M-P

Still Waiting for a Real Bottom

This piece has a lot of good points. We do need to re-base, but I don't hold out a lot of hope that we will somehow learn from this bubble or series of mistakes and avoid one the next time. We often move from bubble to bubble as we hit the apex of the business cycle ... the pedulum swings and over-corrects. I think '09 will be a tough road with credit card debt, option ARM's, overall de-leveraging, employment challenges, and a global recession that will hurt exports. A government/taxpayer injection will help, but it's not going to rightsize the structure or excesses that will need to change and be unwound. Today's solutions are tomorrow's problems.