Every investor had a long list of things to worry about this year.
It started with the fragile European economy. Then investment anxiety focused on a possible double-dip recession in America, worries about a hard economic landing in China, back to perils in Europe, and finally the dark cloud of the US government’s fiscal cliff.
Comments
Great article, and backed by facts. Things are getting better. Nice to see in this era of negative spin when it comes to any news about the economy.
Great article, but NOT completely backed by facts. See my blogs above.
But Steve conveniently left out one BIG inconvenient FACT. Ben Bernanke and the Federal Reserve Bank. QE1, QE2, QE3, Operation Twist. FED keeps buying worthless mortgage backed securities to save Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Now, in a clever sleight of hand, the FED is buying Treasury Bonds that it just printed. Then it gives loans to banks using printed money. FED's harebrained idea: Banks will use these new free "Loans" to loan money to businesses who will then create new JOBS! So the economy is booming now. It's all MAGIC! Meanwhile the value of the US Dollar keeps going down. Wonder why your food and energy prices keep going up? And other countries are wise to the FED's scam. The Swiss and Japanese are selling their currencies to counteract the devalued dollar and protect their export trade.--When's the last time that Steven Syre wrote an article about the Federal Reserve Bank?
Oh, yes, and an addendum to this: At the last FED meeting Ben announced that the FED would CONTINUE INDEFINITELY its bond Buying as long as the official Unemployment rate remains above 6.5%. So the FED is admitting that the economy is POOR and that it's the FED's mandate to keep printing money until the economy recovers.