And We're Back! Dow 14,000 Fuels a New Wealth Boom!

Yep... that's the headline, folks... direct from CNBC!

This one deserves its own stand-alone newsbites so here we go... starting with paragraph one:

The next American wealth boom has officially begun.

Wealth boom for whom...??? For those who are already rich? For the insiders? For the oligarchs? For those who make hundreds of thousands... millions... tens of millions... and even on occasion billions in a single year yet who pay most of their taxes at a rate of 15% on their first $400,000 in capital gains and 20% on capital gains "income" above that extremely generous threshold...???

Hey, folks... remember the last "American Wealth Boom" cheered on by the insiders... the oligarchs... the mainstream media? Well, folks, that last "American Wealth Boom" was called the "Housing Boom!"

Remember, folks...??? Remember "wealth" being created out of sheer irrational exuberance cheered on by Wall Street... by politicians of both parties... by the mainstream media... by the bankers... by governmental and pseudo-governmental organizations such as the Federal Reserve... the IMF... Freddie and Fannie Mae...???

It may not feel like it for many Americans. But with the Dow breaching 14,000, shareholders and investors have recovered the more than $8 trillion in wealth lost during the recession and attained levels of paper wealth they haven't seen since the Roaring Oughts.

What bullshit!

The value of a stock is only "real" once that stock is sold. In the meantime, unless the stock pays dividends, it has only "listed" value. What you paid for the stock is real. The "opportunity cost" of having bought that stock instead of spending/investing the money elsewhere is also real - though often impossible to quantify.

No wealth has been "recovered." The market goes up, the market goes down. Again... what matters is what you paid for a stock... what dividends (if any) you realized over the course of ownership... the opportunity cost of the particular investment... the sale price (and hopefully profit)... and what effect the tax code has had and will have over the course of the investment from buy to sell.

The stock market has gone from wealth destroyer to the nation's largest manufacturer of new millionaires and billionaires.

Again... paper millionaires and paper billionaires... but besides reiterating that fact, we've been "manufacturing" new millionaires and billionaires at a much slower rate than we've been adding literally millions of people to the food stamp (SNAP) rolls and the millions who have left the work force!

The market moves are creating a new virtuous cycle of confidence for the wealthy.

Yes... for the wealthy...

A new survey from Spectrem Group shows that millionaire confidence in the economy hit the highest level in two years, led by their bullishness on the economy and corporate earnings.

So... in other words... class separation is proceeding apace during the "Age of Obama" and the winners are... the wealthy... the millionaires... and the billionaires.

The big question now is what the next Gilded Age will look like, who will benefit and how long the market-fueled prosperity will last.

Not much question about all this, is there? The insiders, the oligarchs, the rich... they'll all benefit. The American People? We're screwed.

Folks... read the friggin' daily newsbites...

Folks... gas up your vehicles...

Folks... head to the supermarket and do some food shopping...

Folks... pay your health insurance... pay your kid's college tuition... keep up with your ever-rising property taxes and enjoy paying that $12 cash toll for the "privilege" of crossing the George Washington Bridge!

The total wealth of the Forbes 400 hit $1.7 trillion in 2012, topping the record of $1.58 trillion in 2008. The average net worth of the Forbes lister topped $4.2 billion – the highest ever.

And this signifies...??? (That the rich are getting richer...???)

The population of millionaires in America is now at or above its 2007 high.

But... but... but... the Bush years... weren't they the bad years...? (But... now we're celebrating their return... their return in terms of more and indeed wealthier millionaires and billionaires...???)

Prices for highly prized art, wine, vintage cars, jewels watches and other collectibles are soaring past their 2007 highs.

And the price of a pound of roast beef...? The price of a six-pack? The cost to fill up your car's tank? The price of milk... eggs... beef...???

This year's collectible-car sale at Scottsdale blew past its pre-crisis sales record, racking up $223 million in sales, compared to $163 million in 2008.

And yet thanks to "Cash for Clunkers" and the governmental policies connected to it (crush the "junkers," don't recycle parts) Americans who aren't in the "collectable car" market or even the new car market pay more for spare parts to keep their older cars running and when that gets too much they're often forced to buy new cars which they can't really afford and which eat up an inordinate portion of the family budget?

I don't know, folks... clearly CNBC views the "Obama Recovery" as real. I don't. Nor would I if the president were Romney yet the newsbites were the same.