Pure insanity

I think the markets are malfunctioning due to too much intervention and interferences by the central banks and government. Such interferences causes the free market to malfunction, act in a manner which it wouldn't have if subject to free market conditions.

I can foresee a significant dip in US equity markets coming soon. Tomorrow marks the 80th anniversary of the Great Depression Black Tuesday. Apparently mainstream economists, who follow the Keynesian school of thought are still HOPING the stimulus package would help bring the dead economy back to life. What is happening in the equity markets is the result of cheap money driving up another bubble, just like what happened in 2000 where the tech bubble busted, and low rates follow, driving up housing prices. The entire history is just repeating itself and central bankers have not learnt from previous mistakes from the previous bubble created. Making money cheaper and cheaper doesn't improve your standard of living.

10 reasons why this is not a recovery

1. unemployment figures are not improving and more people are even dropping out of the workforce due to giving up totally on finding work.

2. Consumers have stopped spending and lost confidence in the business recovery.

3. Business can only improve their bottomline through cost cutting measures and not through increasing coverage or business development.

4. Advertisements on television has dropped significantly with more program airtime.

5. Companies have spent less on R&D and focused on cost cutting measures, such as part time employment, reducing headcount, selling off assets to cover for losses. This includes countries such as UK, selling their railway, airport and state land.

6. Shipping has overcapacity until ships are parked offshore

7. Airlines have excess capacity and have reduced their frequency of flights and have sent some of their airplanes to desserts in US to park idle.

8. Luxury goods chains have seen significant cutback in spending, e.g. branded handbags, swiss watches

9. Holidays have dipped and people are more interested in finding out how to protect themselves in this recession than spending money to travel

10. last of all, many people are still finding it hard to even get promotion, move on to other openings as openings are few and limited, mainly temporary or contract, with rolling option. Even Citi is paying peanuts for their staff.

This looks more like a depression than a recession. For now, I am just thankful I still have my job