I am currently between romantic entanglements, so I’m free to throw down the gauntlet. Someone with my unique faults is rarely “taken” for long.
Now here is how I read the tea leaves, but also why Diana’s tone has me concerned.
1. The stock market has been trending up for a while, the only mistakes I’ve made in the last year is to not invest against the grain, against the tin hat people and against the piggy doomsdayers. Ford, Harley, homebuilders like KHOV, banks and other stocks, considered at the end of their rope, are all between 500% and 1000% up in the last 13 months. Stocks usually lead the actual economy by a few months to a year.
2. Home price declines have either stopped or bounced off bottom, traditional affordibility metrics have returned to 90% of the market, maybe not the one’s the more active posters are looking at, but sanity has retrned to most of the country. A recent visit to the southeast, I saw evidence of even greater bubble bursting than we have seen here, yet the golf course I was on set a record for the number of golfers in a single day.
kudlow is a cheerleader to the nth degree, one with more pom poms than I have failed relationships. But today’s article, listed just below Diana’s, is out of character. He’s asking fellow conservatives to stop attacking the employment numbers, obamanomics and all the rest for fear of losing credibility. His argument makes sense, if you claim the sky is falling every day, and it doesn’t, then nobody will listen to you. Instead, since the numbers are good, try assigning credit away from your political foe, claim it will be even better without him or that he had nothing to do with it, just stop beating the same drum because the numbers will be on his side.
I hate politics, I could care less and I never listen to kudlow because he always has an agenda. Normally I would just say that he is trying to keep the market rolling and telling critics to be quiet, but this white flag looks different. I read the politically slanted opinions to gauge reality, even if I don’t buy into it.
4. The Tarp and other bailout measures actually kicked ass, the gov’t earned about 7.5% on it’s investments(err bailouts). I have money in those same banks and got about .5%, had it been a donation it would have beat the going rate by 13x.
5. Roubini said it would go just like this, he’s been right so far, I can attribute some of my good fortune to him, so I’m petting that dog till it bites me.
So, yes, My tin foil hat is back in the closet, I see recovery as the year progresses and a decent 2011, now it’s time to figure out where the next bubble will be, because there is always a next one.
But then Rich posts an article from Diana, it is in contrast to what the tea leaves have been telling me. She has been a very reliable source of both lust and mainline information for me. It’s like a faithful old girlfriend or booty call who never refuses your call, and suddenly, she won’t answer. You run to the mirror to see if you still have your looks, then to the scale to see if you gained weight. You can’t find a reason, is she engaged? Is she still alive? Did the earthquake knock down her cell phone tower? What gives, something is amiss.
So retrieve your tin foil hat from the closet, because there just maybe something unexpected around the corner. I for one, will be retrieving my wine and watching to see if the elusive tsuinami theory takes it’s last opportunity to manifest itself. If it does, I’m ready to double down.
