Posted on 07/11/2013 11:44:55 AM PDT by Kaslin
They say slow and steady wins all the time, and right now it's looking like it's true with respect to the economy and stock market. You can argue the recovery has been steady, and there's no doubt it's been slow, which makes the correlating move in stocks puzzling. It reminds me of the story of The Mouse That Roared. The hard part is figuring out who the mouse is in this case. In the story the tiny (three miles by five miles) fictitious European Duchy of Grand Fenwick declares war on America because an American winemaker is making a knock-off version of Grand Fenwick's biggest export - a pinot wine.
The idea was to go to war, lose the war, then see America come in and rebuild the country as it had recently done for Germany via the Marshall Plan (and since then in every corner of the world - even when we lose wars). Instead of losing through a stroke of luck, Duchy forces (one Field Marshall, three men-at-arms and twenty long bowmen) land in Manhattan during a city-wide disaster drill to find the place empty. They wander around until they stumble on a top secret lab that's working on the "Q Bomb," capable of destroying the world.
They're allowed to escape because their mail uniforms were thought to be the skin of Martian invaders.
America finally learns it's been at war for two months but now must bend to the will of the Duchy which has the bomb and its inventor. There are demands for greater smaller nations to have a voice in global affairs and for inspection of all of the world's nuclear weapons. Eventually, the creator of the bomb discovers it doesn't work - it's a dud. But, he doesn't tell anyone for fear of the world spiraling out of its peaceful state. The mouse that roared became the peacekeeper of the planet. There are lots of candidates for the mouse that roars and gets its way these days, including:
Environmentalists
Unions
Mobs in Emerging Growth Nations
US Economy
Ben Bernanke
It goes without saying Ben Bernanke is powerful but is he just hiding behind a "Q Bomb" or does he have the stuff that will bring an era of vigor and renewed optimism into the country? There are signs the economy is edging back but the glacial pace suggests a natural phenomenon that probably happens anyway - and probably fast, without all the money printing shenanigans. Certainly it's been something of an eye-opener to have the kind of Fed "accommodation" witnessed over the past few years with such negligible impact... and no inflation!
Then there's the economy, which used to soar like an eagle but is now as quiet as a mouse, yet this may be the earning season that makes enough noise to spark the next leg of the stock market rally. Sure, the numbers are like that if the Duchy of Grand Fenwick yet it's been so long the natives are impressed. The rationale is we're heading in the right direction, a fact echoed in the May JOLTS report.
For May 2013
Job Openings were at 3.83 million, up slightly from April's 3.80 but the quality of jobs is worrisome.
Quits: 2.07 million (2.9 million December 2007)
Layoffs: 1.74 million from 1.96 million a year earlier and 2.60 million (peak) January 2009
Imagine how bad the economy would be without the miracle of fracking and the huge oil deposits our nation is blessed with.
Obama has had dumb blind luck that he had nothing to do with, and he hates it. I really think he wants us brought to our knees.
As the meltdown of the middle class continues....
I don’t know what these folks have been smoking, but they are definitely impaired.
Jobs are flat. We’re not creating new ones. In what universe ‘other than an alternate one’ is that a steadily growing economy?
You can paper over a lot of misery by borrowing over six trillion dollars, printing trillions more and spending it on consumption. Obama and Bernacke have hollowed out the economy. As Milton Friedman predicted, stocks would increase in price for a while bit eventually everything collapses. The Obama EPA is destructive to productive capitalism and is lowering the American standard of living. Sadly most Americans are clueless.
Only if you're a clueless dweeb who is unaware that the Fed is pumping $1,000,000,000,000 a year into the market.
I see a picture of Obama riding surfboard across a gusher of oil coming from Texas - Cali and North Dakota...
Obama’s oil bonanza.
” Jobs are flat. We’re not creating new ones. In what universe ‘other than an alternate one’ is that a steadily growing economy?”
See post#7.
Most people don’t have a clue what is really going on.
Another FReeper who gets it.
This isn’t rocket science. It’s fairly straight forward stuff.
The problem is most people are not as bright, or nearly as informed as you are.Most people can’t name the VP.
Most people I know are trying to forget who the V. P. is.
“Obama has had dumb blind luck that he had nothing to do with”
Just like Clinton who inherited an economy briskly recovering out of a recession, Al Gore’s internet and dot com bubble, peace dividend and Republican Congress.
Before Clinton left office it was all coming apart and the economy was crashing, yet popular agreement is that Clinton was an economic genius. So let’s do it again and elect another Clinton!
More and more people are buying only what they need to live and not what they want to make life more pleasurable.
It’s people buying what they want and not just what they need that drives the economy and when it stops the economy will collapse.
Their spending is doing exactly what you said, papering over the misery and when it finally does collapse, and it will, there won’t be anything to stop it.
I believe a lot of Americans are clueless because they see people in grocery stores with carts full. They don’t want to believe all of them are receiving govt handout. Their thought process is seems to be overwhelmed by the numbers.
When you split 50 full-time jobs into 2 or 3 part-time jobs each, suddenly you get a whole lot of job growth. Forward!
He should have mentioned the ending of the movie, in which the world powers are convinced that the football-sized Q bomb is a dud, because its normally blinking lights and funny sounds have stopped, so it is left in a dungeon storeroom on a bed of hay and ignored.
Then a mouse crawls out from where it had been hiding inside the bomb, and the bomb’s lights again start blinking and it starts making funny sounds again, indicating it was not a dud.
Or as they say “Advance to the rear”.
I was at the store a few weeks ago and the woman checking me out said she had been there for 3 hours and I was the first person she had checked out that had paid for their groceries.
...but that collision with reality is going to be a real enlightening experience.
(Wonder where The 0 and Ben have got their Big Bug Out programmed for...sure won't be close to any big 'rat metro stronghold, JMHO. Those places are going to get medieval.)
” Those places are going to get medieval.) “
No joke there, my FRiend.
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