"...On the bright side, those numbers are reflective of October, when oil averaged $75 a barrel and began the month at $100. Gasoline has dropped 35% over the same period and our average cost of a barrel of oil in November was $58, a 23% reduction in fuel costs.
This may not seem like much, but the average worker earns $28,000 and drives 1,250 miles a month and buys 62 gallons of gas. Saving just $1 these is 2.6% of their total salary and about 4% of their take-home pay and over 15% of their disposable income. 200M workers getting $62 a month is $148Bn a year in economic stimulus."...
So they conned 100M American families into believing there was no inflation and that their 401Ks would fund thier retirement so they shouldn’t complain about getting low wages while the wealth gap in this country reached record levels and they dangled low-interest loans and put many of these people into homes (and cars) they couldn’t afford by telling them it was an "investment." That turned out to be slightly less than true and here we are bailing out the crooks who orchestrated this con rather than the victims.
I sincerely believe that will change in January, and if it doesn’t I will be turning a lot more bearish. But, for now, I see the makings of a recovery as we can keep people in their homes and we can create jobs IF the government has the will to do so. Combine that with 12M jobs' worth of lower commodity prices and we do have what we need to put in a firm bottom here (8,200) and work towards a recovery...."
The average worker earns $28K?
The flip side is also true, how much damage did the rise to $4.50/gallon gasoline do to the economy? Plus, if we keep engaging in moral hazard by rewarding those who stole, defrauded, borrowed heavily and then gambled it all away, what is to stop any of this from happening all over again.
It already looks like it is happening in government backed mortgages....bubbliciousness returns? |
