The $800 billion dollar bailout may actually be a good idea. Yes, you read that right.
Mortgage rates dropped .75% in one day in response to it.
Legendary value investor and bear Jeremy Grantham is turning bullish. Not that the market might not drop further but that U.S. blue chip stocks are extraordinarily cheap now.
He specifically blames Greenspan and Bernanke for the current financial crisis. Having an Ayn Rand disciple as head of regulating markets is almost a contradiction in terms, he said. And Bernanke is an academic who might actually believe that markets are efficient and thus that bubbles can not happen.
Grantham advises maybe 20% in top quality equities for individual investors for those with tolerance to risk and a long-term horizon, since real bargains do exist now.
But let’s not get too giddy. New Jersey is broke. Massive losses by public pension funds means they owe billions they don’t have, among other things. California has the same problem.
Also consumer spending, even on ecommerce sites, has dropped sharply the past couple of weeks. Emphasis on “sharply.”