Homebuilder Confidence Is Up!

http://www.lvrj.com/business/observers-see-sentiment-improving-in-las-vegas-housing-market-159507095.html

And considering construction companies are snapping up land around Las Vegas, they are probably right.

The Private Sector Is Doing Fine

US State and Local Government Employees

US Corporate Profits (more data below)

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-private-sector-and-the-public-sector-under-obama-2012-6#if-you-exclude-federal-government-workers-then-the-decline-in-public-sector-employment-is-even-more-severe-this-chart-represents-state-and-local-employment-10

So Obama is right, the private sector IS doing fine.

Land Sales In Vegas Are Up

Apparently some developers there think things are looking like they will get better. It's good for Las Vegas, because of the increased revenue.. Things will get better.

SuperMercado

Buy buy buy...

Unemployment Update...

The blue dot is about the time the Stimulus passed, it actually should be a little to the right.

So, if you carry the trend line July 08, to January 09; we would be approaching or above 20% unemployment.  That would be bad, right? 

I expect after the November 3rd elections, companies will start hiring for the Holidays.  That will put money in people's pockets, which will increase spending after the holidays.  I am optimistic for next year.

Who Screwed The Economy?

Phil Gramm started it...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Gramm

A Republican Senator (started out as a Democrat), who switched parties in 1983, probably because of who was President at the time? What an asshole.

So if you look at this http://banking.senate.gov/conf/fintl1.pdf

See page 7, item D: "(D) Issuing or selling instruments representing interests in pools of assets permissible for a bank to hold directly.". They are setting up for the knockout...yep, slick Willy signed it too.

This let the banks pool mortgages and consider them an "asset", thus they are something the can put on the market. It allowed the double leveraging to start things off back in 2000.

Then these same "assets" were allowed to be insured, which is why once the Mortgages started failing, AIG owed a lot of people a whole lot of money. So now we are paying AIG to pay the people they owe, who already made a ton of cash from premiums when these "assets" were doing well.

It's not much different than the ponzi scheme Madoff pulled, just this is "legal".