Nobody in the US, either in the public or private sector, can afford higher interest rates. Nobody in the US, either in the public or private sector, can afford to compromise their lifestyle by curtailing their borrowing. Nobody in the US, either in the public or private sector, can conceive of anything so esoteric as savings, after all, there's no return on those.
And so, everyone continues to borrow and to invest. While refinancing has died in the US, new mortgages are burgeoning and people are turning away from fixed rate mortgages towards Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) at lower rates.
Market interest rates are rising inexorably. Americans have seen this and are scrambling to borrow while they still can. A patina of prosperity is stretched very thinly indeed on top of a vast and bottomless ocean of red ink.
To say that one has no choice but to be in the market in the present situation is the verbal equivalent of being frozen in the headlights of an approaching train. The REAL choice is to get off the track or to be obliterated. That's why Gold, and silver, and Gold stocks, are proving so resilient to the rising markets, the rising expectations, and even the rising Dollar. |
