I am becoming far more bearish on the US economy than I was just a year ago. Back then, I was relatively bearish. Now I have absolutely zero hope that this nation can avoid an all-out depression worse than that of the 30's.
We not only face devastating fundamentals in the economy such as the unwillingness to clear bad debts from the system and create a sustainable productive capacity, but we also face in-your-face corruption in all levels of the government and the economy. From large banks foreclosing on properties they had no legal authority to foreclose upon, to the derivatives mess where financial institutions sold short their own mortgage products on the open market AND THEN were bailed out by the federal government, there is seriously no end to this mess. All of these shenanigans are unlawful, under acts like RICO and the like. But the law is not upheld. And as such, just like all criminal activity, it will eventually face death by its own doing.
If the fundamentals of the US economy are not enough to create the Greatest Depression, then surely the massive fraud between Wall Street and Washington will destroy the country. The world economy is nothing more than one major Ponzi scheme consisting of several minor Ponzi schemes that are large enough to blow up national economies. A few consist of:
-Zero Interest Rate Policy by the Federal Reserve where major financial institutions can borrow at near zero rates from the FED, turn around and buy US Treasuries with the capital, and net the spread between the two while debasing the currency. This policy ONLY benefits the banks while destroying saving and capital formation, or in other words, shit that allows an economy to GROW.
-Fraudulent accounting where bad assets are placed OFF the balance sheet, sponsored by the federal government, in the hopes of protecting the "Too Big too Fail" clan. Large banks like Bank of America hide all the toxic mortgage crap so that their books are not exposed. This isn't really legal, but they get away with it because the Obama administration allows them to.
-Creating a carry trade between the US Dollar and US Equities so that both have a correlation of negative one, creating a scenario where the appreciation of stocks like Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citi Group, et cetera, depends solely on the depreciation of the US Dollar. But this is true for all asset classes, especially the commodity producers. Dollar down, crude, crops, steel, and other stuff up. All this means is that the middle class suffer while the CEO's of corporations gain a little support to their operations.
All of this stuff is government sponsored, Keynesian approved, and demanded at the behest of the major banksters on Wall Street. Hank Paulson, Timmy Geithner, that asshat Larry Summers, and the rest of the pigmen.
Even all that is enough to wreck an economy. But instead, we still have near-zero productive capacity, we continue to increase the debt-to-GDP ratio, we still blow ALL of the government's tax revenue on ENTITLEMENTS alone, and we've yet to address the 90+% of the debasement of our currency since 1913. If we are blowing our entire tax revenue on programs like unemployment benefits and social security, how on Earth can we keep borrowing to sustain other programs like national defense?
Easy answer: WE CAN'T, or else we default. WHY? Because the only way for the government to spend more is to "Quantitive Ease", meaning debasing the currency further, which means causing a capital flight from the United States in which interest rates rise and creditors finally realize there is no chance to repay our debts.
IT IS INEVITABLE if this continues, simply because of MATHS.
The fact that nobody, and I mean NOBODY in public office and the general public wants to address these issues is why we are screwed. Everybody wants a free lunch or to take part in a Ponzi scheme. But as we all know, neither can exist in a sustainable economy.