TJIC lays it out. I wish I could be more optimistic than he, but it sure looks like he has it analyzed. We also are looking at eliminating debt, which is one of the drivers behind us leaving the People's Republic of Massachusetts and moving to Atlanta.
To amplify TJIC, let me say that the Tech Bubble is (in some ways) still being worked out, and the Fed.Gov made things a lot worse with Sarbanes-Oxley. Specifically, the startup/IPO market has been depressed for 8 years, and so a bunch of startups that would have been successful were never started. Now that unemployment is bumping 10%, that's an example where our Government Masters are screwing things up.
Housing prices are "sticky", not just because people hesitate to accept a loss, but because when they only have maybe 10% equity in the house, they can't sell if the price drops 11%. "Buy more house than you can afford" is great when home prices are going up up up, but turns the house into a prison when prices drop. The Fed.Gov is doing many things here, all of them wrong - meaning they will make the problem last longer.
The Higher Education industry has done a simply outstanding job of teaching Marxist philosophy while simultaneously milking its customers for every penny of the surplus that the degree will generate. They've lobbied our Government Masters to make student loans one of the two types of debt that are non-dischargeable in bankruptcy. Way to go, Marxists! From each according to his ability, to you!
Combine this with the Entitlement collapse, and I fear not that my children will be less well off than I, but that they will be substantially less well off. Quite frankly, it's Big Government that is making all of these drivers much, much worse.
Man, all those Ivy League Technocrats sure did a good job, didn't they? Philosopher Kings.
Now, why can't we be as optimistic as Time/CNN?
ReplyDeleteOh, that's right, we have brains.