#117 Ex-pat in Oz:

I think at least one aspect of your scenario is top optimistic.
unemployment up a half point, down the same a bit later…but it feels like no improvement at all to the middle class.

I think in the next month or so the organic waste is going to hit the rotating airfoil as far as employment is concerned. Businesses hire up for the holidays, and frequently hope that they make enough over the holiday rush to pull them out of any shortfall through the year. Current official unemployment rates are being statistically manipulated, and they are assuming more of the holiday workers are there than actually are, and assuming they will keep their jobs. By the February figures, you are going to either see the unemployment rate jump drastically, or the statistics being manipulated beyond being able to credibly ignore. I also expect a run of bankruptcies. Small business people I know are telling me that this holiday was down 30% from 2008. And 2008 was horrible. the main street in my town is full of empty storefronts; and this is going to slop into the commercial real estate market big time. Another freaking real estate cascade.

I don’t dispute your scenario at all, just think that it will be harder and nastier than you envisage. I’m pretty sure that whatever foreign attack we have to put up with is going to be pretty horrid too. There is not going to be much goodwill and tolerance of other peoples’ politics in the wake of that. Going both ways.

The Republicans have the wind at their backs assuming there are honest elections. That is not an automatic assumption. The Republicans elected are going to be a mixed bag. Some will be TEA Party types, some will be Institutional Republicans. Both had better come up with a way of doing business different than the corruption of both parties in the last couple of decades ; or things are going to get even nastier. No guarantees of survival.

Subotai Bahadur