Well, here we are. 2012. Full of promise and opportunity. And a Mayan armageddon scenario. Mostly promise and opportunity.
So which Middle Eastern country are we fussing at this week? Let’s see, eeny meeny miney Iran. Our chums from across the globe are innocently enriching uranium in an underground facility designed to withstand air strikes for energy and research purposes. And since their track record of trustworthiness is so squeaky clean and they definitely have no intentions of wanting to “kill all the American bastard infidels,” I stand with my fellow hippie friends and applaud their shift to cleaner energy. Less dependence on fossil fuels. Bravo to a greener world.
If by greener I mean glowing with residual radioactive vapor everywhere.
In response we’ve banded with other major oil-consuming countries and created sanctions targeting the Iranian Central Banking system in order to screw with their ability to sell oil. Because if there’s one thing Americans are good at, it’s trashing central banking systems all around the world. We got a stinkin’ Ph.D. in the subject. If there was a game show and trashing banks was the contest, we’d win.
And the GOP presidential “race” rages on. There’s been polls and caucuses and debates and all sorts of nonsense. Mitt Romney seems to be Mr. Right Now, but Rick Santorum gained a little notoriety when he essentially tied Mitt in the Iowa caucus. So, good for him. (golf clap) Sadly no sex scandals to report at this time, but if recent history is any indication I’d say we’re due for some raunch in the right wing sometime soon.
Honestly, I think running Tim Tebow might be a good play right now for the nomination. He’d keep you guessing until the 4th quarter and then pull a storybook finish out of mid-air. And then he would pray. Republicans LOVE praying. Tebow/Christ in 2012.
Wanna hear something crazy? Jobs are getting created and housing data isn’t all that bad lately. I guess that was technically two crazy things.
8.5% unemployment. To use Paul Krugman’s exact words: It says something about how beaten down we are that this is considered “good” news. But an improvement is an improvement and by Jove I’ll take it. Sounds more impressive when you say 200,000 jobs were created. Real estate purchase contracts rose 7.4% month-over-month in late December. New Home Sales were up 19.5% year-over-year. Mind you, that’s capping off one of the worst years housing has seen by most metrics, but it is still a beginning to what will hopefully culminate into some maintainable trend.
Aside from that, things still feel pretty late-2011-y. Europe continues to maybe or maybe not want to implode. Mortgage rates are still being held down by a potent cocktail of economic concerns. Greg is still slap-happy to receive your referrals of people you know looking to buy a home or refinance a property they already own. I felt that warranted some emphasis from MS Publisher.
But seriously, I want to finance someone you know. Or you directly. Whatever. I’m actually quite good at it. Just send me a referral and I’ll show you.
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