INVEST in AMERICA

The apparent bubbly day Wall Street is enjoying is either delusion or illusion... or maybe, a little of both. At 12:25 a.m. EST, the S&P 500 trading volume was a lackluster 83 million shares. With most investors sitting on the banks, low volume transactions made big splashes in a still pond. Are traders feeling fuzzy because the service sector grew? How exciting can that be? Did anyone read the rest of the report? According to the Washington Post, "Employment activity at services firms continued contracting, with the index coming in at 44.3, up from 43.5 in August. That conforms with other recent data indicating that conditions remain bleak in the labor market -- most notably, Friday's Labor Department report indicating that last month the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent and employers cut 263,000 jobs."

In a 70% consumer-driven economy, where is the source of an economic recovery when unemployment is breaking twenty-five year highs? On top of that, of those whom have found new jobs, many have taken substantial pay cuts or received a loss in benefits. As the major source of job creation, small businesses are struggling with business downturns. In addition, local banks are tightening money supplies to build and conserve capital in an effort to ward off threats of insolvency when their outstanding near-term commercial loan portfolios start collapsing.

Google "Looming Commercial Lending Crisis" to learn what's just over the horizon. Do you think Wall Street sees the proverbial train wreck coming? But have you heard? "Financial sector stocks take lead in markets' run to recovery" - ABC News, Aug. 30. Hunkering down with the inevitable consignation to let the chips lay where they fall, Wall Street is either valiantly shoring up the financial sector with sandbags of new investor cash, ignoring reality, or wringing out the last profits before taking the jump into frigid waters. But rest assured, the old proverb, "What goes up, must come down." is still as true as it ever was.

The road to economic recovery is going to be long and arduous. There are no quick fixes. It may very well be years before Americans start reaping the rewards of our efforts to resolve the problems that have been growing for decades. Choosing to delude ourselves otherwise, only prolongs the problem and delays the inevitable. Perhaps the time to buy U.S. Treasury bonds is upon us. If American citizens don't have the confidence to invest in their own country, how should we expect others? In March, the U.S. Treasury announced plans to purchase its own bonds. Would that work for you or I? Of course not. It won't work for the U.S. government either. But this underscores how desperately dependent our nation has become on foreign investment.

The war in Afghanistan is escalating. Our government is printing cash like tortillas, which will be more valuable, if this liberal fiscal policy continues. The national debt is staggering. The trade deficit is overwhelming. Unemployment is reaching record highs. A gargantuan commercial lending crisis looms. There are fundamental problems with social security, healthcare, prescriptions, education, energy, the list goes on. Meanwhile, Wall Street is celebrating. Go figure. I suggest investing our hard-earned dollars in ourselves, instead of corporate CEO's whom are more interested in their own paycheck than their employees. But that's just me.