Coming Up On Wall Street

Good morning. It is 48 degrees and cloudy here in Upstate NY. We have worked on puppy proofing the house and yard. On Saturday I fenced in an area of the yard to keep the puppy from falling into or going into a dangerous stairwell. We are reading the books about how to work with a puppy. Even though Kaya will be our third dog, the wisdom of the experts has lost some of its glow. Next we need a large crate for when we leave the house, and we need to create a contained space in the kitchen where she can wander around while we cook and hang out. She arrives next Saturday.

For the time being the market indexes are rising. This is primarily due to stronger than expected corporate earnings combined with a sense that the European debt crisis will be contained. On the scale of influence, the Eurozone crisis is reported to be heavier.

Its important to recognize that while Greece may somehow re-regulate its economy, the Greek people are in a significantly harsher economic environment. So while Wall Street's indexes rise, and investors cheer policy decisions coming out of Europe, the ordinary people in Greece are suffering. We rarely see these two realities juxtaposed in any reporting. If we use the two degrees of separation rule, Wall Street is inadvertently cheering the reality that the Greek people will be much poorer and economically vulnerable.

Also notice that more and more investors are going on record saying that the economy will not fall back into a technical recession. The more dominating thought is that the economy creeps along with a slow GDP for several quarters accompanied by lower corporate profits. Although this sounds encouraging, the reality is that Main Street is an economic mess with high unemployment, miniscule job opportunities, virtually no job creation from the job creators, high foreclosure rates, creeping inflation, housing price deflation, and a significant shift in how the American economy operates post 2008 leading to a massive change in what we need to know in order to be employed. All this occurs no matter what some idiot who makes crappy pizza and sells it to people who obviously could make much better nutritional decisions. He's all box and no pie indeed.

CNN: Earnings forecasts look less bright

Much of what's driving worries about earnings is related to expectations for less demand from Europe and other parts of the world, including China, where indicators show growth is slowing.


The data shows S&P 500 earnings are expected to have risen 14.7 percent in the third quarter from a year ago...


"The general macroeconomic data in the U.S. continues to confirm a protracted, slow painful recovery but not a recession at this stage..."