USA May Be the Least-Worst Place to Invest

The investment world continues looking around the world at places to put their money.  Greece?...nope.  Argentina?...nope.  Russia?...nope.  Any place in Europe?....nope.  Japan?...nope.

What doest that leave?  The good ol' USA.

We may end up benefiting (financially) if the world comes out of the economic slump...because millions of investors are viewing the USA as the least-worst place to have their money.

Anyone who watched the national debate unfold during this election year could be forgiven for viewing the United States as a place any shrewd investor would avoid at all costs. The dysfunctional behavior of politicians, coupled with the paralysis of business leaders, hardly paints a picture of an environment possessing real economic potential.

Yet a growing chorus of professional investors is increasingly convinced that the U.S. economy may be about to break out of a decade-long malaise, punctuated by five years of recession and anemic growth, and resume a faster expansion. “If you permitted me to lock up money for five or 10 years, I’d overweight the U.S. and emerging markets,” says Bob Doll, chief equity strategist at Nuveen Asset Management.

America is coming out of the worst recession and financial crisis in 80 years in “far better shape than anyone else,” economist Ed Yardeni told attendees at the second annual Fiduciary Gatekeepers Investment Research Manager conference in October. That sentiment was echoed last summer by Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater Associates, the nation’s largest hedge fund. In an interview in Barron’s, Dalio remarked that the United States has executed a masterful job of deleveraging since the financial meltdown.

If all this sounds a little strange to you, it should. In the five years since the financial crisis began, the U.S. government has added more than $1 trillion in debt each year. But watching government debt too closely without looking at corporate and consumer borrowing could be a big mistake when trying to read tea leaves.

 Former Merrill Lynch chief investment strategist Richard Bernstein, who today runs his own eponymous advisory firm, remarked in October that total U.S. debt—meaning government, corporate and consumer debt—has declined from its peak of 350% of GDP to 320%. Bernstein admitted he was stunned to discover this. While the decline may be small, the change in trajectory is significant. By his reckoning, total U.S. debt has never fallen at as fast a rate before. Look around the world and the U.S. is, in Bernstein’s words, “the smartest kid in summer school.”

Here;  http://www.fa-mag.com/news/the-smartest-kid-in-summer-school-12931.html

Now let me ask you something....what kind of situation would lead more USA citizens to Jesus Christ?  A situation where inflation is out of control, the financial system is collapsing, the epic drought begins to lead to epic famine, violent crime escalates as people start stealing scarce resources, and people begin to lose hope?

OR---

A situation where the stock market comes back to all time highs, pension plans start to come out of the red, real estate prices start to rebound, which leads to cities collecting more taxes to fix the sagging infrastructure, and unemployment continues coming down as people find jobs and begin feeling hopeful?

Again....which situation would lead more Americans to turn to Jesus Christ and cry out for help and ask for salvation?

Which situation should we be praying for??

Which situation would Satan, the Prince of the Earth, want??

Which situation lines up with Apostle Paul's words, "While people are saying 'peace and safety' then destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape?"

Which situation would make most folks in America heave a collective sigh and say, "Whew!  We are FINALLY getting back to normal!  We are closing the wars down in Iraq and Afghanistan, (peace) the malls are filling up with shoppers and I feel like my pension plan, my home's value and Social Security is safe again." (safety)

Of course I don't KNOW THE ANSWER...but just wondering if y'all have any ideas?