The Economy

The nature of the economy of America is so large and so diverse and so complex that it is difficult to come to any conclusion as to the financial health of the United States. Some individual elements of the economy appear to be improving: the stock market is up and threatening the 10,000 mark and residential home sales have increased, not much, but have increased. Unfortunately the most recent publications by economic gurus have not been positive.



Dan Mangru opines that the real "on the street" economy is poor. He contends that the actual unemployment figure is at least 16% and not the 9.8% promoted by the Obama Administration. The stock market rebound he characterizes as a "short term" reaction which has occurred only as the result of government borrowing and government stimuli rather than real economic growth. On those same two topics, Addison Wiggin has expressed that the percentage of the American unemployed is in the 20s and could well be approaching the 30% figure. Wiggin also believes that the positive economic news is only "fictitious growth" due to "government stimulus" and in fact there has not been "any real recovery".



The word "depression" slips into articles by both Mangru and Wiggin. The American economic forecast is "cloudy" states Mangru with "depression" still looming. Wiggin points out, that by definition, depression is unemployment nearing or at 30% and we are much closer to that figure than Washington will admit.



On the same depressing economic page are Peter Schiff, Marc Faber and Professor Lawrence Kotlikoff . Schiff, who may well be promoting commodity sales through his business entity, has demonstrated some past economic savvy and labels the American dollar as the "new peso" . He reflects that the dollar is weak and will get weaker making is useful to be borrowed at a low rate and "invested in better, higher yielding assets". Professor Kotlikoff, who teaches economics at Boston University, has simply declared that "the United States is going broke". Faber is even more scary with his belief that "the next crises will bring down the entire capitalistic system".

In all this doom there is a positive aspect being urged by Dan Mangru. He puts full confidence in the American people [note that it was not the American government] to adjust, innovate and bring real economic success back to the United States. Mangru correctly points out that America is still the "world's most preeminent nation" and no one ever claimed that staying in that status would be easy.

To get back to economic preeminence, which will drag all other aspects of our national life along with it, the reign of Obama, his advocates and his handlers must be ended. Elections in November of this year, next year and in 2012 must relegate the current Washington hierarchy into involuntary retirement.