I'm not looking for credibility. I'm looking for a good debate. If I wanted credibility, I'd go post on like-minded threads. I get a good debate here for the most part. Helps me stay sharp and challenge my assumptions. Recently, though a few posters have been getting very emotional, instead of calmly debating the merits of my arguments. That tells me that desperation is mounting.
My main position nowadays is to alert people to the fact that propping up the stock market and the economy through endless deficit spending and money printing will most certainly have a catastrophic outcome. People watch the stock market make new highs everyday, and instead of realizing that the probability of a massive downdraft increases ratably as the stock market further disconnects from the underlying corporations profit expectations, they get euphoric and believe this will continue forever, or at least not end any time soon. This bull is already way past the mean cycle length for bull markets. Be wary.
To help prove my point, think about it this way. Do you feel wealthier as the stock market increases, even as the cost of food, fuel, and housing increases along with it? Maybe you feel wealthier, but the 99% are most certainly NOT wealthier as a result. And the costs are extreme in terms of the long term health of the economy. Increasing government deficits and debt and interest on that debt crowds out private sector spending, now and over the longer run...and the effect is compounding. That erodes future growth potential. We are quite literally ransacking the future to pay for today's economic sedatives.
The risks are also extreme. Money printing and financial repression through Bernanke's Zero Interest Rate Policy is acting on the inflation like a coiled spring. Only a little inflation is leaking out now, some 2% by the Fed's measure and as much as 5-8% for fuel, food, education, and health care costs, which combined make up the bulk of the 99%'s budget. However, it is a coiled spring. The Fed will not be able to slowly uncoil the spring, because they are looking at lagging indicators to determine if inflation is upon us. They are not ANTICIPATING inflation and acting to ward it off. By the time the Fed notices inflation, it will happen fast and ugly. They won't be able to dump the $3-4 or more trillion in bonds they hold now, nor will they be able to raise interest rates fast enough to stamp inflation out quickly enough. They are quite literally in a catch 22. Very few people understand this. I suspect, Bernanke himself fully understands this. It's probably why he is telling people that he'll step down in January 2014. He doesn't want to be around when the shit hits the fan.
Now, I don't believe we'll see hyper-inflation. I think we'll get a Volcker type in place in time to fix things before that happens. However, I do think the probability is very high we'll get a replay of 70's style stagflation. I think the odds are very high we'll get there this decade. Incidentally, do you want to know what happens to the stock market and inflation both, when the central bank is printing money with abandon? Stocks do great! Inflation sux, though. Net net, it's a losing proposition for almost everyone.
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