Of Barbers and Haircuts

In the year or two that prices for stocks and houses have been cratering, have you noticed they are always forecast to improve in a few months? It’s been years. Why do we keep listening to the experts when they keep being wrong? Ever notice the experts who offer these forecast for stock recovery work with what used to be investment banks? Notice that the folks saying the time to buy a “home” is now are generally builders and realtors? (Didn’t it used to take love, not just a realtor to make a house a home?) Remember all the credit card offers sent to you, your kids and the dog? The credit card companies are now shocked, shocked that people would be human and frail and foolish and misuse them.

Billions for advertising, but not one penny for education.

We the sheeple have been fleeced and are now were being asked to pay for the privilege. Next time the flacks tell you to buy a house soon, prices will never be lower, odds are he or she is with the National Association of Realtors. Check it out. Same with ones who say stocks are a bargain. Usually brokers. There’s a reason Warren Buffet is the richest man in the world; he once said, “Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.” And he took his own advice.

Here are some more inconvenient and unconventional truths for you to ponder. This is in fact Great Depression 2. House prices won’t be back to 2006 levels yet by 2016. Real unemployment is already over 10% in reality. (The methods for reporting it are far different than they used to be.) The stock market won’t recover for a decade. Remember 2000 when the NASDAQ hit 5,048, versus today eight and a half years later it’s at 1,445. Buy and hold? Stocks are best in the long term? That’s down over 70 % over nearly a decade! How long did you plan to live? Does your broker still say to buy and hold?

Anyway, we should have seen this coming and a few did, like my friends at iTulip.com. But nobody makes commissions or gets elected by telling the bad news. You’ve been misinformed by highly paid shills who have profited from your misfortune and mistakes. They trashed the hotel room and we get the bill. It’s called a bailout.