PeakTrader.com

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PeakTrader:

“Gas prices have fallen below $3.40 per gallon in recent weeks to the lowest level since last January, nine months ago.”

It’s expected the government shutdown will reduce real GDP growth from 2.5% to 2.3% (annualized rate) in the fourth quarter. The holiday shopping season will be important.

It remains a very weak “recovery:”

Anderson Forecast: U.S. economy falls short of true recovery
June 05, 2013

“U.S. real GDP is now 15.4 percent below the normal 3 percent trend. To get back to that 3 percent trend, we would need 4 percent growth for 15 years, 5 percent growth for eight years, or 6 percent growth for five years, not the disappointing twos and threes we have been racking up recently, which are moving us farther from trend, not closer to it. It’s not a recovery. It’s not even normal growth. It’s bad.”

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Quantitative easing may continue into next year, given contractionary fiscal policy (i.e. raising taxes and reducing spending earlier this year) and Obamacare.

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"Americans have managed to get pretty fat over the last 25 years”

Maybe, they bought houses they really couldn’t afford, and now get food stamps.

McDonalds is America’s 1930s soup kitchen today, e.g. $1 double hamburgers and $1 large drinks.

You should try the $1 side salad. It’s a really good deal (don’t forget the croutons).

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Basically, the U.S. housing boom, from 1995-06, which lead to the financial crisis in 2008, was a giant unfunded social program government assumed it didn’t have to pay for.

Lower income homeowners had money, e.g. for food, buying houses with no down payments and extracting equity when home prices soared.

The boost in consumer spending created jobs, not only in the U.S., but also globally (reflected in up to $800 billion a year trade deficits in the mid-2000s).

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Yes, it’s great so many workers eat at McDonalds and shop at dollar stores

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Yes, perhaps, those earning “cheap” wages eat and drink too many “junk” calories.

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