Annecdotal, I know, but my own business is currently the best it has been since just before the crash. I can hardly keep up with the demand.
Now...that said...there are "problems."
1) DumbassCare continues to be a drag on me. That is, me personally, but since I am being anecdotal, well, why not? My health insurance costs are still way higher than last year and in October I lose my insurance and have to choose between the DumbassCare exchange wonder-offerings or a health sharing plan. I will be going onto a health sharing plan.
2) Taxes are outrageous and are almost certainly going to go much higher. What good are increases in revenue when you don't get to keep any of it? The more business I have the less of it I get to keep. The incentives are all pointing toward doing with less because working for more seems to be a sucker's game.
3) Fuel/food/and other commodities are getting more expensive, not less. Inflation is not going away and it's more than just inflation. In addition to our money being worth less there are artificial (regulation caused) influences that are pushing costs of a lot of basic goods ever higher. Meat is more expensive because of mandated ethanol production making corn (feed) more pricey. Ethanol mandates make gasoline more expensive, too. Water costs more because of EPA mandated pollution standards. Energy will cost more because of EPA forced closings of coal power plants. The list goes on and on but the result is the same, stuff costs more, not less, in this economy.
4) I'm pretty sure that the public employee pension crisis hasn't gone away on its own. That is one of the big contributors to municipalities, of which Detroit is only the most well known, from going bankrupt. This is a ticking time bomb.
5) Last time I checked the federal government is still out of control with its fiscal problems. Even in this so-called "hot" economy that we now suddenly find ourselves in the federal government is still taking in way less than it spends and the spending is still going up at an unsustainable rate. Repeat: unsustainable debt and unsustainable spending. That word, "unsustainable," it does mean something.
6) Thousands of new federal welfare deadbeats are flooding into the country. They have not yet registered their negative effect on the economy but just like lead weights around a runner's ankles, they will.
Bottom line is that 4% economic growth (if that number is believable which it isn't) isn't that great and is really more of a fluke than anything else. Correct me if I'm wrong but that is probably the best quarter that BO has had in six years. But it's the only one like it and the numbers are almost certainly wrong.
So, things are going good for me personally right now. Yay, me. But I don't expect them to stay that way. I'm still expecting things to go right back into the toilet at any moment because I know who is driving the car. It's still Toonces behind the wheel.
