The End is Near! But That’s a Good Thing.
All the signs are in order, the planets are in alignment, we haven’t hit the bottom, but at least we know there’s a bottom to hit.
The Federal Reserve has finally pulled its collective head out of the sand and realized that everyone else is right and we won’t have a miraculous recovery the minute Obama takes office. The Fed’s December meeting minutes have shown that, despite constant eerie optimism with absolutely no reasoning behind it, they don’t see any sort of real economic recovery until late 2009. If we look at people who deal with reality, it is unlikely that we will see any sort of recovery until Q3 2009, more likely Q4, and that’s being optimistic.
Yes, we are truly screwed going into this next year. The Congressional Budget Office estimates a deficit of over $1 trillion, and that’s before President-elect Obama’s stimulus package gets put in place. Obama warns that we had better get used to it because there will be “trillion-dollar deficits for years to come.” Even giving away money costs tens of millions of dollars. We’re actually taking loans from Mexico and, to top it all off, even the porn industry wants a $5 billion bailout.
When you hear that ‘the Hustler guy and the Girls Gone Wild dude’ are going to Washington D.C. to ask for money, you know the economy is really on its way to rock bottom. Next thing we know, the Wall Street Journal’s articles are going to be tagged NSFW as they go ‘deep’ into the newest industry asking for a handout and economic graphs will take on a whole new dimension (y, x, z and… xxx?).
At this point, there’s still plenty of room left to fall. The DOW is below 9,000, S&P 500 is less then 1,000, and the NASDAQ is just barely above 1,500. Yes, Congress seems determined to inflate the bubble, even if it is delaying the inevitable. Some commentators are already throwing out the DOOM card and job numbers are still falling, with the latest numbers approaching 700,000 jobs lost.
To top it all off, an ever increasing number of people realize that this is not just Wall Street’s fault, but also due to the fact that our entire political system is flawed and everyone is corrupt.
As the comment boards say: ‘w00t!’
Ok, so we know what the problem is (equal parts corruption and stupidity), we know where we are going (down, for a while) so now we have a good opportunity, let us legislate dealing with reality, for once.
