For the better part of 5 years now, the stock market has been rising, fueled by Federal Reserve asset purchases AND corporate profits. Our largest corporations have performed coups abroad, taken over whole cities, established governments, without firing a single shot. From my vantage point, from any vantage point, I’d say there is money to be made from all of this modern day colonialism.
Couldn’t have said it better myself, except for the part about colonialism, which doesn’t make sense because foreign policy under Obama has generally been non-interventionist. Maybe ‘gilded age’ or ‘wealth boom’ would be more accurate.
In agreement with our predictions in 2011, we’re still in a great moderation – a period of unprecedented wealth creation and economic growth that will continue, uninterrupted, for many, many more years to come. Economic historians will view the banking problem of 2008 as a turning point for when the American economy finally threw off the shackles of interest rate hikes and under-productivity, in much the same way creating the federal reserve and then much later ending the gold standard helped the economy by turning the boom/bust cycle into mostly a boom cycle with very brief busts. People, especially smart people, are getting richer than ever. Never before as it been easier to get rich with stocks and real estate. Thank the fed for that, along with the U.S. consumer.
The doom and gloom media wants you to be poor, for you to sell your stocks too soon and cower in fear. Ignore the media. Throw away your newspaper. Turn off your TV & radio. Click your browser’s back button or close the window on that minutia-filled news site. Here’s the rule of thumb: 99% of the time, what is supposed to be a crisis is just hot air. The media’s modus operandi is to take these embers (China/Japan,Crimea, Russia, Thailand) and try to fan them into a full-blown crisis for ratings. It’s all crap. A fishing boat is sunk and the market rallies anyway. European elections went without a hitch.; the right guys won. If you give the media the attention it seeks, it will deplete you of the time and energy for more productive and enjoyable tasks. Think about that person you know that oblivious to the news. Is he racked with anxiety about not being fully informed, or is he enjoying life? To some, this philosophy may seem provincial and narrow-minded, but it’s really about time management. Do you really have the time to worry about everything is going on in the world when you have absolutely no control over its outcome?
But what about slow economic growth? The left has been sounding the false alarm about the alleged crisis of slow growth since 2009.No one cares about slow growth. Wall St. would rather have slow growth than too much growth and fed tightening. What matters is that profits & earnings keep being blowout. Here are some facts to consider: U.S. GDP growth is still greater than that of Europe, and secondly, GDP growth has returned to pre-2008 levels.