Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Economy is Back - Housing Uptrend Sticks

Ken Heebner was on Kudlow today and said that the US economy is back for a variety of reasons with housing leading the way. He said the housing recovery is an economic "game changer" and is a trend that will be with us for quite some time. Heebner, of course, has been one of the nation's best stock pickers though he has underperformed during the Great Recession. I know the markets climb a wall of worry and we have a fiscal cliff, European banking crisis, and Iranian ambition to work through. Nonetheless, it seems that America is back and an anxious world would rather have their money here than anywhere else. We are very fortunate to have Timothy Geitner, Ben Bernanke, and above all, President Obama on the job.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

After a delusional proclamation — General Motors “has come roaring back” — Obama said: “Now I want to do the same thing with manufacturing jobs, not just in the auto industry, but in every industry.” We have been warned.

Obama’s supposed rescue of “the auto industry” — note the definite article, “the” — is a pedal on the political organ he pumps energetically in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and elsewhere. Concerning which:

He intervened to succor one of two of the U.S. auto industries. One, located in the South and elsewhere, does not have a long history of subservience to the United Auto Workers and for that reason has not needed Obama’s ministrations. He showered public money on two of three parts of the mostly Northern auto industry, the one long entangled with the UAW. He socialized the losses of GM and Chrysler. Ford was not a mendicant because it was not mismanaged.

Today, “I am GM, hear me roar” is again losing market share, and its stock, of which taxpayers own 26 percent, was trading Thursday morning at $21, below the $33 price our investor in chief paid for it and below the $53 price it would have to reach to enable taxpayers to recover the entire $49.5 billion bailout. Roaring GM’s growth is in China.