And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here? [...]
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
Talking Heads
"Once in a Lifetime" (YouTube)
1984
It is only when the tide goes out, that you know who was swimming naked.
Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett Quotes
Fantastic guest commentary from the Prudent Bear inventors' website, under the headline "The Great Consumer Crash of 2009." Here's the lede:
“It is easy to ignore the storm if you look at the opposite horizon. When the storm reaches your location there can be no more ignorance.”Read the rest of the article here.
I hate to tell you, but the storm has reached your location and it is a Category 5 hurricane. The levees are leaking. Ignore it at your own peril. The 6,000 sq ft McMansion buying, BMW leasing, $5 Starbucks latte drinking, granite countertop upgrading, home equity borrowing days are coming to an end. The American consumer will not go without a fight. For the last seven years the American consumer has carried the weight of the world on its shoulders. This has been a heavy burden, but when you take steroids it doesn’t seem so heavy. The steroid of choice for the American consumer has been debt. We have utilized home equity loans, cash out refinancing, credit card debt, and auto loans to live above our means. It has been a fun ride, but the ride is over. We can’t get steroids from our dealer (banks) anymore.
This is the best comprehensive article on the present condition of the U.S. economy that we've come across in quite a long while -- lots of charts and graphs, considering various important economics "data sets," -- presented in language clear enough even to be comprehensible to readers who are unschooled in the jargon of academic economics, we think.
Something to think about the next time you hear some cable network talking head predict the economy is set to "recover" in 2009.
Don't let the cat get your tongues.
