Whether or not you believe it, I'm not always looking for dark clouds that surround the silver linings. There has been some decent economic news of late and I really do wanna be up and enthused, but I'm not going to be sucked in by the happy talk that managers and bureaucrats throw at us every other day.
The Credit/Debt Monster is still on the loose, and the bail out schemes for Wall Street and Greece (and the rest of the EU), plus the Stimulus Package (the 2nd half of which hasn't even started yet) are still way too recent for anybody with any sense or credibility to make a good assessment. So we're operating on the assumption that "we're on the right track" and "things will be back to normal soon". Where have we heard that before?
Here's a little ditty from Rupert Street Journal from last month that passes on to us exactly what the Gov't told the "reporter". But there's a gimmick the lenders use when reporting problems with these loans that actually helps them under-report the loans in default by a factor of up to 5. Where most of the loans showing up in these statistics are the "traditional" ones held by 20- and 30-Somethings for loans they took out to go to "traditional" institutions, the real story in the last couple of years is that a huge amount of money has been borrowed by a much wider range of people to attend the non-traditional For-Profit schools like Univ of Phoenix and Capella Univ which have been enjoying a massive boom. Any guesses on what those default rates are? Take a look at this episode from Frontline. At about the 40 minute mark, the picture of our future servitude comes into very sharp focus.
And Jesus wept.
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