These are my thoughts and opinions on many topics. My passions are the stock market and helping abandoned and orphaned animals. In this world, it seems most things don't make much sense to me anymore. This is my feeble attempt to share all of the above. The blogs will include items that might make you shake my head as well as give you my take on why they happen. Enjoy.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Is the economy out of the woods yet?

In a word, I believe yes. Ok, back it up right?

The biggest reason I believe so is that the banking system appears to have made reversal, a big reversal. The Federal reserve has been lending money to the banking industry at basically nothing, and they have been lending it at a 4-5% margin. Look at the Wells Fargo first quarter results and the fact that Goldman Sachs wants to pay back the TARP money they received as soon as the Fed will accept the payment. This is huge, the banking industry is making money again....WOO HOO!!! This time around it will be different. The industry is making money with debt that is of much higher quality, none of the big banks wants to go down the road of financial collapse again.
I honestly believe that Americans will want "heads to roll" in a not so nice fashion if these executives pull the kind of garbage with bad loans, derivatives, etc. just to make the big money.

Also, savings is higher than it has been in 20 years, but this will not last. The American consumer will consume, that is just the way the lastest generation has been raised. American consumers have paid a price, they have learned hard lessons either by way of the news or unfortunately first hand. Those lessons hurt.....but people will learn from the past year or so of economic misery. That being said, Americans ar finding bargains and they will consume, maybe not at the rate that would sustain the high growth of the early 2000s, but consume we Americans will do.

The only catalyst that will help bring the American economy back will be when companies start hiring. The Federal Stimulus money is getting out into the economy and this will temporarily help. With greater employment will be greater confidence in the economy and this will also bring the American consumer out of its coma. The employment figures should improve in the next few months and become stronger into 2010.

The one thing that would help all as well as the stock market would be to lower business and personal income taxes. I do not believe the Obama administration has any desire to put our money back into our pockets. Honestly, this would make the greatest impact on Americans, however the Obama-nomics crew only want to confiscate more of our money. This will put an impediment in the way of any recovery.

My take on things, for what it is worth. Enjoy

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