It Feels Like 2007 All Over Again…

We turned on the news this morning…

What we discovered was a very delighted young man, explaining why the economy is running red-hot.

The number of new job offers, he said, is greater than the number of new job applicants. This hasn’t happened for 10 years.

The number of people quitting jobs is also going up.

“It shows people are feeling more confident about finding another job,” he explained. This, too, hasn’t been the case since before 2007.

The National Federation of Independent Business released the results of its latest Small Business Optimism Index survey. The survey measures reported confidence in the economy among small business owners. Once again, that is back to levels not seen since 2006– 2007.

The rate of business investment (CapEx spending), too, is back to 2007 levels.

Job growth… GDP growth… stock price growth… confidence growth – we haven’t seen anything like this, he gushed, since 2007.

Whew!

It made us wonder… What happened after 2007?

Dawnest Before the Dark

It’s always dawnest before the dark. Or something like that…

The sun shines bright… just before a hurricane sweeps across the bay. Today, as usual, we check the weather.

“Of course, you never know about these things,” said an Irish friend, with whom we raised a glass of Guinness last night. “But I think it’s time to buy gold. We Irish traditionally don’t like gold. We associate it with the Bank of England, which stuck to a gold standard as we starved. Of course, the gold standard had nothing to do with the famine, but I think a lot of Irish people make the connection anyway.”

“We prefer land,” he continued. “But gold is a better way to protect yourself against inflation. And I think inflation is about to pick up.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices in the U.S. are rising at a rate of 2.9%.