I awoke on the roadside,
In the land of the free ride,
And I can't pull it any longer,
The sun is beating down my neck
-"Bling (Confessions of a King)", The Killers
Research outfit TrimTabs made the following observation yesterday:
"In a research note, TrimTabs highlights that government social benefits —including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment insurance—were equal to 35% of all private and public wages and salaries in the 12 months ended January, up from 10% in 1960 and 21% in 2000."
Not exactly the rugged individualists that we often envision ourselves, eh? Slouching towards socialism is more like it. Perhaps we are already there. TrimTabs continued:
“We have no quibble with the view that the U.S. economy is expanding at a moderate pace,” says Madeline Schnapp, Director of Macroeconomic Research at TrimTabs. “But we believe Wall Street does not fully appreciate the degree to which growth depends on government support...We think very few market participants understand that the economy has become heavily dependent on government largesse,” cautions Schnapp. “We are hardly convinced that the recovery can persist without outside aid, so we expect the Fed to roll out QE3 shortly after QE2 ends at the close of June.”
More than anything I'd like to see the economy be self-sustaining. But despite all you may hear from the financial media, an economy that 1) is dependent on federal deficits of $1.7 trillion (a Greece & Ireland-like 10%+ of GDP), 2) has a central bank printing $600 billion over a 7 month span, 3) needed an extension of tax cuts that the Left said didn't help the economy in the first place, 4) has record #'s of people on food stamps, and 5) is paying out a historic amount of money to the citizenry is by default not self-sustaining. Perhaps that will change soon, but that ain't the case right now.
Addendum: Apparently American's are not buying what Washington and Wall Street are selling. Bloomberg has a report out on a poll that notes "Only 1 American in 7 has faith a lasting economic recovery has taken hold and a plurality say they are personally worse off than they were two years ago."
Comments