OT: Your Reason For Not Believing We Are in a Boom

Fuck you Jackie

Yes things are getting a bit better, but it has been an agonizingly slow crawl. To this day, we still have less people back in the F/T workforce than we had in 2005, despite the fact that our population has grown by 24 million people since 2005, and still far less than the high of 2007.

And, lest we forget, we still have significant portions of our economy being propped up by near zero interest rates. I am very concerned about what will happen to the stock and housing markets when interest rates are finally increased.

At best, our current growth could be characterized as fragile, with a lot of headwinds.

Oh, and stating something in a dismissively sarcastic way doesn't make it inaccurate, but rather just serves as a disingenuous tool for people too stupid, ignorant and/or lazy to tackle a position on its merits. ;)

^^^^ is this a copy of your previous post? Agree as I too am concerned since we've never risen from such a low rate environment before. Fed continues to say they will err on the side of caution and move very slowly.

Almost forgot

v): ZeroHedge is a financial blog with an excellent record for prognostications and impartiality. They say there is no boom. Therefore, there is no boom!

@RickyBoy: I can go either way. Just playing by the rules you guys do. Funny how it's okay for your side but it's a foul when I copy your style.

Absolutely DOOMED! Because Stevie-girl said so!

Brilliant post, but I haven't seen anything by this Stevie-girl! Has she (he?) been posting much?

Here is one of Stevie-girl's quintessential threads:

tuscl.net

I think it's not a boom unless everything is booming. Maybe the EU can step it up a bit and borrow and spend two trillion instead of just one measly trillion. If you ask Obama, one trillion is nothing compared to how much he can borrow and spend. Let's forget about ever paying the money back. Yeaaa boom times are here. Just think if tusclers all acted like countries, we'd all borrow a million bucks and blow it like LMT. boom times yea. Just don't ever think about paying it back.

borrowing and spending within your means generates a sustainable recovery, we're in an experimental borrowed time recovery propped up by excessive borrowing. To avoid a crash, we need to keep it going. Go EU. We still need faster GDP growth and or government spending cuts or the interest on our debts will sink us. Our government can cut spending but too many cuts could cause recession. Party time over except for the rich like Dougster..

Actually it's the ever increasing entitlement spending that could sink us. I heard social security disability fund will be out of money in 2016. The democrats probably will want to raise taxes, their solution for everything.

Shark: " I heard social security disability fund will be out of money in 2016."

Bad news for RickyBoy's father.

Here's one that was a popular belief in the financial media and on blogs like ZeroHedge until last year:

W) it's only the Fed's QE that is holding up the markets and the economy. When the Fed ends that it's all over.

But the really strong numbers came after that, so you don't hear that argument anymore. But the crowd who parotted have just moved on to saying it is rising rates that will make the sky fall

I know that we are in a boom. I just look at historical charts for the stock market indices.

I also know that we will be coming up on a Presidential election. The Republicans and their Tea Party backers are not going to let the Democrats claim credit.

And also, I know that all of these booms of the last 25 years are nothing more than booms in investor confidence.

So for those of you who bought low, I think you should be considering selling high, like NOW.

For myself, I could not care less about booms, and I have no desire to try and make money that way.

SJG

F and G are mostly true. I think we're in for a year or two of jobs and wage growth, but corporate profits and the stock market are likely near a top.

To be a broken record: jobs are a lagging indicator. This boom cycle is in the late stages.

I think the US economy needs rate hikes and they have been delayed too long. The US dollar knows they are coming and has for some time. The Fed has not wavered much from their stated determination to raise rates, and the jobs report yesterday means it's highly unlikely they will now.

The main reason rate hikes are needed is to give banks more incentive to lend. I believe the American consumer learned their lesson and it appears they have seriously delevered and aren't likely to fall into that trap again anytime soon. As you can see in this third their is general skepticism now about speculation in the markets or real estate and also considerable legislation enacted to "de-risk" the system. For that reason, now is the right time for banks to start lending again. Consumers will benefit as will businesses (both as lending target and from the benefits they will see from increased consumer activity). This is especially true give the rising interest of millennials in entrepreneurship.

Meanwhile for older, more risk averse folks, higher rates also obvious give people more incentive to save - which means bigger balance sheets for the banks to loan against (fractional reserve banking).

My feeling on rates was that it was a good move to keep them low for some time following the crisis (excellent work Bernanke - who put all of his academic studies of the great depression to good practical use) but they were kept too low for too long. The economy has recovered despite low rates not because of it. A real testimony to what a steam roller the American economy is when it is ready to go.

All that being said, it is still where we are in the product cycle that is the main driver of the economy and stock market. That is so important it easily the most important factor far beyond things like the geopolitical day to day; whether interest rates are 1% or 0.25%; which party the president belong to; whether some small nation will default or not; whether the top capital gains tax is 15% or 22.5%; whether we have Obamacare or not. A rise in rates is just a little extra juice at this point.

James: "To be a broken record: jobs are a lagging indicator. This boom cycle is in the late stages."

The stock market, OTOH, is a leading indicator and guess what it's saying? This boom is in its early stages - with so many of the new technologies still in the early stages of the product cycle. These things typical last at least a couple of decades so if 2009 was the bottom and we are just 6 years in...

Lol!

Come on, baby. Don't fear the rate hike...

I shouldn't be laughing at this but all I can hear is "don't fear the rate hike" to the tune of "don't fear the reaper"! Brilliant!

Lol!

So you guys are seriously all afraid of a little rate hike?

I don't fear the rate hike! I do fear the reaper, at least a little bit, despite Blue Clam Cult's brilliant advice! ;)

"So you guys are seriously all afraid of a little rate hike?"

The lefty blogosphere is arguing that, while we have nearly full employment, there's barely a hint of wage increases. Pumping up rates now might result in less job growth. So leave rates as they are until we see some hint of inflation; it's far easier to deal with some inflation than a Japanese style deflation.

If they are raised it might be like 0.25% two or three times this year. Don't think the Fed will overdo it. Especially not until oil stabilizes.

Shark nailed it.

This recent run up is fueled largely by debt. What happens when we start paying it back? Or after it runs it's course?

Anyone want to 'fess up that their reason is:

X) Boom? My favorite political/economic/market blog would have told me if such a thing was happening. But they are all gloom and doom. I'll believe no sooner than they do, and then exactly when they do. Because I'm good at thinking for myself like that.

Y) Rickyboy Dugan is still the biggest faggot on TUSCL! When fags are around people's asses get tighter than a bull in fly season.

I am absolutely convinced that we are in a boom. This boom is exactly like the 8 or so other booms we've had since 1980. In fact, I think it's already lasted longer.

After the Civil War there were several booms and busts. With each cycle the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. But there were also counter actions, like the Grangers and Teddy Roosevelt taking on the monopolies, and the beginnings of a labor movement.

Then we had a huge boom in the 1920's, and though the rich got very rich, the poor were still hurting. And then we had a huge bust. And so the people voted for reforms, regulation on the banks, and regulation on securities, and for the government to use it's power to tax and spend to try and prevent there from being any more booms and busts.

Thorstein Veblen had explained the psychodynamics of it, and John Maynard Keynes had worked out the economics. It worked, it worked well, and it worked for many decades. America enjoyed increasing productivity, an increasing standard of living, and a reduction in poverty which was extending to all regions and starting to cross over racial barriers.

But then some Iranian radicals took Americans hostage in an embassy, and Jimmy Carter was trying to enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibition on racial discrimination on Bob Jones University, and so the Evangelicals dumped him and endorsed a Hollywood playboy divorcee.

From then on we've had boom and bust after boom and bust after boom and bust. And so absolutely this is another round. And I am right now holding my breath because I believe the bubble could burst at any moment. 2016 is after all an election year.

SJG

Deep Purple youtube.com

Boom chock-a-locka-locka... Boom!!!

Oh, no! It's all over. Any day now! Just like they've said every day since 2009.