Charles Smith: "Two Scoop Special": Double-Dip Recession Guaranteed

05-21-2010 • OfTwoMinds.com/blog

The Mortgage Emperor is revealed to have no clothing. There is no private mortgage market in the U.S. anymore; there are only the rotting carcasses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, still soaking up tens of billions of dollars in tax money to sop up soon-to-default mortgages. For an on-the-ground report from once-hot San Diego, check out the San Diego Housing Forecast: the values of pricey homes is still falling, and buyers are now scarce. 7. The massive Federal bailouts accomplished nothing but propping up a rotten status quo for a year. No new jobs were created; what was "saved" by squandering trillions of dollars? The counterparties to AIG's bad derivatives bets; Goldman Sach's ability to skim profits day after day, month after month, a housing market doomed to slide much further, destroying the trillions dumped in to prop it up, and and a handful of pork-barrel projects at the state and local levels. Now the "stimulus" and bailouts are drying up, and we have nothing to show for it. The bloated status quo cannot maintain its payrolls without the trillions in Federal largesse, and so payrolls and spending will fall throughout the status quo.