they have been quoted (I believe) as saying that it wasn’t really helping the overall labor market or economy so it wasn’t working overall…so why bother? Interest rates are technically still 0% so until that moves up, nothing to see here.
A bigger boost IMO would be, say just refinance everyone who hasn’t yet for free to a lower rate with no credit check if they are already current on their mortgage. I know it’s impossible, but it’d help me (I’m selfish) and that’d free up money (self employed)…
Oh well, will revisit this area in 10 years to see where rates are still. 🙂