Greece is on the brink of anarchy due to their debit crisis.
The Dow Jones is down 350 points today on reports that European banks’ lending has seized up.
And US retail sales reported today were much lower than expected — consumers are not spending.
Most top U.S. retail chains reported weaker-than-expected April same-store sales Thursday, suggesting that Wall Street’s hopes for a consumer rebound have gotten ahead of the actual pace of recovery.
Sales at stores open at least a year rose 0.5 percent in April, well short of Wall Street estimates of a 1.7 percent increase. Nearly 70 percent of 28 retailers tracked by Thomson Reuters disappointed, with the biggest misses seen among apparel retailers like Gap and teen chains like Abercrombie & Fitch.“Nobody has told American consumers that the recession is over although some officials have rosy predictions of growing consumer spending,” consumer trend expert Britt Beemer said in a note. “We’re seeing a lot of people on the edge of financial distress.”
So why the hell did we spend $787B last year for the Stimulus and another $1T this year on healthcare “reform”?
The President needs to address America’s financial distress quickly or his dreams of a Socialist Utopia are going to go up in flames. Literally (see: Greece).
Welcome to the Double Dip Recession.
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
You mean this isn’t the “laser-like focus on jobs”?!?
I wonder if Gibbon or somebody ever bothered to find out what brand of Lighter Fluid Nero used. The Whitehouse wants to KNOW!!!
Dick Bove (Wall Street banking analyst) had a pretty good observation, I think.
He thinks the Greeks rioting in the streets means the Greek government will ultimately not follow through on the austerity plans that were voted on today. In other words, without the fiscal cuts there’s no chance the Germans and French will be paid back their bailout money, so why lend them the money in the first place?
I think this mess is a long way from being resolved.
The parasitic unions of Greece have overwhelmed the host. Either the parasites are cut back or the host dies. The parasites are in the streets fighting capitalism, the free market, those who have not been taxed dry and other enemies in the shadows of their minds. The moment has arrived when theft by government taxation does not work any more. The cash cow is dry. So the parasites riot. The next round belongs to law and order and old fashioned values of success and reward.
Socialism is collapsing around the world. The new revolution is not peasants vs the rich. This revolution is the between the free market middle class and union thuggery.
California is waiting in the wings.
Does anyone realize that the Euro came THIS close to collapse today???
#4: “Socialism is collapsing around the world. The new revolution is not peasants vs the rich. This revolution is the between the free market middle class and union thuggery.”
heliotrope, if you say one more thing like that I’m afraid I’m going to OD on your wisdom.
Well you know things are bad because the employees in A&F actually talk to you now and make you feel welcome, when they are back to aloof and condescending we know we have turned the corner.
Which makes one wonder (ahem) how GM can “pay back” (ahem, ahem) their debt to the American people (*cough* bullshit!).
Can we get DER booked on Cavuto? They need more of that kind of analysis. 😉
Luv it.
The thing about same-store sales numbers that is misleading is that it excludes all the stores that have closed since last year; an increase of 1-2% in a store that’s the last one standing in an area after three others have closed up shop isn’t really a huge uptick.
So let’s see. We’re already at 0% interest rates. What’s next to “stimulate” the economy – negative interest rates? (Actively paying people to take loans that they will never pay back)
Just a small MINOR point ILoveCapitalism. Please reference ALL activities of Fanny and Freddy. Its been standard operating procedure for many years for the government to require lenders to lend to folks with no proof of ability to pay it back.
In America who do you thing will riot in the beginning?
The ones on the dole who are told, the gravy train has dried up or will it be the producers, the creators who have sustained the lazy all these years.
How strange, I was going to make the same kind of remarks as Heliotrope – that is that the Greeks who have taken to the streets are welfare parasites. Greece has a lot of anarchists. This disturbance is nothing new. When they do not get their own way they put on a temper tantrum. In this case they are having the tantrum because the government has to introduce austerity measures in order to reduce their budget deficit.
The Greek unions are to blame for their particular mess. They have demanded so much in the past, and the socialists in control had introduced an unsustainable welfare system. It is things like the daughters of dead civil servants being able to continue to claim their parents’ civil service pensions, plus a whole range of things that is utterly unsustainable in the long term that has brought Greece to her knees.
Should we feel sorry for Greece? No way.
It does not end with the welfare payments. The fact is that when Greece joined the Eurozone, after Goldman Sachs helped them to hide the real budget deficit, Greece borrowed a lot of money for infrastructure purposes. They built new roads and bridges with the money, but they do not have the means to pay back the borrowed money.
On top of that, a lot of Greek enterprises are govt owned e.g. the railways and public utilities. Of course that was the case here in Australia, and in the ACT where I live it still is the case. The problems is that this means an increase in debt relating to pensions and the like plus it includes such waste as the payment of bonuses for people who turn up to work on time.!!!