#1 You will not see the economy improve using the same ideas of the past. Those ideas are worthless. (The idea of outsourcing jobs outside the US, exporting Debt,using H1B visa to depress white collar technical jobs (which were supposed to be the future jobs to replace manufacturing) Outsourcing those same jobs to india) The idea that you can pocket this huge spread and somehow expect Americans to have to take on debt as inflation decimates their buying power but they see no wage increase. The fed is trying its hardest with its cronies and politicians to try and allow americans to somehow keep on borrowing and keep playing the same game. Unfortunately it will not work.
Dead on. I have been saying that for a long time. I can't believe that corporate elites and economists are not aware of the correlation between jobs/incomes and asset values/consumption. More debt CAN'T be the solution when incomes clearly cannot support more debt! But then again - wages are a COST. Debt, because of interest, is a GAIN. They want low costs and higher gains. Kind of reminds me of the monkey trap. A hunter puts a few peanuts in a coconut and ties it to a tree. The monkey sticks his hand in the hole, but so long as he keeps a fist (holding onto the peanuts) he cannot pull his hand out. He has to let go of the peanuts to free himself. But his greed prevents him. He won't, and along comes the hunter and clobbers the monkey to death.
Most economists are politico-economists and a lot of them are also simply dumbfounded because everything they have ever learned is now proving to be useless i.e. Big Ben. Economics is not about math equations and models. Economics involves human action and therefore is not applicable to modeling. The Austrian school of economics has been right and continues to be right. This economic collapse should solidify it's dominance. However, as we all know academia is not much different than the childish environment of Washington D.C.
Three cures for the economy, and until then, it will get worse and worse and worse: 1) Jobs 2) Jobs 3) Jobs
Exactly! But a job is an exchange of the employee's time for a customer's money. So jobs, jobs, jobs requires customers, customer, customers. Until American workers can do something that makes them worth more in this world's customers than what a highly-trained engineer or worker in China can produce, those Americans aren't going to get jobs.
Which is why this economy will not bottom until a major portion of American workers transfer into the manufacturing sector. The US will be an economic wasteland until this happens. The markets will continue to go lower as the gov't continues to subsidize service sector jobs.
Cuba, si senor... when BO lifts the embargo, employment will actually go into the greater than 100% territory ! Long live Fidel... People claim that Cuba is poor because of the embargo BTW.. and Cuba has free trade with a lot of countries including Canada... so... my guess is... drumroll... it's not the embargo !!