Month: August 2012

The Government Bubble

ICangles Investment Post…

The Three Bears Economy has seen us move through the doctom bubble of corporate debt, the real estate bubble of consumer debt and now we are deep into the government bubble of debt. Previously people got rich oftentimes only on paper from dotcom stocks before they fell and then many saw their wealth on paper rise and fall with their home values. Now we are well into the era of people making money from government, including paper millionaires—retirees with million plus dollar government retirement plans. Pension millionaires include the ex-police chief of Stockton California, who after two years as chief, retired with an annual pension of over $200,000. Add in benefits and on paper you get to over a million dollars in payouts pretty quickly. But the government largesse the ex-chief and many Americans to a lesser extent are growing accustomed to will turn out to be as solid as pets.com stock or sky high real estate values, because it is built on unsustainable debt. In the case of Stockton the city is already in bankruptcy, and in the case of the global economy the clock is ticking on how much longer government spending will prop up living standards.

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