Jim,
There is no boom. I am in the one business which has proven since 1985 when I started it, as the perfect forecasting indicator. I am in food wholesale. It relates to foodservice (restaurants) and retail stores. In every past downturn, I do well about 6 months before the statistics point towards a nice up tick in conditions in terms of my sales to foodservice. When things look iffy, my sales to retail pick up just prior to the numbers coming out that things look not so cool. It has worked like clockwork for me in ‘knowing’ the future.
This time, foodservice has been off at least 50 to 70% in 2009, and in early 2010, its worse! I am considering shuttering the foodservice distribution operations until things look better, which may never come. My retail side is strong, but getting weird. Retailers are looking to cut every corner possible and to raise margins at the expense of quality, which the customers actually DO notice!
The interesting part of it all is that we have been seeing a very quick reversal of pre-holiday sales, which were typically good. So the GDP number released today of up 5.7% stunned me in terms of how good it was. 5.7% is like the grand old days, and I can assure you, it was not close to that. I’d say more like up 1.1% if lucky! Yes we had a better than expected selling season, but not by that number for sure. It’s pure BS. And it pisses me off, because no one out there believes it for a moment.
Want to know what the average guy I know is doing? They cannot get into gold, but they are buying up weapons and ammo; I kid you not. They sense something really bad coming and they want to have what they need to hunt and protect what they have. I have to agree.
CIGA Bruce
Jim,
OTC derivatives are working their magic again! Since all risk is opaque, no one can tell or trust what anyone else has done. Way to build confidence! As confidence shatters, gold will be sought more and more because gold rises as confidence falls.
Best,
CIGA Pedro
“What will spook the markets is CDS counter-party risk, our understanding is that Greek banks were active CDS players, and there is no way of finding out about these particular exposures,”
Economy Grew at 5.7% in Q4
CIGA Eric
To quote Richard Dawson of the Family Feud game show, survey says!
Nominal GDP, adjusted for inflation/currency devaluation and statistical gimmicks, rose $90.9 billion quarter over quarter in the 4th quarter of 2009. This gain was largely a result of gains in personal consumption (C) and government expenditures and investment (G), definition GDP = C+I+NetX+G.
Basically nothing new here. GDP continues to be distorted by historical high, import-based consumption and ever increasing government expenditures and investment. In other words, an economic recovery based on a foundation of sand.
Take a look for yourself
C as % of GDP:
Source: cnbc.com