Everybody Stay Calm – A Slight Return
Global lack of leadership, economies, markets and much more. Another must read by the Cravens Brothers.
Interviewer: “What period does this remind you of?”
Economist: ”Last year…the year before that…and the year before that.” – Bloomberg Radio
Recently, I found myself on a plane making an emergency landing, again. I have flown to and from a certain city four times in my life and had emergency landings on two of four occasions (2001 and 2012). I detailed my 2001 adventure in last year’s“Everybody Stay Calm!” The ritual: (i) get on for the ride, (ii) volatile mishap on the way up, (iii) rapid descent, (iv) get out quickly (via fun slide or boring jetway), and (v) wait for indications of what to do next. The violent “accordion-shaped” up and down moves in the commodities and equities markets the first halves of the last three years have left investors similarly “normalized” to the abnormal. This year, the Dow posted the best 1Q performance since 1998 (+8%), followed by the worst May since 1940 (-8%), followed by the best June since 1997, (+4%) – the gain for the first half of the year. Get on for the ride, volatile mishap, rapid descent, and slightly propitious exit.
This year’s odyssey revealed a lack of leadership more awe-inspiring than my first dance with death eleven years ago. Instead of one leader “losing it” (i.e., the pilot), the entire leadership “lost it” (the airline), herding 150 or so passengers around the airport for 5 hours with no explanation, handing out useless taxi vouchers, delaying the replacement flight the next morning for another 5 hours with no explanation, and finally another 2 hours “due to an equipment malfunction” on the plane we hadn’t even boarded yet. Upon hearing this first direct communication from our “leaders” in over 24 hours, two would be passengers flipped out and had to be “escorted” to the “can” by security, ostensibly to be given some literature on how to behave when “Groundhog Day” meets “The Twilight Zone” and one must live through their progeny.
More Evidence That Austerity During Depressions Works
Guest post by Azizonomics.
Sorry, no. I am being sarcastic.
From Bloomberg:
The U.K. economy shrank in the first quarter as construction output slumped, pushing Britain into its first double-dip recession since the 1970s and raising pressure on officials to salvage the recovery.
Gross domestic product contracted 0.2 percent from the fourth quarter of 2011, when it shrank 0.3 percent, the Office for National Statistics said today in London.
Last month I described Britain’s problems: GDP levels have never recovered to pre-crisis levels, the unemployment rate continues to climb from post-crisis levels, government debt level continue to climb, inflation levels are elevated, and all of these metrics are somehow worse than the situation in America.
And now Britain is back in recession.
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