Fret Index Climbs

More of my capitalist pals are really starting to worry about Great Recession 2 - and I mean the investment advisors that have optimism thrust upon them by the need to find good new deals for their clients.  John Hussmann is predicting that equity markets will fall below their March 2009 lows, and Markos Kaminis is now a believer in the often-heralded double-dip recession. 

Among folks not selling products, Simon Johnson points out that the banks' push into emerging markets repeats past mistakes of the 1970s and 1990s, making me wonder how we can get out of this with such a complete lack of new ideas at the top.  He also notes yet again how impossible it is to imagine Goldman Sachs et al. supporting reforms of their own system, as opposed to supporting their own maximum freedom of movement.  I still don't know why there isn't a massive middle class outcry about this.

The New York Times had a good piece on Ireland sinking under the weight of its austerity regime, with premonitions of long-term decline.  “Ireland isn’t going to spend on infrastructure probably for another 10 to 15 years,” said one observer. Another, her business caught in the middle of a new yet dying housing development, said, “It’s so destroying.  We all live day by day, and we don’t know when it will ever pick up.”