I looked through your article. Quite a few good points therein.
I think that people should understand that we’re not at a point of a linear downward slope. That point WILL come, but there will be a lot of little ups and little downs.
Go back to the Great Depression as an example. A couple paragraphs from the Wikipedia article are illustrative:
“The Great Depression was triggered by a sudden, total collapse in the stock market. The stock market turned upward in early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April, though still almost 30 percent below the peak of September 1929.[10] Together, government and business actually spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the corresponding period of the previous year. But consumers, many of whom had suffered severe losses in the stock market the previous year, cut back their expenditures by ten percent, and a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the USA beginning in the summer of 1930.
In early 1930, credit was ample and available at low rates, but people were reluctant to add new debt by borrowing.[citation needed] By May 1930, auto sales had declined to below the levels of 1928. Prices in general began to decline, but wages held steady in 1930, then began to drop in 1931. Conditions were worse in farming areas, where commodity prices plunged, and in mining and logging areas, where unemployment was high and there were few other jobs. The decline in the US economy was the factor that pulled down most other countries at first, then internal weaknesses or strengths in each country made conditions worse or better. Frantic attempts to shore up the economies of individual nations through protectionist policies, such as the 1930 U.S. Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act and retaliatory tariffs in other countries, exacerbated the collapse in global trade. By late in 1930, a steady decline set in which reached bottom by March 1933.”
I personally believe we’re in the same sort of dynamic. The stock market may go up, and unemployment may go down, but those will be temporary “gains” that will be consumed by other, more powerful forces acting against our economy (such as massive interest payments and soaring interest rates as the full weight of our debt begins to reveal itself; and such as the massive regulatory and tax burdens Democrats are seeking to impose at a time when they should be doing JUST THE OPPOSITE).
Interestingly, the cap-and-trade legislation most Democrats and Obama WANT to impose carries its own version of Smoot-Hawley. To wit, if countries like China and India don’t “play ball” with liberals’ stupid global warming agenda, they will impose tariffs - which will trigger a trade war, which will trigger a depression.
I think that people should understand that we’re not at a point of a linear downward slope. That point WILL come, but there will be a lot of little ups and little downs. In fact, this latest stock rally underscores your point. Although the market is not a good place for long term money, I assume it has been good for traders.
As for the depression, the stock market graph is quite telling:
We are in somewhat the same situation only worse, and for these reason IMHO:
We have a far larger population that exaggerates all the stresses.
Much of our population is dependant on a public dole that did not even exist in the twenties.
The regulatory burden. It kills creation of small business.
In our favor, we do have technology they did not posess then, but this government is determined to keep us from utilizing it.
As for cap and trade, I saw the very provisions you reference. The entire Waxman-Markley Act is the stupidest legislation I have ever seen. For them to pass something like it in these economics times shows how totally out of touch Democrats have become. The only good thing is that ignorance on that scale can't be justified, no matter what the MSM says. That's why I believe they will be vulnerable in '10 in the House, and '12 across the board. It will be too late, but at least Republicans will be picking up the pieces.
As a small businessman I have been watching the economy closely for 34 years. I have never seen it this bad, this early. I hate even talking about it, but people need to know it is going to get worse...a lot worse. We were in for it even if we had the best legislators in history running the government, instead, look at what we are stuck with!
