I cannot agree that increased consumer spending is an indicator that the systemic problems are healed. The fundamental problems that plague our country and Europe are not going to go away simply because we greased the skids with trillions of dollars and have seen increased spending and such.
The fact is that there are many many many people who are flush with worthless dollars right now. My investment group has completely stopped flipping because of the swarms of people involved. Margins are miniscule and our goal was to be tactical and it worked out well. So yes these people are spending. So are the engineers working at Qualcomm and Broadcom, and the biotech and attornies and many others. Of course anyone employed by the govt is doing well also.
However looking at the fundamental issues I cannot share the same optimism that some have.I look at our employme nt numbers, I don’t share that optimism. I don’t even trust the numbers we are told. Nor do I seem to see a big burst of employment happening or about to happen. Basic things like food and energy costs are going up in price. Any parent will tell you that.
It is entirely feasible to me that housing prices in San Diego can and will remain high. That is the way it has been, and the the way it will always be. However as the dominoes fall in Europe I believe things will deteriorate. You cannot monetize debt. You cannot have have substantial portions of the GDP used to simply cover the interest on your debt. You cannot have housing deflation while the price of energy, commodities, and food and move steadily higher. Great I can get a nice flatscreen and a great cell phone plan for cheap but a gallon of milk and a carton of eggs and some butter costs 10 bucks today. Fantastic. You look at the current finances of California (16% of our national gdp) and New York and they are in shambles. Yet there is no plan in place to reform these states. They simply keep bumbling along and we all know an inevitable bailout of these and other states will be necessary.
I am not a fan of the current administration but I do agree that these problems we see have anything to do with either party.
It is a very simple fact that in order to deal with all of this we very much need to take some damn painful medicine at the state and federal level. Higher taxes and reduced spending HAVE to happen. Severe restriction of the money supply needs to happen. Higher rates are needed. Harsh stuff now but way way harsher stuff later. My big concern is that it will be later because no party will do what needs to be done, it is political suicide.
CAR you and I agree on what is happening and what has happened. While everyone says the fed and treasury NEEDED to do what they did or else all hell would have broken loose I don’t agree. I agree with you, some help was/is needed. However to see many institutions post record profits in 09 was absolutely laughable. Revelations now coming out that the fed greased many other industries, other banks and other countries is not really news to me. Just more of a sad confirmation of something some of us presumed.
So yes I agree about the sense that something is wrong. I don’t see this severe sky is falling disruption just yet. However I do think it is out there and becoming more probable as we continue to act like an ostrich and stick our heads in the sand.
