>> It is nice to see we have our very own 'fiancial terrorists' here,
Gottfried, I'm beginning to come around to the double dip persuasion. Not that it will change anything in my fully invested predicament. But the fact that many companies can't make a profit is a very bad sign. What is the point of investment then ? If the productivity improvements were real, then some reward would accrue to the companies making the investments. Instead, they go bankrupt ? So what did they improve ?
While it is true that a couple million jobs have been lost in the past two years, can anyone point to some needed function that is missing ? Were all those brokers and telemarketers and manicurists and dog groomers actually doing something useful ? Or even the high pay programmers at dot coms ? Yes, those were jobs in the sense that people occupied cubicles and had meetings, and did lunch, etc.... But were they jobs that needed doing ? Apparently not. Since no-one cares that we don't have 100 different web hosting companies wanting to house your web site for free.
So I think those 2 million jobs are gone for a while, to be soon followed by some more from brokers and airlines and hotels, restaurants, resorts and the like. I would guess that foreign tourism declined by 30% to 50% this year. Which probably accounts for some of the dollar weakness compared to Euro over the summer.
Anyway, the cheery note is that we are one year closer to the bottom than we were a year ago. So we just have to persevere a few more years, and all will be alright in the end!
Sarmad |
