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Printing More Fish

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May 3, 2010

I include myself among those who are astonished by the number of people who believe that the economy is well on the road to recovery.  The cheerleaders on television never seem to have trouble convincing a certain number of people that all is well.  Nevertheless, the recent stock market activity, particularly on Thursday, April 29 – when the specter of debt contagion from Greece sent many to Walgreen’s for their first-time purchase of Depends – provided evidence that there is plenty of denial about our uncertain economic situation.  It seems as though most people are convinced that America can money-print its way out of any problem that comes along.  They must believe that if Ben Bernanke’s printing press beat the financial crisis it can defeat everything from climate change to terrorism.  But what about the economic impact from the recent oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico?  Do people believe that Ben Bernanke can just print more fish and save the seafood industry?

David Kotok is the Chief Investment Officer for Cumberland Advisors.  His grim outlook concerning the consequences from the Deepwater Horizon tragedy are obviously too painful for the magical thinking crowd to consider for more than a nanosecond.  The Business Insider website provided us with some glimpses of what Mr. Kotok sees resulting from what many people prefer to view as simply “another oil spill – possibly as bad as that caused by the Exxon Valdez”.  From Mr. Kotok’s perspective, there is a dimension of economic turmoil about to result from the recent catastrophe that could send our precariously-situated economy into a double-dip recession:

Thousands of small and independent businesses as well as larger public companies in tourism are hurt here.  This is not just about the source of half the nation’s shrimp.  That is already a casualty.  It’s also about the bank loans for the $200,000 shrimp boat and the house the boat owner and/or his employees live in and the fact that this shock piles on a fragile financial system that is trying to recover from a three-year financial crisis.

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Federal deficit spending will certainly rise by tens, and maybe hundreds, of billions as emergency appropriations are directed at larger and larger efforts to clean up this mess.  At the same time, federal and state revenues tied to Gulf-region businesses will fall.

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We expect to see the deterioration of the economic statistics for the US to reveal the onset of this oil-slick crisis in May, and the negative impact will intensify during the summer months.  A “double-dip” recession probably has been made more likely by this tragedy.

As the great multitude of media outlets spin the story to fit the usual narratives (“lessons learned”, “finger pointing”, “Obama’s Katrina”, “Halliburton’s latest controversy”, etc.) the most important story – the likely economic consequences of this event – is being ignored by the mainstream media for as long as possible.  As usual, Wall Street’s favorite chumps – those who believe that macroeconomic events are irrelevant to what happens in the stock market – are poised for another bloodbath.  This time, Ben Bernanke’s printing press won’t serve as the ultimate panacea.  Fish can’t be printed.



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