The Fed meets this week to determine how much monetary euthanasia to apply to the markets, while the real economy dies with each passing moment...
Extend and Pretend To The End:
Back in the late '90s, the incentive and temptation to speculate in stocks was overwhelming. The internet was new. Online trading was new and easy. Stocks were going up every day. You felt like an idiot if you didn't "invest". People you knew would brag about their big gains in Cisco, Sun, AOL, Netscape, Yahoo, JDS Uniphase etc. When it ended, a lot of people were wiped out.
It was similar in the 2003-2006 timeframe with housing. Ordinary people were flipping condos. Others were trading up to the obligatory McMansion. Almost everyone was cashing out home equity with lines of credit and using the money for great vacations, housing renovations or trinkets. The temptation was huge and the disaster that came after was even bigger.
Monetary Euthanasia - Sit Back, Relax, Go Bankrupt...
Today, it's a different temptation. Instead of seeing a way to make a quick buck, the overwhelming temptation is to do nothing. Go with the flow. We are constantly surrounded and inundated with propaganda and happy talk. This current "fiscal cliff" preoccupation is a self-inflicted cluster fuck. It's merely the Idiocracy determining the best way to go about bankrupting its own grandchildren. These insanely unaffordable tax cuts were meant to expire. They were set to expire by the exact same morons who are now trying to extend them. When the tax cuts were enacted, these deceivers were pretending to be halfway fiscally prudent - as in, these tax cuts will expire so they won't cost that much in the long run. It's like a junky who throws away his last needle but then goes fishing for it in the sewer to get it back. This society has gone FULL RETARD. Yet, the temptation is still there to once again ignore the underlying facts and go with the flow. Actually, I would argue that it's even more tempting today than during the prior two financial collapses of the past decade. This time, Central Banks have purposely numbed us into submission. Have a problem with Spanish debt? No problem - monetary dopium. Have a jobless recovery? No problem - dopium. Have a fiscal cliff? Dopium. Having riots in the street? Get more dopium. Today and tomorrow the Fed meets to tell us and Wall Street how much more dopium they are going to inject into our collapsing economic veins. Of course, the stock market is well bid into the occasion - after all, who knows how much more free money they will get this time.
Live Burial At the Hands of Voodoo Shaman
Live Burial At the Hands of Voodoo Shaman
Unfortunately, we know that there is no Free Lunch in this world, so by seducing us into ignoring all of these risks and allowing them to grow unchecked in the meantime, these Central Banks are merely digging us a massive hole for our convenient live burial. So while once again I feel that familiar temptation to yield to the seduction of the moment by forgetting all facts and and data and sticking my head up my own ass; this time we have too many scars and know too much, not to realize it's just that same old black magic tempting us one last time...