Arkady's Thoughts

Green shoots are blossoming, Obama is smiling and somewhere Bernanke is patting himself on the back.  Folks, I am pleased to announce that things are looking very rosy and judging by the crooks traders driving the stock market it would appear they agree.  BEA's report confirms the speculation (well at least the headline) so many idiots economists on TV have predicted, things are getting better; GDP increased at an annual rate of 3.5 percent.  Time to put that 401K back to work and buy another house.    Let's look at the report: Real federal government consumption expenditures and gross investment increased 7.9 percent in the third quarter, compared with an increase of 11.4 percent in the second. National defense increased 8.4 percent, compared with an increase of 14.0 percent. Nondefense increased 6.8 percent, compared with an increase of 6.1 percent. Yay.  Glad to see our government is hard at work spending like the drunken sailors that they are....

Remember when Putin invaded Georgia? Remember when Chavez called Bush the devil at a UN Conference? Remember when Ahmadinejad threatened to wipe Israel off the face of the earth? Remember when all of these guys mysteriously came out of the woodwork and rattled their sabres? Well, they were awash in petro dollars and were feeling pretty good about life when oil hit $147/barrel. Well now this torpid trio are singing a slightly different tune. News comes out of the UK suggests that while US maybe hurting, this economic recession has virtually sunk the economies of these countries. Mind you all three have been heavily investing into military expansions. Chavez was buying aircraft carriers, Ahmadinejad is developing nuclear weaponry and long range ballistics and Putin has been resurrecting his military might across all major disciplines. Of course they are all blaming America for their problems, but expecting them to admit that they have no economy what so ever and instead wasted ...