Jobless Recovery

Does the economy feel like it's rebounded? Do you think the stock market is the place to go throw your 401k money in to again? I think that this market is a house that is being rebuilt on a shaky foundation with borrowed & rotting wood.

Before you choose it is time to get off the sidelines & start investing again you need to step back & examine why the crash of 2008 / 2009 occurred & what has changed since then.

The number three thing being pointed at as the root cause of the market collapse eighteen months ago was the aggressive lending practices by banks & even insurance companies in to the home mortgage business. It is true that the government has stepped in & attempted to reign in the "wild west" days of bank lending. This is only fair since it was the government who in fact loosened the banking & finance regulations in the first place that got themselves & millions of Americans in to financial hot water.

Yet, the result of this cannot be in any way looked on as a device or mechanism that has ended a recession. All this has created is a tight money supply environment where it's stopped banks from lending money to people who are trying to purchase a home. If a bank won't lend money to people looking to purchase homes then the trickle down effect will the continual pressure on the housing industry. With the current glut of homes obtainable in any geographic market - where is the need for homebuilders to build more homes?

The other issue created with the bank bail out is the lowering of interest rates to consumers on their savings. The current interest being paid on savings accounts, certificate of deposits & other like instruments is under 2 percent. Yet the last time I was in a bank they were charging over 8 percent for a automobile loan. Why? Because the government is know lending the banks as much capital as they need in order to attempt to loosed the banks lending policyowner. There is no need to pay the consumer a reasonable interest rate when they can borrow it for less from the United Stated government.

As usual the best place to make your feelings known on these issues is at the ballot box in the fall. It is time to stop rewarding those individuals in Washington that continue to ignore our needs in favor of their largest donors.

History does repeat itself, at least as far as the government & their rich friends are concerned. It was the government who relaxed lending policies & regulations that was the root cause of the market collapse. It was the rich who benefited from this decision. It was then the government who came to the rescue by throwing obscene amounts of money at the issue & again benefited the banks. The only ones made to suffer & made to pay for these mistakes is the common citizen. They pay by not being able to borrow money for the items in life they truly need as well as no incentive for saving any money based on the measly interest rates being paid to us by these banks.