What kind of world do we live in when a slime ball like Bill O’Reilly not only doesn’t get fired for sexual harassment but also gets a huge payoff when the company he works for (FOX) realizes that people are upset that he got away with sexually harassing multiple women – who were also paid off by Fox to keep them from pursuing charges? Certainly I’m no fan of the politics of Fox news, but this takes the cake – essentially, O’Reilly just got a huge payoff for being a dirtbag – it’s almost as bad as electing a man accused of sexually assaulting an underage girl to the office of the President – which, come to think of it, actually happened and so this shouldn’t be a surprise at all. Decency does not matter any more in the United States – only money.As long as existing home sales rise (they have), marketshare, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rises – all is forgiven.
I have spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out what is propping up our economy and I’ve failed to discover anything – which is not a surprise – no one seems to have the answers as to why the economy in general should be rising but the fundamentals of the economy remain gloomy. I’ve got a few guesses 1) there is a lot more US Currency being printed than we are being told – the economy is still being fluffed 2) student debt is somehow being packaged and resold despite an average default of once every minute 3) capital doesn’t have a safehaven or a strong negative bet and is bouncing around while it waits for a shoe to drop.
As a retailer, I know one thing for sure, people are not spending recklessly on material goods. I don’t know where their money is going – but they are being tight with it when it comes to spending in brick and mortar shops. My suspicion is they are spending credit on online retail, spending cash on food and experiences like travel, and investing equity in their properties which they use for AirBnB rentals – which drives the cost of rent up and the cost of buying a property up as well.
And all of that leaves the great majority of us – scratching our heads and wondering where all the prosperity we were promised as kids has disappeared to. And the answer is, it doesn’t matter. Go buy a lottery ticket or do some serious sexual harassment because that is the surest path to riches in the USA of today.