Some of the key metrics have changed, and so the projection of where from here has changed. While it is encouraging that there have been over 200,000 jobs created for much of this year, the reality is a large number are part time and in lower wage positions like hospitality and retail. Real unemployment still is at a very high 11% plus. Participation is still far too low causing the unemployment number to look better than it really is. There is still not a truly robust recovery despite the excessive use of that word in the media. The good news is gas prices are declining rapidly and wages at least are keeping up with inflation. The flip side is that for 90% of the country, they have not participated in the wealth creation of increased stock prices, and house prices, while higher, are not above 2007 levels. Median family income is still well below 2007 and median family net worth has fallen to $81,000 from over $100,000 prior to the crash.

Europe, China, Japan, India, Russia, Argentina and Brazil are all in decline economically and deflation is a real risk across the world. There are no good solutions possible in most of these countries and areas due to cultural and political and union conflicts. For some countries, lower oil prices are a benefit, and for some like Russia and the middle east it is seriously debilitating. For the US it is a boon top consumers and a negative for oil workers and some locations like North Dakota and parts of Texas. For China it is a overall good thing. Japan is unlikely to recover for years more despite the efforts of Abe to change the metrics. Taxes are too high and the culture of Japan is such that real change is unlikely. Young people are leaving and will never return. The same is true in many parts of Europe. There is a reason there is little if any real technology leadership in these countries,. The laws and culture do not allow it, and now with the EU trying to attack Google, it will be even worse.

In the US, with Obama thinking he is able to ignore the constitution and the election results, and that he can just issue more debilitating regulations from EPA, FDA and the NLRB and CFPB, and that he can continue to crunch banks, there is little hope that we will have a real breakout that we might have had. It is clear he thinks he can defy the election results and the Congress and this will just create unnecessary gridlock, and prevent critical things like true tax reform from happening. This attitude and his other actions simply assure a slower growth than we might have.