This much-talked about investment assessment – that I am several days late in sharing – offers an important perspective for investors, policymakers, and voters.  And it may lead you to buy some GLD.  It certainly strengthens my belief that the last thing we needed this year were tax cuts.  They may have been politically necessary; indeed, in today’s world, they almost surely were.  But, as argued here at the time, the folks WITH jobs and the folks MAKING taxable profits are not the ones who most needed help – nor the ones whom helping would do us any economic good.  The tax cuts did not lead to hiring people; they were used to pay down debt and/or to buy stuff America largely doesn’t need, much or most of it made abroad. 

Whatever we borrow should be borrowed to put people to work building a solid future – caulking and insulating homes, rebuilding bridges, digitizing health care records, smarting-up the electric grid.  (In that last regard, see the President’s remarks Tuesday, where he announced 100 grants totaling $3.4 billion to install smart grid technologies.)

Have a great weekend, Einhorn’s sobering assessment notwithstanding.