How America Feels, Headed For A New Decade (stuffonmycat.com)
David Rosenberg, a financial writer for BusinessWeek, noted in a December 17th article, "Why 2010 Looks So Dicey" that
The defining characteristic of this asset and credit collapse has been the implosion of the largest balance sheet in the world: the U.S. household sector. Even with the equities rally and the tenuous recovery in housing in 2009, the reality remains that household net worth has contracted nearly 20% over the past year and a half.
That's an epic $12 trillion of lost net worth [italics added], a degree of trauma never seen before. As households assess the damage, the impact of this shocking loss of wealth on spending patterns is likely to be enormous.
Our little 2007-2008 Crash has so far meant a 20% loss in household net worth. By comparison (and, strangely, there's damn little by way of data on this point), the Crash of 1929 resulted in an 11% loss of household net worth.
But, those are just numbers, folks.
Is it over yet? Well... every major corporation in the world, through commercial television and magazine advertising, are saying yes -- and that we should spend and spend and spend as we did before, because everything is going to be just like it was.
Coochy Cooty Breaks It Down (© S. Williamson, ZAP Comix; 1968)
Never mind that 13 million Americans are on unemployment, and another 11.4 million are only working part-time; just forget about those losers. America is a nation of winners, and if the weak culls fall by the wayside -- well, that's just as nature intended, isn't it?
No comments:
Post a Comment