Tuesday, December 30, 2014

The New Year Approaches

To the average person on the street, the economy is OK. Not great, but OK. So when we carry that concept further, there is nothing to fix because nothing is broken. If we were to ask if the economy is in need of being fixed, we would get the expected 3-5% lead pipe cinch return of yes. The thing to remember here is that these five percent opinions have more than two solutions to “fix” the problems.

At this point, 95 percent of the population has no idea that there are economic problems. Everything worked yesterday and everything works today. So if there is a problem, it is pretty much invisible. Remember economics is not a course that many study. Government debt and inflation are things we have always lived with in our life time.

We have a national debt of 18 trillion and a collective mentality that this is something that Congress can fix every year. The same with Social Security and any other financial problems, the solutions for all have been pushed into the future.

Do you get the idea that the average person is more into sports twitter and Facebook? Reality is where your mind meets the road. There are no pressing world financial problems as far as the average man is concerned. Providing for, and feeding your family are the goals for the present. Infrastructure, retirement, government finances will all be taken care of; if they aren’t we will elect someone else. The mindset of the 95 percent of the population is very simplistic, it works, and will keep working.

How can the concept of nation debt out of control be explained, or where the money went that was in the Social Security fund? These problems project no immediate peril to the Hoi Polloi, they are of little concern.

The basic concept of public officials is to push all of the pending problems past their time in office. So here we go with the coming New Year. Forget the canaries in coal mines, the deck chairs on the Titanic, people are tired of the stories and no longer pay attention to them. A while ago, the Vice President, referred to the last six years as “The greatest recession since the Great Depression.” All I can say to Obama and Biden, the horse ride is not over, there are still two more years for them in the saddle. And they are definitely not out of the woods, they’re part of the woods.

The coming year could be very telling. With the drop in oil prices, the Middle East will have to choose between guns and butter, and by the way, you can’t grow much food in a fox hole. Russia’s currency could hyper inflate to nothing, they don’t produce much for consumer consumption (if it explodes, it's not editable). The EU as a currency for the European Union could end, Greece and Spain want out. Look for our stock market to hit 26,000. It’s the last game in town. We are all going to get rich.

Belly up to the bar, our government will fix what ails you. I’m not sure how we will pay for all of this, but we know it will involve Republicans; they still have a few dollars left.

So with the year at an end, a toast to the incoming year; here’s wishing everyone a Happy New Year.

6 comments:

Sackerson said...

"The basic concept of public officials is to push all of the pending problems past their time in office."

Well put.

What do you think of John Michael Greer's concept of "catabolic collapse"?

Happy New Year!

dearieme said...

Mr Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, discussed economic problems: "We all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it."

Sackerson said...

And then he got druncker. Happy New Year, DM.

dearieme said...

Happy New year, chaps. Steady on with the pop, now!

Jim in San Marcos said...

Hi Sack

Your spelling of druncker demonstrates your expertise in understanding the subtle nuances of the real world. I liked it.

Have a Happy New Year everyone.

Jim in San Marcos said...

Hi dearieme

That Mr Juncker sound like my sort of man.

I shoot from the hip and tell the truth and it gets me in trouble all of the time. Nobody wants to hear the truth, it has to be modified, to be politically correct.

Thank you for the quote.

Happy New Year