I think that everyone can finally stop arguing about whether we will see a V-shaped recovery or a U-shaped recovery and start accepting that what we are going to see is an L-shaped recovery.
Take a look at the laundry list of enormous challenges to a recovery:
- Out-of-control government spending
- Record federal government deficits
- Skyrocketing unemployment — heading past 10% soon
- Record foreclosure rates
- Hundreds of billions of dollars in Alt-A mortgages about to head into default
- Banks delaying foreclosure sales to avoid admitting insolvency
- Malfeasance at the FDIC
- Runaway deflation
Any one of these items could keep us in a recession. If multiple of these items remain unfixed, we can expect to slide into a depression.
How many of these items do we see the Obama administration prepared to fix? One. Ben Bernake has talked about fixing #8 by dropping money our of helicopters. (I am not kidding.)
The Obama administration has no plans to meet any of the other threats to recovery. Instead, the Obama administration is pushing for new laws which will depress the economy much further by making American businesses uncompetitive in the global arena.
The Obama administration is not taking the economy seriously, because they have no respect for money or the people who work for it. Socialists like Barack Obama see private property as a threat to their power. They see free men and women as objects to be “managed” and controlled. They firmly believe that government, in their hands, can run our lives better than we can. Their track record says otherwise.
I do not forsee a sustainable economic recovery until the Obama administration is replaced with an administration which has respect for individuals and for private property. A socialist government cannot fix a free economy any more than a bull can fix a china shop.
