Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe

[traelin0]

Crisis 2011 – Part I: The Other Shoe

• Peak Cheap Oil Cycle Two
• Stagflation, ho! The new NAIRU
• China credit bubble countdown
• Gold over $1300… and still no bubble

“The easiest period in a crisis situation is actually the battle itself. The most difficult is the period of indecision--whether to fight or run away. And the most dangerous period is the aftermath. It is then, with all his resources spent and his guard down that an individual must watch out for dulled reactions and faulty judgment.”
- Richard Milhous Nixon

Remember 1999, the good old days, when the darkest cloud on the horizon was Y2K? Before the tech bubble bust and recession, 911, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and Katrina, when prophesies of post housing bubble economic catastrophe were abstract arguments between establishment economists and cranks, a curious form of doomertainment driving eyeballs to websites and cable “news” shows, and the global financial crisis and Great Recession were figments of pessimistic economists’ imaginations?

Since the first decade of the 2000 opened, it’s been one mess after another with hardly a year off between calamities.

Time for a fresh start. A new beginning. Enough of the wars and recessions. The somnambulist regulators. The crooked bankers. The short-sighted financial oligarchs.

We all deserve at least one blessed year of peace and quiet, of steady progress, growth, a booming stock market, without interruption by disasters man made and by the hand of Mother Nature, don’t we?

Yes we do, and we got one, in 2010.

2010 was the year deflation was banished, reflated economies grew, housing prices turned positive, albeit briefly, and commodity prices surged. The economy expanded all year, tamping out the dubious double dip scenario that discounted the power of the press – the printing press, that is.

The stock market bloomed, in fact did so for far longer, but no more, than I expected. A close over 11,500 on the DOW is a far cry from the 7,500 to 8,000 I forecast at the start of the year. Mea culpa.

Bond yields remained low, as I expected. Gold prices soared 25%, far above my 3% forecast. These reflation markets are tough to call.

The labor markets, while not improving dramatically, stopped getting worse.

Except for a hiccup or two in Europe, a few noisy students complaining about bailouts for bankers and austerity for everyone else, 2010 was a fine year. A breather. A respite. A year off in wine country away from the hurlyburly, addled headed riot of the big city.

Read more here.

[sanityjones]

I'll admit 2010 was a good year for me financially, but after 08/09 how could it not be? A fool could have made money last year, at least on paper. Does this portend a healthy recovery? Hell no, not by a long shot.

[traelin0]

sanity, have you ever wondered why people spend so much time on Sarah Palin and President Obama? Maybe it's just me who is constantly doing a .

If war is an extension of politics, then politics is an extension of economics. Why not go to the source itself, instead of spinning wheels on political puppets who don't know whether to scratch their watches or wind their asses?

[sanityjones]

It's easier to blame someone else rather than admit you've been suckered for most of your adult life. Blaming the POTUS for our economic woes is akin to blaming the weatherman for our shitty weather. Turn the damned TV off and think for yourself is what I say to these people...........not that they will.......or even CAN for that matter.

[traelin0]

I don't think they can is probably accurate. They're still in Stage One of Dr. Kubler-Ross's "Stages of Grief" and will probably remain there.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model