Is Humpty Dumpty Back Together Again?

In Singapore, equity and real estate prices are soaring. My parents are constantly being harassed by countless calls of over-eager and irritating real estate agents. "Would you like to sell your apartments?" Which was greeted by the resolute "No, thank you very much."

In a world whereby governments all over the world are engaged in quatitative easing and massive fiscal stimulus, inflation will become the inevitable. Though we think that prices have somewhat gone ahead of themselves, we have no intention to sell whatsoever. The simple reason is this, "If we were to sell, where are we going to put our money then?" Banks are out of the question, for interest rates are meager, commodities are way too speculative, equity and property prices are likely to be overpriced. Finding a safe place to put your money is increasingly difficult.

I have been through the torturous process of trying to find a decent job in an indecent time. Trust me, the job market is still bad as ever. Corporations are not churning out the kind of profits that they used to, sales have collapsed and thus likewise for profits. Companies which are turning out profits have done so only because they have cut costs dramatically, at the expense of countless jobs. The average consumer are not spending the way that they used to. Therefore, not only this is a jobless recovery, it is also a profitless recovery when we are talking about the financial markets. Is this really possible?

I have an uneasy feeling that we are all living in a bubble of false hope. We try hard to convinvce ourselves that with all the king's horses and all the king's men, we still might be able to put humpty dumpty back together again.