State of The Globe. IMHO Of Course

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Greece fell apart. They still have huge unfunded liabilities.

Ireland is falling apart as they nod their head with eyes wide saying "We're good, we're good!" Like that dude in Aliens who was about to have one of the little suckers come popping out his chest any second.

As Fredd so eloquently states, they are all on thin ice and there aren't any growth factor escape routes. These are the only escape routes by the way. You can't spend your way to prosperity, you can only grow.

The USA has federal and state and local unfunded pension programs. The money was stolen as in any decent Ponzai scheme.. The majority of the unions are unfunded. Other unions like the teachers union, who in New Jersey demand no layoffs, and 4.something percent pay raises - in this economy - working 9 months a year - and refuse to pay 750 a year to get Full Family coverage - medical, dental - vision.
I'm sure you've seen this Chris Christie video.

There are way too many people who are not getting it. And no one, who they listen to anyway, is telling them.

The number of government workers has surpassed the number of private sector workers earlier this year in 2010. Government workers on average make 45% more than private sector employees And the benefits are Emerald City.

The big companies who got bailouts are continuing to fail. I read where AIG, in order to get out from under the government's jack boot bail out needs to come up with 130 billion dollars. Their business, sliced and diced is worth maybe 30 billion. They recently converted their preferred stock to common stock which net - dilutes their common stock 12%, (read: If you're a stock holder, the dollar bill in your pocket which was worth 1.00 2 seconds ago, is now worth 88 cents.) And the stock rocketed 5% today on the "news" that AIG is going to work itself out from under the governments jack boot. People aren't getting it and don't even have the mental tools to let them get it.

The banks are all still fragile and continue to refuse to lend, in favor of building their cash and other balance sheet reserves instead.

Mortgage holders which have failed over the last 2.5 years or so because of sub prime mortgages and over-priced houses, continue to fail after making new deals and even having principle forgiven because of the home prices falling off a cliff. (Home prices were a bubble created by artificially low credit standards generated wholly by the democrats and helped along by Greenspan's lowering of Fed rates to try and steer out of the Tech bubble of 2000. More or less.)

Mortgage rate resets are actually increasing through 2011 and there will be a lot more Repo's.

Holders of repossessed property such as banks and others, have taken the property off the market so as to avoid flooding the housing market with inventory. Especially homes over 300k. 

Home builders continue to build homes in an effort to avoid shutting their doors and releasing their employees.

There will be Excess supply for a long long time.


The job market continues to shed 450,000 jobs a month give or take 10k. These are people who companies have held on to for 2 years waiting for recovery, not the deadwood that was let go the first 6 months or so, and have thrown in the towel to whatever extent.

In my humble opinion, many people and countries are in serious denial. This is stage one of the Denial, Anger, Depression, Acceptance path. (I'm angry, so I'm like 1 step ahead)

I don't believe this talk of recovery. Remember Gentle Ben Bernanke and Hilarious Hanky Paulson told us "Sub Prime was well contained" back in late 2007 when the music stopped and everyone started scrambling for seats.

European states are all starting to expose their weaknesses as one after the other is forced to cry uncle. All are desperately trying to debase (lower the value of) their currency, so that buying from them appears more attractive since it takes less Euros, or Rubbles, or Yuan or whatever to buy the same thing as it did yesterday. Here's a Chart of the American Dollar It's falling off a cliff.

There isn't enough money to bail everyone out is there ? I don't think so.  This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.  In my opinion of course, and based on what I read from people who have good track records for exposing reality ahead of time.

Well, a smart man I read every day says "Never run scared". Good advice. Don't run scared and freak out, but put some thought into how you're going to try and protect yourself from inflation. Get some advice from someone who speaks reality. Like you call a financial advisor and he tells you the recession ended June 2009, like the news/government just announced recently, so it's time to "Jump In" - hang up.

I'm doing it with gold mining stocks, and as some have pointed out, trading is dangerous and it is, and as well, there is always the risk the government will impose severe penalties against individuals, like extra taxes on gold related transactions, or as they did back in the 30's when they confiscated the gold from people in exchange for paper money.

Silver is also a good investment right now, though it's had a good run, so you might let it cool off a bit.

Inflation is what robs you of your wealth more than anything else.

The dollar has declined in value in excess of 90% since 1913. If your grand parents left you a mattress full of money in their will, you only got less than 10 % of it's value. And the government will steal a bunch of that beside.

Sorry for the downer.  Sorry if I've insulted anyone's intelligence, or tried to sound like a wise owl.  I just see a Lot of denial out there and wanted to put something in black and white.  FWIW as it were.

On the other side, America did come out of the great depression.   The stock market, after fits and starts, finally reached a new high - in comparison to the high in 1929- and stayed above that mark, in 1950.  So, 21 years. And from the bottom in 1933, the market did climb more or less up each year to that point through some of the 30's and certainly the 40's.  This is a different situation and different things will happen, but at some point, investing in traditional things like business (unless we go commie) will provide incredible opportunities.  So there's that.

The smart man I read says the leaders on the B side of this ride won't be the same as those on the A side, so find some sources of information to help ferret these out.  Minyanville is a decent resource.  On the right sidebar as 'Good Info Yo'.
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