At the risk of getting uber political, totally agree with Landis. The one exception I may make from his list is Whitman -she was the least imbecilic and/or criminal of the gang that couldn't shoot straight. Paulson was not an idiot, just a bald (and bald) faced liar, criminal. Rice was inept an ineffective. She couldn't control Cheney and Rumsfeld dancing all over her bedroom, and that's a sign of failure.
We may disagree on sustainability of the recovery but yes only an idiot hasn't been able to empirically sense improvement albeit against a dramatic concession in expectations. When I read on those L.A. housing blogs of how many Angeleno's making between 150k-400k are still renting it makes me think there's some chance that this is the early 90's in real estate with California poised to become the new Manhattan of valuations.
Data seems to have improved at one point last year and everyone thought we've bottomed. If I remember correctly, that was when Bernie triumphantly proposed that we would turn around in the latter part of 2008. So if we were to get another round of grim data next month, he's not a morbid politician? It's all same crap in my eyes.
I recall to have read that on one occasion during the Lehman bankruptcy, he slept in his office taking "nervous" phone calls...and all that for 190k per year ?
Of course I'm not arguing the sustainability of this share market run. But if I have one talent in whole world it is to sense when a majority are wrong. I think many things go higher from here. Not the least of which will be natural resources again. And you know what I'm saying there. Regarding L.A. RE. I remember saying all through the 90's that his country needed a new depression/recession, if only to let me back in the RE market that I had largely missed. Now we have it. I'm not gonna ignore this one. It may take 5-10 years to do it's thing. But one shouldn't miss out on this opportunity due to last weeks headlines.
I see no data that reflects that opinion. It's only very recently that the Econ data has seemed to bottom. At least the stuff I look at.
I don't want to dig up bunch of data from the past just to make my point, but the data at the time came in looking pretty damn bad. However, the market completely ignored them in the hopes of interest rate cut by the Fed. Anyway, I'll be looking forward to seeing this thread in hindsight by this time next year. Be that as it may, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, provided that your business acumen is warranted. That still doesn't mean that Bernie is not "a lying SOB" as the header of this thread states.
Considering the mess we we are in, what other choice does he have but to print money. He arguably has the toughest job outside of the president at this point in time. What does Volcker say about all this? He should know.