My thoughts exactly.
This election looks like it's going to be a contests between two ghosts, one beige, one gray flannel.
The unstoppable US economic spiral: Recession/depression/inflation
In fact, the United States ends 2011 in a state of weakness unmatched since the Civil War. They practice
no significant leadership at international level. The confrontation between geopolitical blocs is sharpening
and they find themselves confronted by almost all the world’s major players: China, Russia, Brazil (and in
general almost all of South America) and now Euroland37. Meanwhile, they cannot control unemployment
where the true rate stagnates at around 20% against the backdrop of an unabated and unprecedented
reduction in the labour force (which has now fallen to its 2001 level38).
Real estate, the foundation of US household wealth along with the stock market, continues to see prices
drop year after year despite desperate attempts by the Fed39 to facilitate lending to the economy through
its zero interest rate policy. The stock market has resumed its downward path artificially interrupted by
two Quantitative Easings in 2009 and 2010. US banks, whose balance sheets are much more heavily
loaded with financial derivative products than their European counterparts40, are dangerously approaching
a new series of bankruptcies of which MF Global is a but a precursor, indicating the absence of procedural
controls or alarms three years after the collapse of Wall Street in 200841.
Poverty is gradually increasing in the country every day, where one in six Americans now depend on food
stamps42 and one in five children has experienced periods of living on the streets43. Public services
(education, social, police, highways...) have been significantly reduced across the country to avoid city,
county, or state bankruptcies. The success with which the revolt of the middle class and the young (TP
and OWS) has met is explained by these objective developments. And the coming years will see these
trends get worse.
The weakness of the 2011 US economy and society is, paradoxically, the result of the “rescue” attempts
carried out in 2009/2010 (stimulus plans, QE ...) and the worsening of a pre-2008 “normal” situation.
2012 will mark the first year of deterioration from an already badly impaired situation44.
From Leap 2020