My Last Death Threat in 2011

Recently by James Altucher: Nine Unusual Ways To Get Yourself Off the Floor

I got this email the other day:

u201CJust saw you on CNBC. Shocked! I thought for sure I read you had hung yourself. Well, now I have a new wish for Christmas!u201D

It was signed [email protected] and he was referring to a recent TV appearance I made where I was bullish on the economy in 2012.

I don't know a [email protected] so it was effectively anonymous. This is why the Internet is great. I am particularly ugly when you see me on TV. Everyone is very beautiful on TV. They always try to put makeup on me or make me brush my hair or tuck my shirt in. Ugh. Are you my mommy? I also had particularly big headsets on. Like Keith Partridge in the Partridge Family. u201CI Think I Love Youu201D. You know the song.

So its perfectly reasonable that an anonymous person from Washington DC (I tracked his IP address) would send me that note. He just saw an ugly person on TV. Kill him! It's a natural survival instinct for the species. And now, with the Internet, he can act on this natural genetic instinct and send an anonymous email message. I'm in favor of that.

I Was Blind But Now I ... Altucher, James Best Price: $3.07 Buy New $8.00 (as of 11:55 UTC - Details)

I tried to think what else could upset him. Well a lot of people get upset that I'm very bullish for 2012. A lot of people, both citizens and the warlords in our own government, want America, capitalism, the Internet, the economy, all of our established insitutions, to go down in flames. I don't know why they want this. They think it will be fun. Like we'll party like it's 1999. That sort of thing.

You can stop reading here if this makes you irrationally angry for some reason.

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I'm giving you one more chance to go to a different page. If you go to the top of this page and search on u201Cprostitutesu201D you will find many fun stories.

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Home sales: Housing prices still stink. Nobody should ever buy a home again, in my opinion. The myth of the white picket fence was invented by a trillion dollar mortgage industry powered by an over-accelerated Federal Reserve. Prices are down 2.8% from a year ago. But there's very good news. Inventories are at the lowest levels since 1963. And at current demand, months of inventory on the market are at six months, the lowest since 2006. In fact, home sales have been up considerably the past few months. Guess what happens in any market when supply goes down and demand goes up: prices go up.

Corporate profits are at an all time high. This is for three reasons. All the companies fired people two years ago. Demand is coming back (see below), and the Internet is actually allowing companies to do things for free that they used to use expensive people for. What happens when corporate profits are at an all time high?

Cash in the bank is at an all time high: Non-banks in the S&P 500 have two trillion cash in the bank, the highest levels ever. This cash is sitting around doing nothing. Do you know what happens when cash is sitting around doing nothing?

Announced Stock Buybacks are at an all time high: Since 1990 you know who the biggest buyers of stocks are? It's not mutual funds or retail investors. It's other companies by a factor of 4:1. Through buybacks and mergers. Announced buybacks for 2012 has hit over $1.1 trillion, the first time this number has breached a trillion. Oh, and guess what, the number of shares outstanding has now gone down for three years in a row, for the first time since 1990. You know what happens in any market when demand goes up (the stock buyback announcements) and supply goes down? See above.

Consumer spending is up at an all time high. How can this be? Isn't unemployment still at 8.6%. Yes. But: A) unemployment is 1.2% lower than it was a year ago. And B) many of the unemployed were in lower paying jobs. I'm just the messenger here but it's the truth. Personal incomes are actually UP 4% over the past year. Not only that but temp jobs are up and the average hourly work week is up. Which means full time employment is going to continue to grow, as it has been all year.

But, you can ask: isn't this the same problem we had before? People spend, spend, spend, and then owe, owe, owe?

No.

(consumer spending at an all time high)

Household debt obligations are the lowest since 1993. Mortgages, rents, car loans/leases and other debt services added together divided by income after taxes is the lowest since 1993.

But what about Europe? I know this blog might have European readers. In fact, we might even have readers from Greece. Hello out there! But do you really think a beach resort in the Mediterranean is going to have an effect on the US economy? Greece's economy to the Eurozone is equivalent to Rhode Island to the US economy. I live 40 minutes from Rhode Island and I don't think I've ever even set foot in that state.