“The mood among Germans is really bad.There is a lot of frustration and verrohung. The common people work and can hardly make ends meet. Envy and resentment are widely spread in Germany.When both the global financial crisis and the euro disaster come back with a vengeance, things will get pretty nasty.You don’t have to be a prophet to make that prediction.  

You just have to extrapolate the current mood in this relatively crisis-free period. Aside from the old and the dying, most Germans today have never experienced any real crisis”.

Lars Schall, To Marshall Auerback on His Essay on German Voters

“Administration and Main Stream Media (MSM) say ‘booming’, much faster GDP and jobs growth than previous decade, but the reality is an occasional 1 or 2 quarter surge but baseline 2% growth rate trends remain unchanged.

Only growth in the stock market, other Fed inflated assets, and debt. Maybe we should ask MSM what is ‘booming’. Official jobs numbers obscure 1/3 of labor force without jobs and not job seeking; job holders are a mix of full and part time; average hourly wages are rising because ‘supervisors’ (managers) wages are rising but flat for 90%.

Flawed startup jobs guesses (Birth Death Model) added to lift feeblejobs created.Payroll tax receipts are falling—could the tax receipts decline be explained by tax cuts?

Tax cuts have primarily assisted corporations. They have had a negligible effect on payrolls taxes. Weak withholding receipts reflects continuing rise in part time workers and low wage substituting for full time workers. 

And keep in mind the little growth that did take place was debt driven. Despite all the ‘booming economy’ cheerleading, the data shows a flat trajectory for growth at around 2% for the last decade, despite mountains of ‘stimulus’. 

A chart of the Dow looks rather different, suggesting all the stimulus went into the stock market instead.

The US economy is not booming. It has begun gradual slowdown. Housing and autos slump is just the most visible indicator of broad based downturn”- Harold Malmgren