© Sharpy/John VachonJune 1941. Rain. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The Case/Shiller index reports a "broad-based slowdown" for US home prices, and that in the rear view mirror that looks at Q3. So that's not where those 3.89% came from, it wasn't housing (wonder what it was). The Gallup Christmas survey lost 8% of exuberance in one month. What this adds up to is that Americans may not spend all of that saved gas money, and that means there's a real danger of deflation coming to America too - as if Japanese and European attempts to export their own were not enough yet.
While the media continue to just about exclusively paint a picture of recovery and an improving economy, certainly in the US - Europe and Japan it's harder to get away with that rosy image -, in ordinary people's reality a completely different picture is being painted in sweat, blood, agony and despair. Whatever part of the recovery mirage may have a grain of reality in it, it is paid for by something being taken away from people leading real lives. US unemployment numbers are being massaged three ways to Sunday, as is common knowledge, or should be; the amounts of working age people not working, and not being counted as unemployed either, is staggering.
Comment: What the author presents as solutions make good sense. However the rot is so bad that it seems only a total collapse of the financial system will provide the opportunity to rebuild it as the author points out. People have to learn about psychopathy first so the same mistakes are not repeated.