|
09-19-2009, 08:15 AM
|
#1
|
Administrator
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Chicagoland
Posts: 40,724
|
James Grant in WSJ 9/19
A James Grant essay in the WSJ today is worth reading. He is an author and bond adviser and has been bearish for years - yet is tone now is uncharacteristically optimistic.
Read the article here From Bear to Bull: James Grant on Recession and Recovery - WSJ.com
Quote:
Americans are blessedly out of practice at bearing up under economic adversity. Individuals take their knocks, always, as do companies and communities. But it has been a generation since a business cycle downturn exacted the collective pain that this one has done. Knocked for a loop, we forget a truism. With regard to the recession that precedes the recovery, worse is subsequently better. The deeper the slump, the zippier the recovery. To quote a dissenter from the forecasting consensus, Michael T. Darda, chief economist of MKM Partners, Greenwich, Conn.: "[T]he most important determinant of the strength of an economy recovery is the depth of the downturn that preceded it. There are no exceptions to this rule, including the 1929-1939 period."
|
|
|
|
|
Join the #1 Early Retirement and Financial Independence Forum Today - It's Totally Free!
Are you planning to be financially independent as early as possible so you can live life on your own terms? Discuss successful investing strategies, asset allocation models, tax strategies and other related topics in our online forum community. Our members range from young folks just starting their journey to financial independence, military retirees and even multimillionaires. No matter where you fit in you'll find that Early-Retirement.org is a great community to join. Best of all it's totally FREE!
You are currently viewing our boards as a guest so you have limited access to our community. Please take the time to register and you will gain a lot of great new features including; the ability to participate in discussions, network with our members, see fewer ads, upload photographs, create a retirement blog, send private messages and so much, much more!
|
09-19-2009, 08:38 AM
|
#2
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Rio Grande Valley
Posts: 38,145
|
Wow - that is indeed uncharacteristically cheery for Grant!
ECRI keeps predicting zippier and zippier numbers for the recovery too!
I believe one reason the downturn was so sharp (well, in addition to the extraordinary market shorting that drove the averages down) was that companies turned on a dime, cut way back, laid off probably too many people, because they expected the worst (probably due as much to the extreme drops in the market averages as to concerns over availability of future credit to fund operations). As a consequence, the surviving companies are super lean and it takes very little upturn in demand to generate large profits.
Audrey
|
|
|
09-22-2009, 06:08 AM
|
#3
|
Recycles dryer sheets
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 101
|
If Grant is right and we have a sharp recovery what happens next will be interesting.Can the fed act in a timely manner to restrict liquidity and raise rates(risking a down turn) or are we headed for another bubble and more inflation? If history is any guide they'll wait to long and put off the day of reckoning as long as possible.Look out when that bubble pops.
|
|
|
09-22-2009, 11:07 AM
|
#4
|
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: North Oregon Coast
Posts: 16,483
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by wolfbay
If Grant is right and we have a sharp recovery what happens next will be interesting.Can the fed act in a timely manner to restrict liquidity and raise rates(risking a down turn) or are we headed for another bubble and more inflation? If history is any guide they'll wait to long and put off the day of reckoning as long as possible.Look out when that bubble pops.
|
Historically (at least during and since the Greenspan era), the Fed has been (a) too late to start reacting to changing conditions and (b) tending to "overshoot" when it finally does start easing and tightening.
__________________
"Hey, for every ten dollars, that's another hour that I have to be in the work place. That's an hour of my life. And my life is a very finite thing. I have only 'x' number of hours left before I'm dead. So how do I want to use these hours of my life? Do I want to use them just spending it on more crap and more stuff, or do I want to start getting a handle on it and using my life more intelligently?" -- Joe Dominguez (1938 - 1997)
|
|
|
|
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
|
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
|
» Recent Threads
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
» Quick Links
|
|
|