THE STOCK MARKET, CHRISTMAS AND OTHER SIGNS THAT THE ECONOMY IS HEADED FOR A FALL

On Monday, I went over housing stats that refute what the media and government are telling us. Contrary to the "good news" we keep hearing, housing stats are indeed up overall, however, almost all of those are government funded projects. Residential and commercial housing are falling and, as that is the bell weather for the economy, bodes ill for the future. But beside housing, numerous signs point to an abject disaster, none of which has been helped by President Obama's apparent desire to prove the Tea Party right that government is incompetent. The fact that it was private industry that was ultimately responsible for the building of the healthcare website though, makes both government and big business equally retarded. When neither side seems to have an IQ over 60, the future of the planet comes into question.

Let's look at some real facts, not spin. The total amount of margin debt has risen 50% since the beginning of 2012. The last two times that the margin debt skyrocketed was right before the crashes of 2000 and 2008. The stock market has jumped 143%, the S&P 500 is up 165% and Nasdaq 213%. As the stock market is completely devoid of economic reality at this point, helped by QE infinity and stock buy back schemes, the stock market is overinflated again stands to drop at least 30% in the coming months, most likely even more. This suggests a giant speculative bubble that could burst at any moment. And if the derivative market goes belly up, the world economy goes with it as the loss ratio for the banks is greater than the sum of all funds on Earth. Even worse, as derivative losses have been illegally fostered on to FDIC shoulders, any huge loss on that level would wipe out everyone's personal savings. Fun.

Google recently reported that the term "stock market crash" is at its highest level since 2007, right before the last crash. This may mean nothing or everything depending on what happens next. The fact that we have all these companies like Facebook and Twitter valued in the billions, seems at odds with the fact that neither of them has ever made a profit. Twitter lost almost $70 million dollars last year but worth $22 billion. WTF? Facebook would have to make it's earning for the next hundred years to equal it's $100 billion worth.

This is a pattern we've seen in the past, especially during the dot.com explosion which overvalued companies until they all fell apart. Does anyone still remember Pets.com? It sounded like a great idea to sell pet stuff over the Internet until it became apparent their model wasn't working and the whole thing went belly up. The same thing may happen to Twitter or Facebook when the next big thing wipes them from the face of the Earth along with billions in shares of stock along with the Dow in general.

Christmas shopping is also proving to the smarter of us that because of out of control health care costs, which Obamacare will NOT fix, along with declining wages, that many are cutting back on spending, which is the exact opposite the news media kept telling us right up to the point sales dropped. Traffic was up but spending was down as many went shopping on Black Friday (or Thanksgiving if you were a giant douchebag) and only bought the one thing they needed and left. Black Friday needs people to come in and buy multiple things to remain profitable. That did not happen this year at all.

Spending dropped a whopping 4% from last year, which equalled $1.7 billion less. Ouch. The reason for this is that the unemployment is rising, now near 30%, and poverty is exploding. The governments response to this is the two sides deciding how much to cut from social programs while continuing to subsidize the rich. Fuck off comes to mind.

Pictures have been sent through the Internet showing empty malls with NO shoppers in them just days before Thanksgiving, which used to be busy for people doing early Christmas shopping. Now, people are buying on line or not bothering at all. Brick and mortars are going to get hammered this year due to the idiocy of not paying anyone anything anymore. You can't have a consumer society when no one has any disposable cash. But the CEO's only see dollar signs for themselves and their rich buddies and cannot fathom why we are struggling so except to call us lazy, drug users. It's the opposite that is true of that.

When 40% of the current workplace makes less than what a minimum wage worker in 1968 made, bad things are going to occur. And contrary to the fucking Tea Party morons, 75% of all minimum wage workers are adults now, so stop crying about paying teens a high wage. You're mostly paying adults who have been forced to take menial jobs after the good paying ones went overseas. When I was growing up, I went to college so I wouldn't have to work at McDonalds. Now that I have one, many say I shouldn't be too good for that kind of work. I AM TOO GOOD FOR THAT WORK. I didn't spend years in college to flip burgers for a living and neither did anyone else. We were promised a good job for a college degree. Instead we got the same lame crap we could have done without all the debt. Thanks.

And the simple fact is there are simply not enough jobs for everyone anymore, good paying or not. With automation looking to rid of us of millions of other jobs, including drivers for anything, waiters and barstaff, all could be eliminated in the next ten years as automation takes over. Self driving cars will eliminate drivers, drones may be delivering our mail and packages soon and Applebees is already experimenting with tablet orders at each table which will cut down on wait staff. As technology grows, unemployment will skyrocket. Then what. We will have a destitute public and a rich few living in gated, armed communities. That sounds like it sucks. But as long as we keep voting in people like most democrats and all of the Republicans, nothing will change. If we don't do something soon, next Christmas may not even happen.