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Reality bites. Well, not quite bites. Bares its teeth. And is ignored. During this holiday season President Obama and his Democratic congress feel entitled to an extra glass or two of the bubbly now that health care "reform" seems ever more likely to pass, the threat of financial collapse is past, and the economy is in better shape than it was when Barack Obama was inaugurated in January of this year.
Enter Scrooge -- or reality. Yes, the economy is on the mend. On the mend, but not quite mended. Job losses have abated, and there is reason to believe that the next report will show modest hiring gains. Manufacturing production rose a healthy 1.1% in November, due in part to restocking. Construction of new homes rose smartly in November, by 8.9%, and the number of building permits issued jumped 6%, to the highest level in a year. Retail sales are coming in better than expected. On a trip to New York last week I couldn't help noticing the crowds at the counters in high-end stores -- these more often than not included many foreigners, feasting on the buying power conferred by the depreciated dollar. The official U.S. position might be that we favor a strong dollar, but where the cash meets the register and the credit cards the swipe machine, a strong dollar is the last thing merchants want to see.
Unfortunately, memories are short. The crisis was caused in part by excessive debt: mortgages that could not be repaid; credit card balances that consumers could not cover; property loans based on inflated values. And the solution being proposed is more debt: massive government borrowing. The economy is floating on a sea of credit, with government deficits topping $1 trillion, over 80% of the mortgage market supported by the government, and the Federal Reserve Board printing so many dollars that fears of deflation have been replaced with a gnawing worry that it is inflation that will prove the enemy -- although not a worry of the investors stocking up on gold and gold-related assets. Wholesale prices rose last month by an unexpectedly large 1.8% (a big 0.5% bump if we exclude food and energy, of relevance to those who neither eat nor drive nor heat their homes). Worse still, The president is urging banks to lend more freely to businesses that the bankers deem unlikely to be able to repay, and government agencies are financing mortgages at 97% of the value of the homes being bought. Those loans aren't exactly of the highest quality.
To avert eyes from the mounting deficits, the President is attacking "fat-cat bankers." Not without reason. Having called on the taxpayers to save their hides, the banks have returned to profitability, in good part because they can borrow at low rates because of the loose monetary policy needed to prevent the economy from having a relapse. But instead of using the profits to shore up their balance sheets, the bankers are throwing a bonus-fuelled holiday party for themselves. To do that, of course, they had to get out from under government supervision by repaying the loans the government extended. That meant selling shares to raise capital, diluting their existing shareholders. In short: the bank executives diluted their shareholders in order to raise money with which to buy out of government supervision of their bonuses.
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