Why We Are Not In For A “Recovery”
D-E-B-T. Debt? Oh yeah, debt. Its still out there, isn’t it?
Green shoots? Laughable. I’m afraid our “long emergency” is still on.
Commercial real estate is headed for a depression just as prime loans and jumbo loans blow up. Meanwhile, oil is being bid up by speculators (mostly TARP-receiving financial institutions) and the electronic economy is ignoring fundamentals. This all bodes for a summer crash. Expect higher unemployment as small and large businesses go bankrupt–further weakening spending and consumption. Consumer confidence may be reported as high, but their actual spending will not be.
Pressure will increase on the Dollar, as the Fed buys debt so the Treasury can sell debt. Alas, foreclosure deserts will continue to spread across much of the Sun Belt suburbs, as business gradually grinds to an even slower pace than what we already see. The Rust-Belt slouches towards Thunderdome.
The upshot: standard of living will decline. And as it does, we should call it a positive thing when 20% to 30% of indebted individuals and small business owners throw themselves on the mercy of the Bankruptcy Court. How the Bankruptcy dockets will swell after our debtor-country realizes that having a pristine credit score is not what its cracked up to be, which is part of the related epiphany that the solution to too much credit and debt is not more of it. All this credit-score, credit report business was a bunch of nonsense cooked up by the big, crooked banks to keep the little man in debt-fear slavery, wasn’t it?
As this debt gets written off and some of it paid off, the country, ere the world, will have a chance to rebuild wealth on a sustainable basis and perhaps escape the boom-bubble-bust cycle that has afflicted us for so long.
Doubt this? Look here:
Yes, those are trillions folks–which, apparently, has become the new billion.
(This remind you that perhaps you need bankruptcy counsel? If so, and you are in the Gulf South, I recommend you go with Kervin & Young–they may be able to save you some money.)
Let’s also check in on the Four Bad Bears as we remind ourselves of this debt reality:
If anybody thinks that the blue line is going to trend up over the next 24 months, and that we are not in for a summer or early fall crash, please comment here and tell me why–in light of the preceding debt charts.
It is time to restore/re-establish some ‘time honored’ institutions, like the ‘committees of correspondence’ they had back in the 1770’s.
It is human nature to unite in times of trouble, even if this tendency has been subdued in recent times. I posit that people are no longer chained to their TVs (given that there’s garbage on) and would be more amenable to joining an effective activist movement.
The keyword, naturally, is effective.
People will not unite if nothing comes of their efforts and without unity, nothing will change.
Uniting the public is the first vital step. Those who remember what the ‘committees of correspondence’ were for will be eager to join.
Um, great post as it proves the need to unite a too divided public.
Ignorance is Strength
Debt is Good
HIgh Fico’s for Jesus!
thelittleguylobby.org
Politicians in the US are not forthcoming with the truth. Unfortunately all soft solutions(that hide the reality) have been exhausted. This recession needs hard solutions. That which make us produce goods and services first, before allowing us the luxury to borrow-and-consume. The last two decades saw borrow-and-consume done to death. Literally. Perhaps because no other country can print the Dollar.
The Tryon County Committee of Correspondence used to meet in 1775 at my ancestor’s house on Moyer St. in Canajoharie NY. It still stands today and is the ancestral home of the VanAlstyne family. It was also a fort during the RW. General Herkimer met his troops there.
Why not reconvene? Is there anyone who can conjure up Col. Marinus Willet? We need MEN like him again.
New York is nearly as bad off as California. Tax sucking irresponsible politicians running entitlement Ponzi’s ’til the cow’s come home.
Why not plan for the inevitable?
Let the meetings begin.
Really makes me sick how we’ve become spenders and people who live beyond their means.
“We buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t even like!”
A large degree of our present problems was caused by borrowing to buy. Now our politicians want the consumer to increase their borrowing to increase their spending to just get right back into trouble.
Politicians are just so not the solution. Look at California and the problems they are having. They just can’t seem to understand that they have to spend less than they bring in in taxes. We consumers are supposed to do this…why don’t they just get it?
Foreclosure rates rise with unemployment levels as many homeowners are affected if they are not able to earn money for long periods of time.
I think this is probably one of the unfortunate times seen in the world history where unemployment has reached the peak.
More and more new states are occupying the top ten slots of foreclosures in the United States and the Lawmakers are hardly taking any steps to put a hold to this situation.
The $789 billion economic stimulus package proclaims to revive the housing market by countering the crisis in home mortgage as well as providing relief to the plummeting housing values. However, one can hardly deny the fact that the U.S. financial experts are skeptic about the prospects of this stimulus package proclaiming to help stem the tide of home foreclosures.
http://www.housingnewslive.com/new-stimulus-plan-and-housing-market.php
Can this plan provide relief to the hardest hit areas in such as Arizona, California, Florida, Nevada, and certain areas in the East Coast?
I agree with Cathy…..Unemployment is making the scenario worse. Even if we see some improvements in Housing Sales we are not sure whether the market will hot back. The reason we are seeing sales now because of the Summer time…..After 2-3 months, when we have a next wave of foreclosures plus people don’t buy much from Sept to Dec., we will see a great decline in sales and housing values.
I saw another article on the same site:
http://www.housingnewslive.com/is-the-housing-market-recovering.php