Nothing goes down in a straight line. Human beings need optimism, even when its unfounded.
You can basically say we haven’t hit bottom because nobody in power has admitted what the problem is. Essentially the hard choices are being put off yet again, in terms of reigning in spending. Perhaps people are eating out because they aren’t making a mortgage payment, or because they can! Perhaps this temporary uptick in spending while short lived has convinced your customers to buy more of your services (socratt).
Banks are still tightening credit, velocity of money is still dropping and housing is still overpriced in most of San Diego. However none of these things have stopped people from feeling optimistic.
JTR asked me to stop posting on his blog when I said, he was selling optimism. SDR thinks that the RE market is on fire right now. That implies there are a lot of people who are optimistic about the future and enough of them have money to spend.
In the end the overwhelming nature of the looming debt default will swamp the current optimism. Whether its a few months or a year, I don’t know. I do know that none of the symptoms I would look for to mark that point have occurred.
Its ok to feel good today! Just keep an eye open for tomorrow and don’t make any long term debt commitments, because the govt can’t hold interest rates low forever. Ultimately risk must be rewarded. These last few years it has not.
