During the course of the past year, the economies of the West have received more negative attention and experienced more problems than at nearly any time in history. The countries being hit in Europe just keep getting bigger, as it started with Iceland in the more distant past, then this year went to Portugal, Greece, and Ireland, and now is affecting Spain, Italy, and even France. The European Central Bank does not have the funds to help all of them, and the �help� that they have provided just causes more long term damage.
Here in the U.S., S&P put a dunce cap squarely on the head of Uncle Sam by downgrading U.S. debt from AAA to AA+. From where I sit, this downgrade was long overdue, as the country�s debts have been out of control for decades, though the past few years have been particularly harsh. Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, criticized S&P by stating that they had shown �really terrible judgment�, and Warren Buffett, whose own company had it ratings downgraded by S&P and who owns part of a competing ratings agency, also spoke out against the downgrade. Given the potential conflicts of interest for each, I would not pay either much heed.
S&P further punished the U.S. by putting the rating on negative outlook and warning Nike Tn Pas Cher that a further downgrade could happen in the near future. The only �really terrible judgment� has been that of Congress and that of current and past administrations. They have placed the nation into such a fiscal bind Air Max 90 Homme that we have no chance of paying back our debts in an honorable way. While the U.S. remains unlikely to default, our leaders will make it unpleasant to hold U.S. debt.
S&P did lose a lot of credibility by completely missing the sub-prime mortgage problems that first appeared a few years ago. Even in our current situation, I would argue that they should have downgraded U.S. debt at least a year ago. However, at least they finally got it right this time, even if they were late to the party.
Standard and Poors correctly stated that the country�s fiscal issues and political fracturing have prevented any meaningful resolution to the debt problem. The debt ceiling resolution would only put a minor dent in the overall debt, so nobody should think for a moment that anything was solved. The $2.4 trillion in �savings� is really just a slower increase and hardly touches a gap that is likely to be ten times that amount by 2021.
The real estate market has been and will continue to be hit hard. Despite record low interest rates and less expensive housing, home sales are slow and values have not rebounded. Understandably, banks are less willing to lend, and the government is trying to stifle owner financing and the ability to create a mortgage note.
For note buyers like me, it is a challenging situation. On the one hand, things are fine right now and the returns are higher and more Nike Free Run stable than for other investments. On the other hand, a person paying on a mortgage note is more likely to stop paying due to either a job loss or to the property losing value. A mortgage note (also called a real estate note), is a long term investment, and we can�t even know what will come down next week, more or less in ten to twenty years.
The near term prognosis for the economy and the real estate market look bleak to me. All that we can do is keep an eye on the news, invest conservatively, and cross our fingers.
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