Where Did All The Hope Go?

Following last night's expectations-filled State of the Union speech, we know that housing is rebounding and our stock market is rising but while these are pointed to as evidence that we are on the right track, it appears, from these three charts, that expectations for hiring, capital expenditure, and retail spending is bad and getting worse. Of course, the divergence between our current market's reality and an uncertain future is nothing new - but the spread is starting to become untenable as even with stocks at five-year highs, confidence remains weak. Simply put, the people know reality and only the talking-heads choose to ignore it.

Hiring Expectations are fading fast...

Capital Expenditure plans have rolled over and real spending is following...

and just as CEO expectations for retail sales rolled over - they were right - and retail sales growth is slowing rapidly...

it seems the only place where 'hope' is priced is the nominal price of the S&P 500...

Charts: Bloomberg Briefs

Comments

[semperfi]

I know I'm preaching to the choir here but: 

The hope is just a deception, manipulation, a grande lie, that fooled enough idiots, including a lot of my relatives who are so gullible they still believe it today.   

[TrustWho]

The hope is Obama's hope. His hubris does not allow him to thank all those who hoped he cared about them.

[Falconsixone]

Bil Ayers Quotes :

• "We are a guerrilla organization. We are communist women and men ... deeply affected by the historic events of our time in the struggle against U.S. imperialism."
• "Our intention is to disrupt the empire, to incapacitate it, to put pressure on the cracks, to make it hard to carry out its bloody functioning against the people of the world, to join the world struggle, to attack from the inside."
• "The only path to the final defeat of imperialism and the building of socialism is revolutionary war."
• "Revolutionary war will be complicated and protracted. It includes mass struggle and clandestine struggle, peaceful and violent, political and economic, cultural and military, where all forms are developed in harmony with the armed struggle."
• "Without mass struggle there can be no revolution. 
  Without armed struggle there can be no victory."
• "We need a revolutionary communist party in order to lead the struggle, give coherence and direction to the fight, seize power and build the new society."
• "Our job is to tap the discontent seething in many sectors of the population, to find allies everywhere people are hungry or angry, to mobilize poor and working people against imperialism."
• "Socialism is the total opposite of capitalism/imperialism. It is the rejection of empire and white supremacy. Socialism is the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the eradication of the social system based on profit."

[shovelhead]

I still have hope.*

*I hope I don't end up in a frozen lasagna.

[new game]

best to keep an eye on your horses first

[Tombstone]

Hope was the password that got 'em in the door and now change has become "chains" where the gov enslaves the rummys who believed it all in the first place.

[earleflorida]

hope is the change in ones pocket-- avoid at all cost rubbing two^wood_den't^??_? nickles together for fear of spontaneous combustion when your empty pockets serve only as hand warmers...

[rosiescenario]

The Hope CHAnGed

[MFLTucson]

Where Did All The Hope Go?

It was all just a lie, you are surprised?

[Shizzmoney]

All of that "hope" is sitting in corporate balance sheets:

While corporate profits are booming, debt relative to corporate net worth is actually still very high. In fact, corporate debt relative to net worth is just shy of recent highs and still extremely high in terms of the last 50 years. Now, this doesn’t mean corporations are necessarily so weak that they can’t spend and invest, but it does throw some cold water on the idea that corporate America is benefiting from the recent surge in profits and just refusing to contribute to the recovery.

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/2013/02/13/1384802/on-cash-hoarding/?

So basically, all of these "profits" corporates are reporting, are really just really huge lies.  They are using these "profits" to take on more debt, and then using that debt to buy up commodities and acquisitions to expand the assets they "own" on their balance sheets (and then, higher up execs and managers take what they can off the top).

In essense, they are refusing to contribute to the recovery with these "gains".......but are doing so in a sort of survival mode by buying up their own shares to feign "growth", or outsourcing labor to China. 

You'll never hear this from corporates during this "recovery" - so you serfs out there, just keep your head down and go back to work (for a lesser wage that valued in USD that is worth less)!

This isn't the hope and change you are looking for.

[Sach Mahoney]

More like Hope and Blame.  We don't have a spending problem, but I hope I can confiscate all of your money real soon and I Blame Bush, Big Banks, Big Oil, Big Insurance, the House, the weather, the EU, Asia....

[Falconsixone]

Joseph Stalin: When we hang the capitalists they will sell us the rope.

or did he say Hope?

[Miffed Microbio...]

Today was the first day I met someone with true hope in many years. I had my vet out to float my horses teeth and he told me quite a tale. 10 years ago there were 15,000 horses in our area of San Diego, vet business was booming. Today there are now 2500 horses. He puts more horses down per week than provides care ( hmmm I think I found the source of the horse meat scandal). I started to feel really bad for him until he said the international vet market is exploding. Vets with good skills in race horses, grand prix jumpers and Olympic equestrian teams are hot ticket items. The 0.1% are dumping money in this area sinking millions in a single horse. He is flying all over the world. China, Kuwait, Germany. Money is no object. So my small town country vet has landed in clover and I am so happy for him. It's good to see someone find a way out of this morass. So, there is hope. That is, if you are a very very fortunate Remora that can find a shark you have Hope. Everyone else? God help you.

Miffed;-)