I sometimes think that we’ve gotten too comfortable in the United States. As long as we can go to the mall, drive our big SUVs, eat good food, download our favorite music from iTunes, pay our big credit card bills and all the other cushy trappings of the American way of life, we can simply ignore the rhinoceros head in the corner.
In recent weeks, there have been a series of articles and commentaries which have taken a hard look at economic reality in this country. They have also provided a basis for why NOW more than ever it’s time to consider creating your own privatized banking system. We’ve divided it into a three-part series so you’ll have time to think about what each author is saying and how it applies to YOU. Here’s reason #1.
Reason 1: The Economy IS Shooting Blanks
In a March 25, 2016 LinkedIn commentary, Danielle DiMartino Booth, president of Money Strong LLC and former advisor to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas offered a stunning revelation about what’s really pumping up our economy: new car sales.
Huh?
“Cars have literally been driving the U.S. economy in the aftermath of the collapse in the energy industry which took high-paying jobs down with it. To be specific, car sales to marginal buyers who cannot afford 
the payment for very long have pushed car sales to record levels,” says Ms. Booth in her article.
This should sound a bit familiar. How many people bought houses they couldn’t afford, bought with loans they couldn’t really qualify for except for the “ special financing formula of sub-prime lenders” in the 2005-2008 period and then found themselves out on the street in 2009, when the economy tanked?
And, just why did the economy tank? Because there were too many loans out to people who couldn’t afford to make the payments.
Ms. Booth goes on to point out that while the U. S. job growth rate continues to show improvement, economic growth continues moving downward.
Morgan Stanley’s Ted Wieseman does a bang-up job of summing up this frustrating dynamic. “The jobs/GDP disparity results from the God-awful productivity record of the past five years,” Wieseman noted. Over that period, productivity has limped upwards at an 0.4-percent annualized rate.The only other five-year period that’s ever been worse was that through mid-1982, which included two recessions and the peak of the Great Inflation.”
Without substantial investment in growth industries, the U. S. economy, as Ms. Booth says, “is just shooting blanks.”
For more information on privatized banking and how you can stop shooting blanks with your money, contact Julie Ann Hepburn at National Private Client Group today.