In this week's Off the Cuff with Mish & Chris podcast, Mish and Chris discuss:
- Fiscal cliff "smoke"
- Not enough substance to include "mirrors"
- The markets' grim outlook
- Most difficult time for investors in generations
- Crazy ideas
- Could the Fed get away with taking all debts onto it books?
- Media spin
- There's a bubble in "belief"
48 hours to go and no Fiscal Cliff deal in sight. The recently touted "Plan B" offered by the Republican side is essentially a "do nothing" non-strategy. Mish thinks the odds of going over the cliff are high. Chris feels that if anything is passed, it will be so tangential to what needs to be done that it will be little more than smoke & mirrors – sans mirrors.
Chris is having déjà vu that it's 2007 all over again, as markets power higher despite the growing uncertainties and the continued erosion of fundamentals. Everything (but the precious metals) appears to be priced for perfection. For example, the S&P is priced as if the recent aberrantly high corporate earnings will continue ad finitum vs. reverting to their historic mean. Risk asset prices are moving in lockstep with the printing presses now. What will happen if the U.S. and other OECD economies slip back into recession (as Chris and Mish think they are doing now)?
by rje