One thing about surviving twenty-seven years as a real estate broker and salesperson is the skill to think ahead, to look down the road if you will. Nothing happens overnight in real estate, except sales or projects often months in the planning.
For years I have shared with you that the economy can't recover until housing recovers, and neither will recover until the job market recovers. While planning ahead, it became obvious that the solutions offered by the progressive Obama administration would hinder not help an economic recovery.
After five plus years and literally trillions of dollars spent by Obama on housing (Hamp, Harp, Tarp, Stimulus) and the never has worked before in history Fed QE, Twist, and ZIRP keeping mortgage interest rates at the lowest since Bess Truman fetched the haberdasher's hat before leaving the house, this is the best we get?
The worst jobs record of any recovery in history, the lowest workforce participation rate, falling wages, decimated disposable incomes, perpetually high unemployment, and the longest stretch of sub 3% GDP growth since the Great Depression are the result of Obama's IEDs. Incendiary economic devices.
The latest excuse by economic pseudo-journalists is the weather. After all, this is the first winter on record. When retail sales fell unexpectedly in January, and December retail sales were revised downward from positive to negative, it was due to the weather.
If the weather was the culprit for declining January retail sales, as the wizards of smart at Bloomberg, CNBC, CNN claimed, why did on-line sales decline the most? Did it snow in your computer? Just another example of progressive media continuing to cover for a failing Obama economic agenda.
Then along comes builder confidence dropping the most in one month on record to below 50, and voila, the weather is to blame again. I guess home builders realized you could only run a business on hope and change for so long. New construction remains mired in recessionary levels, but you would never know that from the pseudos.
Now come the housing starts and building permits to confirm why builder confidence sank faster than an Iranian speed boat attacking a US Warship. Starts plunged the most in three years and permits were off by the most in seven months. Predictably the pseudo's blame the weather. Those darned builders in the Northeast just discovered winter arrives in December?
The weather only has so broad of shoulders, certainly there must be another reason why the housing market is languishing? Not to the pseudos. Just as computers filled with snow caused online sales to plummet, the same happened with building permits declining by 5.4%. After all, the West led the way by dropping 26%. Those damned Arizona winters.
Forward looking folks easily predicted the economic destruction from Obama's IEDs; over spending through a failed Stimulus (Happy 5th anniversary for failing to achieve one metric of what was promised), years of multi trillion dollar continuing resolutions, and debt skyrocketing 70%.
Dodd-Frank the biggest monkey-wrench ever thrown into the gears of the American financial system. All it did was to protect the Too Big To Fail Banksters while depressing community bankers.
The mother and most destructive of all IEDs constructed in American history is Obamacare.
The CBO in back to back reports concluded that Obamacare was indeed the job killer, and deficit builder that the opposition always claimed. The CBO then continued it's treachery against the progressive administration by factually reporting the class warfare for votes increase in minimum wage was also a jobs killer.
The adjustments businesses have had to make to survive the leviathan progressive solutions are the reason we don't have legitimate job growth, a recovery, and why housing continues to languish.
The gig is about up. The Obama administration is having a difficult time spinning their yarn telling tens of millions of people they are not struggling when tens of millions of people are struggling.
It was the 'you can keep your insurance' mantra that has opened America's eyes to the truth and to the pseudo-journalist Obama protection racket. Neither the administration or pseudo-journalists can be trusted. People's reality tells them a different story.
The unconstitutional Obamacare delays are IEDs. If you think Obamacare has harmed the economy to date, wait until these IED's Obama has delayed go off over the next four years.
Be prepared for a robust spring market being translated by the pseudos as proof of recovery and then when the housing market cools by summer, you will be reminded it snowed in January. Meanwhile the Obama IEDs lay in wait.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of Fritz Pfister or identified sources, and not necessarily those of RE/MAX Professionals of Springfield, RE/MAX International, or The Capital Area Association of Realtors.
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