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STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 21 August 2015
(Happy 15,000 to me. Happy 15,000 to me.)
[font size=3]STOCK MARKET WATCH, Friday, 21 August 2015[font color=black][/font]
SMW for 20 August 2015
AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 20 August 2015
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Dow Jones 16,990.69 -358.04 (-2.06%)
S&P 500 2,035.73 -43.88 (-2.11%)
Nasdaq 4,877.49 -141.56 (-2.82%)
[font color=green]10 year 2.07% -0.04 (-1.90%)
30 Year 2.74% -0.04 (-1.44%) [font color=black]
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[font size=2]Market Conditions During Trading Hours[/font]
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(click on link for latest updates)
Market Updates
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[font size=2]Euro, Yen, Loonie, Silver and Gold[center]
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Market Data and News:[/font][/font]
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Economic Calendar
Marketwatch Data
Bloomberg Economic News
Yahoo Finance
Google Finance
Bank Tracker
Credit Union Tracker
Daily Job Cuts
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Economic Blogs:[/font][/font]
[center]
The Big Picture
Financial Sense
Calculated Risk
Naked Capitalism
Credit Writedowns
Brad DeLong
Bonddad
Atrios
goldmansachs666
The Stand-Up Economist
The Automatic Earth
Wall Street on Parade
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Essential Reading:[/font][/font]
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Matt Taibi: Secret and Lies of the Bailout
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[font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Government Issues:[/font][/font]
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LegitGov
Open Government
Earmark Database
USA spending.gov
[/center][font color=black][font size=2]Handy Links - Videos:[/font][/font]
[center]
Charlie Rose talks with Roubini
Charlie Rose talks with Krugman
William Black: This Economic Disaster
Bill Moyers with Kevin Drum and David Corn
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[div]
[font color=red]Partial List of Financial Sector Officials Convicted since 1/20/09 [/font][font color=red]
2/2/12 David Higgs and Salmaan Siddiqui, Credit Suisse, plead guilty to conspiracy involving valuation of MBS
3/6/12 Allen Stanford, former Caribbean billionaire and general schmuck, convicted on 13 of 14 counts in $2.2B Ponzi scheme, faces 20+ years in prison
6/4/12 Matthew Kluger, lawyer, sentenced to 12 years in prison, along with co-conspirator stock trader Garrett Bauer (9 years) and co-conspirator Kenneth Robinson (not yet sentenced) for 17 year insider trading scheme.
6/14/12 Allen Stanford sentenced to 110 years without parole.
6/15/12 Rajat Gupta, former Goldman Sachs director, found guilty of insider trading. Could face a decade in prison when sentenced later this year.
6/22/12 Timothy S. Durham, 49, former CEO of Fair Financial Company, convicted of one count conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, 10 counts of wire fraud, and one count of securities fraud.
6/22/12 James F. Cochran, 56, former chairman of the board of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and six counts of wire fraud.
6/22/12 Rick D. Snow, 48, former CFO of Fair, convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit wire and securities fraud, one count of securities fraud, and three counts of wire fraud.
7/13/12 Russell Wassendorf Sr., CEO of collapsed brokerage firm Peregrine Financial Group Inc. arrested and charged with lying to regulators after admitting to authorities he embezzled "millions of dollars" and forged bank statements for "nearly twenty years."
8/22/12 Doug Whitman, Whitman Capital LLC hedge fund founder, convicted of insider trading following a trial in which he spent more than two days on the stand telling jurors he was innocent
10/26/12 UPDATE: Former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta sentenced to two years in federal prison. He will, of course, appeal. . .
11/20/12 Hedge fund manager Matthew Martoma charged with insider trading at SAC Capital Advisors, and prosecutors are looking at Martoma's boss, Steven Cohen, for possible involvement.
02/14/13 Gilbert Lopez, former chief accounting officer of Stanford Financial Group, and former controller Mark Kuhrt sentenced to 20 yrs in prison for their roles in Allen Sanford's $7.2 billion Ponzi scheme.
03/29/13 Michael Sternberg, portfolio mgr at SAC Capital, arrested in NYC, charged with conspiracy and securities fraud. Pled not guilty and freed on $3m bail.
04/04/13 Matthew Marshall Taylor,fmr Goldman Sachs trader arrested, charged by CFTC w/defrauding his employer on $8BN futures bet "by intentionally concealing the true huge size, as well as the risk and potential profits or losses associated."
04/04/13 Matthew Taylor admits guilt, makes plea bargain. Sentencing set for 26 June; faces up to 20 years in prison but will likely only see 3-4 years. Says, "I am truly sorry."
04/11/13 Ex-KPMG LLP partner Scott London charged by federal prosecutors w/passing inside tips to a friend in exchange for cash, jewelry, and concert tickets; expected to plead guilty in May.
08/01/13 Fabrice Tourré convicted on six counts of security fraud, including "aiding and abetting" his former employer, Goldman Sachs
08/14/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, and conspiracy in connection with JP Morgan's "London Whale" trade.
08/19/13 Phillip A. Falcone, manager of hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, agrees to admit to "wrongdoing" in market manipulation. Will banned from securities industry for 5 years and pay $18MM in disgorgement and fines.
09/16/13 Javier Martin-Artajo and Julien Grout officially indicted on charges associated with "London Whale" trade.
02/06/14 Matthew Martoma convicted of insider trading while at hedge fund SAC (Stephen A. Cohen) Capital Advisors. Expected sentence 7-10 years.
03/24/14 Annette Bongiorno, Bernard Madoff's secretary; Daniel Bonventre, director of operations for investments; JoAnn Crupi, an account manager; and Jerome O'Hara and George Perez, both computer programmers convicted of conspiracy to defraud clients, securities fraud, and falsifying the books and records.
05/19/14 Credit Suisse, which has an investment bank branch in NYC, agrees to plead guilty and pay appx. $2.6 billion penalties for helping wealthy Americans hide wealth and avoid taxes.
09/08/14 Matthew Martoma, convicted SAC trader, sentenced to 9 years in prison plus forfeiture of $9.3 million, including home and bank accounts
08/03/15 Former City (London) trader Tom Hayes found guilty of rigging global Libor interest rates. Each fo eight counts carries up to 10 yr. sentence.
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[font size=3][font color=red]This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.[/font][/font][/font color=red][font color=black]
40 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
That is a wonderful milestone!
Here's to many, many more!
And I love the 'toon! Even though it hurts at the same time.
The HRC supporters would go nuts, at least I would hope so.
Evil grin required twice.
That way Bernie would have a clear path to FDR's legacy and continuation.
And Hillary would be swept away...along with all her support.
http://angrybearblog.com/2015/08/greeces-missing-drivers-of-growth.html
Analyses and discussions of Greece’s economic situation usually begin—and often end—with its fiscal policy. The policies mandated by the “troika” of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund have undoubtedly resulted in a severe contraction that will continue for at least this year. But little has been said about the private sectors of the economy, and why they have not offset at least part of the fiscal “austerity.” Consumption spending is linked to income, so there is no relief there. But what about the other sources of spending, investment and net exports?
Investment expenditures provide no counterweight, as they have plunged in the years since the global financial crisis. The same phenomenon took place in other countries in the southern periphery of the European Union, but the change in Greece’s investment/GDP ratio between its pre-crisis 2007 level and that of 2014 was an extraordinary decline of 16 percentage points at a time when GDP itself was falling:
In view of the scale of the crisis, it is not surprising that investment fell as much as it did in these countries. The parlous state of the banks only reinforced the decline. The particularly severe decrease in Greece reflects the political uncertainty there as well as the calamitous economic conditions.
Net exports of goods and services have continued to record a deficit in Greece while the other periphery countries by 2013 showed small (or in the case of Ireland large) surpluses:
AND STILL NO RECOVERY--EXPERTS ARE PUZZLED. MORE AT LINK
Analyses and discussions of Greece’s economic situation usually begin—and often end—with its fiscal policy. The policies mandated by the “troika” of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund have undoubtedly resulted in a severe contraction that will continue for at least this year. But little has been said about the private sectors of the economy, and why they have not offset at least part of the fiscal “austerity.” Consumption spending is linked to income, so there is no relief there. But what about the other sources of spending, investment and net exports?
Investment expenditures provide no counterweight, as they have plunged in the years since the global financial crisis. The same phenomenon took place in other countries in the southern periphery of the European Union, but the change in Greece’s investment/GDP ratio between its pre-crisis 2007 level and that of 2014 was an extraordinary decline of 16 percentage points at a time when GDP itself was falling:
In view of the scale of the crisis, it is not surprising that investment fell as much as it did in these countries. The parlous state of the banks only reinforced the decline. The particularly severe decrease in Greece reflects the political uncertainty there as well as the calamitous economic conditions.
Net exports of goods and services have continued to record a deficit in Greece while the other periphery countries by 2013 showed small (or in the case of Ireland large) surpluses:
AND STILL NO RECOVERY--EXPERTS ARE PUZZLED. MORE AT LINK
http://economistsview.typepad.com/timduy/2015/08/some-thoughts-on-productivity-and-the-fed.html
Will flagging productivity growth trigger a hawkish response from the Fed? That is a question I have been asking myself since Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen discounted the cyclical influences of low wage growth in her July 10 speech:
Goldman Sachs economists led by Jan Hatzius hypothesize that productivity growth is low only because growth is mis-measured, undercounting the value of free or improved software and digital content made possible by information technology (although see Greg Ip’s opposing view). It seems that Yellen is leaning in the direction of taking the productivity numbers at face value and seeing low wage growth as consistent with the view that the productivity slowdown is real.
Indeed, the productivity trends may be even grimmer than 1-1/4 percent that Yellen cited in her speech. Consider for example two measures of underlying productivity growth trends, a moving average measure and the result from a simple unobserved components model:
The downtrend since 2000 is more easily discerned by focusing only on the trends:
....MORE...
Bottom Line: Fed policy increasingly reflects the view that the productivity growth slowdown is real. We see it in falling estimates of potential GDP growth, falling expectations for the terminal federal funds rate, and now we see it as a reason to anticipate low wage growth. The first and third reactions seem to have had a hawkish impact on policy - not only is low wage growth not an impediment to raising rates, but San Francisco Federal Reserve President John Williams argued the Fed needs to engineer a substantial slowdown in growth next year. But the FOMC has yet to act on that relative hawkishness; to date they have moved in the direction of market participants. Indeed, while I suspect the odds favor a September hike, we don’t even know they will raise rates this year at all! The question is whether they would be quick to act on that hawkishness in the face of any unexpectedly high inflation or wage growth numbers. I am thinking low-productivity growth coupled with memories of the 1970s may prime FOMC members in that direction.
NOW, IF ANYONE CARES, THIS IS WHAT I THINK:
BY STRANGLING THE WORKERS AND THE ECONOMY, THE FINANCIAL WIZARDS HAVE STOPPED PRODUCTIVITY IN ITS TRACKS. YOU WANT TO GAIN, YOU HAVE TO GIVE. AND YOU CAN'T STARVE AND BEAT THE WORKERS WHO ARE THE ECONOMY, AND EXPECT MASSIVE PROFITS TO SKIM OFF...
Will flagging productivity growth trigger a hawkish response from the Fed? That is a question I have been asking myself since Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen discounted the cyclical influences of low wage growth in her July 10 speech:
The most important factor determining continued advances in living standards is productivity growth, defined as the rate of increase in how much a worker can produce in an hour of work. Over time, sustained increases in productivity are necessary to support rising household incomes…Here the recent data have been disappointing. The growth rate of output per hour worked in the business sector has averaged about 1‑1/4 percent per year since the recession began in late 2007 and has been essentially flat over the past year. In contrast, annual productivity gains averaged 2-3/4 percent over the decade preceding the Great Recession. I mentioned earlier the sluggish pace of wage gains in recent years, and while I do think that this is evidence of some persisting labor market slack, it also may reflect, at least in part, fairly weak productivity growth.
Goldman Sachs economists led by Jan Hatzius hypothesize that productivity growth is low only because growth is mis-measured, undercounting the value of free or improved software and digital content made possible by information technology (although see Greg Ip’s opposing view). It seems that Yellen is leaning in the direction of taking the productivity numbers at face value and seeing low wage growth as consistent with the view that the productivity slowdown is real.
Indeed, the productivity trends may be even grimmer than 1-1/4 percent that Yellen cited in her speech. Consider for example two measures of underlying productivity growth trends, a moving average measure and the result from a simple unobserved components model:
The downtrend since 2000 is more easily discerned by focusing only on the trends:
....MORE...
Bottom Line: Fed policy increasingly reflects the view that the productivity growth slowdown is real. We see it in falling estimates of potential GDP growth, falling expectations for the terminal federal funds rate, and now we see it as a reason to anticipate low wage growth. The first and third reactions seem to have had a hawkish impact on policy - not only is low wage growth not an impediment to raising rates, but San Francisco Federal Reserve President John Williams argued the Fed needs to engineer a substantial slowdown in growth next year. But the FOMC has yet to act on that relative hawkishness; to date they have moved in the direction of market participants. Indeed, while I suspect the odds favor a September hike, we don’t even know they will raise rates this year at all! The question is whether they would be quick to act on that hawkishness in the face of any unexpectedly high inflation or wage growth numbers. I am thinking low-productivity growth coupled with memories of the 1970s may prime FOMC members in that direction.
NOW, IF ANYONE CARES, THIS IS WHAT I THINK:
BY STRANGLING THE WORKERS AND THE ECONOMY, THE FINANCIAL WIZARDS HAVE STOPPED PRODUCTIVITY IN ITS TRACKS. YOU WANT TO GAIN, YOU HAVE TO GIVE. AND YOU CAN'T STARVE AND BEAT THE WORKERS WHO ARE THE ECONOMY, AND EXPECT MASSIVE PROFITS TO SKIM OFF...
http://www.sprottmoney.com/blog/us-wages-have-fallen-every-quarter-of-the-recovery-jeff-nielson.html
For 6 ½ long years, we have been bombarded with the mythology known as “the U.S. economic recovery” by the mainstream media. Exposing this fantasy is simple, since the gulf between myth and reality has grown to such absurd proportions. There is no better starting point than the farcical claim by Barack Obama that “10 million new jobs” have been created during this non-existent recovery. In fact, the U.S. government’s own numbers show that the total number of employed Americans has fallen by more than 3 million over that span, in spite of the population growth over those past 6 ½ years.
The chart above is now somewhat dated, as the St Louis Fed has deliberately changed the format of this chart in order to make it harder to reproduce. Updated, the U.S. civilian participation rate has now fallen to a 36-year low, and as the chart clearly shows, it has fallen at a faster rate since the start of this mythical recovery. The lie: “10 million new jobs created”. The fact: more than 3 million jobs lost. This is a reality-gap of 13 million jobs, or exactly 2 million jobs per year. The U.S. economy hasn’t been “creating” 1.5 million new jobs per year. It’s been losing roughly ½ million jobs every year of this fantasy-recovery.
Then we have the “heartbeat” of the U.S. economy, its velocity of money. A chart of this heartbeat shows that it has plummeted far lower than at any other time in the 56-year history of this data series. This doesn’t merely show a dying economy, it shows a dead economy.
As for the supposed “GDP growth” over this 6 ½ year span, falsifying this statistic requires nothing more than lying about the rate of inflation. Here again, the lie is obvious. The U.S. (and other Western governments) pretend that inflation is near-zero, while in the real world, food and housing prices have been soaring at the fastest rate in our lifetime over the past 10 – 15 years.
Then we have U.S. energy consumption. Again the picture is clear. Overall U.S. energy consumption peaked in 2007 and has been falling since then, while official gasoline consumption has been plummeting for several years. Growing economies use more energy. Shrinking economies use less energy. Case closed.
All this is old news to regular readers, however. What has been less easy to document in any sort of definitive way has been the fall in U.S. wages. The problem is that to express wages meaningfully, we must use “real dollars”, i.e. we must adjust these wages for inflation. With the U.S. government only providing nominal data about U.S. wages, and consistently lying about the actual inflation rate; we have lacked the data to make any conclusive statement. A recent boast by the U.S. government/Corporate media (i.e. another false claim) has now provided us with a clearer picture here, going back to the beginning of this imaginary recovery. In trying to downplay the absence of any wage-growth in the U.S. in Q2 of this year; the propaganda machine made this claim:
…That is down from a 2.6 percent increase in the first quarter of 2015, which was the biggest in 6 ½ years.
The claim is that nominal wages in the U.S. rose at the fastest rate “in 6 ½ years” in the first quarter of 2015, i.e. the highest rate during the entire pseudo-recovery. Now let’s discount that number with the (real) rate of inflation, in order to get a real-dollar number for U.S. wages...A recent commentary pegged U.S. inflation at a conservative level of 12% per year. That number is substantially higher for the Working Poor (and poor), who now comprise the majority of nearly all Western societies. Translating that to a quarterly number (i.e. dividing it by four), we get a quarterly inflation-rate in the U.S. of 3% -- significantly higher than the supposed “growth” in wages of 2.6%.
Thus the U.S. government itself has now provided us with a definitive picture on U.S. wages. During Q1 of this year, the high-water mark for U.S. wage “growth” during the entire Recovery; U.S. wages were still falling. Ipso facto, U.S. wages have been falling every quarter of this recovery. Now we begin to see the whole truth in the U.S. labour market, versus the absurd, official claim of lots of “new jobs” and “rising wages”. U.S. employment has been falling, not rising, every quarter, every year. U.S. wages have been falling, not rising, every quarter, every year. But that picture is still incomplete. The total number of hours worked by the Working Poor is also falling, and in 18 out of 20 of the U.S.’s industrial sectors, total number of hours worked is still lower than during the so-called Great Recession. This is also reflected in the fall in the percentage of full-time employees.
To summarize: since the beginning of the imaginary U.S. economic recovery, there are millions fewer Americans who are now employed. Their wages have been falling for every quarter of the “recovery”, and they are also working fewer hours. Growing economies create more jobs; shrinking economies lose jobs. Strong economies have rising (real) wages; weak economies have falling wages. Once again we see the supposed U.S. recovery is pure mythology.
However, with respect to the destruction of the U.S. standard of living, to truly appreciate what has been done to the U.S. population (and the populations of nearly all of the Corrupt West), we must look at the picture over a much longer term. In the 40 years before the beginning of this imaginary recovery, the wages of the Average American fell by roughly 50% (in real dollars). Now the descent of the majority of the U.S. population to Third World status becomes crystal clear. From 1970 to the beginning of 2009 (i.e. the current “recovery”), U.S. wages fell roughly 50%. Then came the mythical Recovery, and U.S. wages have continued to fall, quarter after quarter after quarter. The Great Recovery has been worse than the Great Recession which came before it. What do we call it when a nation experiences a “great recession”, and then the economy continues to crumble at an even faster rate after that, year after year? We call it a Greater Depression.
Shrinking economy. Losing jobs. Falling wages. Declining energy consumption. No “heartbeat”. Has anything been left out, in describing this U.S. economic Armageddon? Certainly. The U.S. government is obviously bankrupt. The U.S. dollar is obviously worthless. The U.S. economy has been run completely into the ground. When the current, assorted bubbles are deliberately popped (almost certainly in 2016, or late-2015), and Old-Man Buffett goes on a massive shopping spree with the $60+ billion he is now currently hoarding; there will be nothing left but economic rubble. And Milton Friedman will be smiling, from (way) down in his final, resting place.
For 6 ½ long years, we have been bombarded with the mythology known as “the U.S. economic recovery” by the mainstream media. Exposing this fantasy is simple, since the gulf between myth and reality has grown to such absurd proportions. There is no better starting point than the farcical claim by Barack Obama that “10 million new jobs” have been created during this non-existent recovery. In fact, the U.S. government’s own numbers show that the total number of employed Americans has fallen by more than 3 million over that span, in spite of the population growth over those past 6 ½ years.
The chart above is now somewhat dated, as the St Louis Fed has deliberately changed the format of this chart in order to make it harder to reproduce. Updated, the U.S. civilian participation rate has now fallen to a 36-year low, and as the chart clearly shows, it has fallen at a faster rate since the start of this mythical recovery. The lie: “10 million new jobs created”. The fact: more than 3 million jobs lost. This is a reality-gap of 13 million jobs, or exactly 2 million jobs per year. The U.S. economy hasn’t been “creating” 1.5 million new jobs per year. It’s been losing roughly ½ million jobs every year of this fantasy-recovery.
Then we have the “heartbeat” of the U.S. economy, its velocity of money. A chart of this heartbeat shows that it has plummeted far lower than at any other time in the 56-year history of this data series. This doesn’t merely show a dying economy, it shows a dead economy.
As for the supposed “GDP growth” over this 6 ½ year span, falsifying this statistic requires nothing more than lying about the rate of inflation. Here again, the lie is obvious. The U.S. (and other Western governments) pretend that inflation is near-zero, while in the real world, food and housing prices have been soaring at the fastest rate in our lifetime over the past 10 – 15 years.
Then we have U.S. energy consumption. Again the picture is clear. Overall U.S. energy consumption peaked in 2007 and has been falling since then, while official gasoline consumption has been plummeting for several years. Growing economies use more energy. Shrinking economies use less energy. Case closed.
All this is old news to regular readers, however. What has been less easy to document in any sort of definitive way has been the fall in U.S. wages. The problem is that to express wages meaningfully, we must use “real dollars”, i.e. we must adjust these wages for inflation. With the U.S. government only providing nominal data about U.S. wages, and consistently lying about the actual inflation rate; we have lacked the data to make any conclusive statement. A recent boast by the U.S. government/Corporate media (i.e. another false claim) has now provided us with a clearer picture here, going back to the beginning of this imaginary recovery. In trying to downplay the absence of any wage-growth in the U.S. in Q2 of this year; the propaganda machine made this claim:
…That is down from a 2.6 percent increase in the first quarter of 2015, which was the biggest in 6 ½ years.
The claim is that nominal wages in the U.S. rose at the fastest rate “in 6 ½ years” in the first quarter of 2015, i.e. the highest rate during the entire pseudo-recovery. Now let’s discount that number with the (real) rate of inflation, in order to get a real-dollar number for U.S. wages...A recent commentary pegged U.S. inflation at a conservative level of 12% per year. That number is substantially higher for the Working Poor (and poor), who now comprise the majority of nearly all Western societies. Translating that to a quarterly number (i.e. dividing it by four), we get a quarterly inflation-rate in the U.S. of 3% -- significantly higher than the supposed “growth” in wages of 2.6%.
Thus the U.S. government itself has now provided us with a definitive picture on U.S. wages. During Q1 of this year, the high-water mark for U.S. wage “growth” during the entire Recovery; U.S. wages were still falling. Ipso facto, U.S. wages have been falling every quarter of this recovery. Now we begin to see the whole truth in the U.S. labour market, versus the absurd, official claim of lots of “new jobs” and “rising wages”. U.S. employment has been falling, not rising, every quarter, every year. U.S. wages have been falling, not rising, every quarter, every year. But that picture is still incomplete. The total number of hours worked by the Working Poor is also falling, and in 18 out of 20 of the U.S.’s industrial sectors, total number of hours worked is still lower than during the so-called Great Recession. This is also reflected in the fall in the percentage of full-time employees.
To summarize: since the beginning of the imaginary U.S. economic recovery, there are millions fewer Americans who are now employed. Their wages have been falling for every quarter of the “recovery”, and they are also working fewer hours. Growing economies create more jobs; shrinking economies lose jobs. Strong economies have rising (real) wages; weak economies have falling wages. Once again we see the supposed U.S. recovery is pure mythology.
However, with respect to the destruction of the U.S. standard of living, to truly appreciate what has been done to the U.S. population (and the populations of nearly all of the Corrupt West), we must look at the picture over a much longer term. In the 40 years before the beginning of this imaginary recovery, the wages of the Average American fell by roughly 50% (in real dollars). Now the descent of the majority of the U.S. population to Third World status becomes crystal clear. From 1970 to the beginning of 2009 (i.e. the current “recovery”), U.S. wages fell roughly 50%. Then came the mythical Recovery, and U.S. wages have continued to fall, quarter after quarter after quarter. The Great Recovery has been worse than the Great Recession which came before it. What do we call it when a nation experiences a “great recession”, and then the economy continues to crumble at an even faster rate after that, year after year? We call it a Greater Depression.
Shrinking economy. Losing jobs. Falling wages. Declining energy consumption. No “heartbeat”. Has anything been left out, in describing this U.S. economic Armageddon? Certainly. The U.S. government is obviously bankrupt. The U.S. dollar is obviously worthless. The U.S. economy has been run completely into the ground. When the current, assorted bubbles are deliberately popped (almost certainly in 2016, or late-2015), and Old-Man Buffett goes on a massive shopping spree with the $60+ billion he is now currently hoarding; there will be nothing left but economic rubble. And Milton Friedman will be smiling, from (way) down in his final, resting place.