Hmmm. Looks like the market passed 10,000 again this morning. Opposite direction, of course, but it broke the mark again.
This doesn't make much sense to me. 1) It is a good thing if people from either side can admit they don't like what their respective party is doing (disowning), instead of just blindly following along and defending them. 2) When Bush came around the second time, what was the other option if somebody was hoping for fiscal conservatism? It was the lesser of two evils, as usual. PS. I didn't vote for Bush either time.
Inflation has budged quite a bit. When you look at stocks in a stable currency such as gold you see there has been no growth in 15 years. Gold has gone from under $250 to $1060 the market's increase is illusionary. In 1913 $20 dollars got you an ounce of gold in 2009 $1060 dollars gets you an ounce of gold. Our currency has been devalued (inflated) by 90+% since then quite alot of it in the past 15 years. If you are using the CPI as a measure you might want to look at what's in the CPI (Playstations and flat screen TV's) if you look at houses, food, clothing etc. You see that there definitely has been inflation, but really only a trickle compared to the increase in money supply. If it weren't for all the deleveraging of assets prices from the bubble years the inflation would be much worse. As it is no one will have any doubt about inflation within a few months. Remember the US is the world's reserve currency (for now) if this wasn't the case the fiscal insanity of the past 30 years would be much more apparent. As it is we have shipped most of our inflation abroad. Once the dollar oil connection is severed (coming soon!) there will be a Tsunami of dollars headed back to the the US. It will be flash inflation of a staggering level.
I'd expect them to vote Bush in the general election, but also field a real conservative challenger in the primary. The fact that Dubya ran completely unchallenged in the 2004 primary speaks volumes to me about the contentment conservatives felt for Bush at that time.
But the good news is if you survive the flash inflation your mortgage payment will be peanuts, chump change, wallet lint. Don't forget as I seem to remember somewhere historically (Nixon?) this happening that the pres has authority to temporarily freeze prices. Or something to that effect. I'd actually have to look it up to get the rest of the info.
I hope at least some of you saw this stock market crash as a HUGE opportunity. I invested a lot of money in a wide variety of stocks from March-May and my overall return is hovering around 70% right now with a few stocks exceeding 200%, thus tripling my investment. Granted I also have a few that have done virtually nothing (my worst one has gained only about 6% since I invested in March), but that's why you diversify. You don't have to be an economist to make some serious money with this...do some research, find some solid companies, buy low, sell high, diversify, and you'll make out like a bandit. As for this crash in particular, I'm pretty sure the worst is behind us. We're still far from recovery, but things are coming around.
This run is because businesses are shedding payroll. Output is down while profits go up. This cannot sustain itself forever. Seriously, if you've made money over the last six months, sell half ASAP.
