The stockmarket is on the up and up. The RE market is roaring back with list/sell ratios moving up and MOI down to 5 months and change.
How things have changed! A few months ago, the world was coming to end, banks were in trouble and big companies were on the verge of bankruptcy.
Now the world is a beautiful place.
Except...while the banks are US and European banks are making money on their day to day operations they still have more enormous write downs ahead of them, and big companies like Chrysler and GM are still on the verge of bankruptcy and have their heads kept above water by massive and regular infusions of tax-payer money.
The companies that are still making money are doing so by cutting costs and laying workers off. This is not the stuff of rebounds. It is an interlude in my opinion.
We have driven off a financial cliff and thanks to the enormous and unprecedented intervention of Governments and Central banks across the world, we have a small parachute to cushion the fall. However fall we must.
Nevertheless the mood has shifted slightly more to the positive and that is reflected in increased economic activity. It also helps having a President across the border who is trying to hit the crisis from several angles (which he didn't cause BTW) instead of having a moron who says.."economics was never my strong point".
So we should expect this little stabilisation to continue a little longer, maybe one month or maybe three or four. The same shills who DID NOT see this financial crisis coming will now tell you with a straight face that it is OVER!
There are many of us on the blogsphere who did see this coming- as a result of the excesses. Yes we were early, but as any economist will tell you foretelling the what and the when requires religious capabilities.
And most of us don't think it is over, though are glad that we have this interlude (who wants a total collapse and food lines and street violence- not I).
Another nice post from Matt on the new social trend of frugality:
http://futronomics.blogspot.com/2009/04/against-empirical-analysis.html
Have a good week-end
