Al >EACH generation has been bamboozled
I have to say you really impressed me with those numbers and your knowledge of US economic history.
>I missed the inflation of debt under Roosevelt attempting to get the US out of Depression
As I understand it, the problem of the 1930s was deflation --- in other words, saving money. And, of course, it's understandable that when people are insecure, they save their money. However, if people don't spend, that's bad for business hence we have this Keynsian idea that governments have to spend so that the nation can find its way out of recession/depression. The only problem with that is that governments don't stop spending --- even when there's no recession. Then they say they're "stimulating" the economy.
IMO, one thing all the government spending does is debase the currency and thereby make everyone the poorer except, of course, those who control the printing presses and the banks which, in effect, print money through the creation of debt instruments out of thin air. As far as I'm concerned, all the printing is the cause of the trouble, not its solution.
>Note that once you are a year into inflation outpacing stocks, it is time to get back into stocks
Yes, but where's the inflation? Except in the unsustainable property bubble, of course. The big octopus that is choking the US economy is debt. And, of course, inadequate production.
I can't remember if I posted this ref. Anyway, if I did, here it is again. This guy seems to know what he's talking about.
nytimes.com
>>>he says, "Stock prices may have plummeted from their dizzying heights, but neither consumers nor investors have yet realized the perils of the suffocating pall of debt hanging over the financial world."
He also points to intensifying global competition and sees danger to a consumer-oriented economy in the inevitable rebuilding of depleted savings.<<<
And, that's where we came in --- savings. No savings, no recovery. And, in order to get savings, business has to take the hit. There's no free lunch and no soft landing. |
