by John Mauldin
Mauldin Economics
Appearing on 60 Minutes, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke said the recession’s end was in sight because the Fed’s asset purchases were generating “green shoots.” They turned out to be slow-growing shoots. The US unemployment rate kept getting worse for seven more months (peaking in October), and needed five more years to get where it was when that recession began.
Similarly, you can look around today’s economy and see green shoots here and there. As bad as things are—and make no mistake, they’re bad—we’ve regained some lost ground since the March/April depths. But the problem is in the “here and there” part. Some parts of the economy are literally booming even as others are in a deep, dark depression.
That’s kind of where we are. If you are in the right spot, you see whole forests of green shoots. You might think they are growing everywhere. And in due course maybe they will, but for now, a significant number of people just have dirt.