[Matt_Mickiewicz]

He may be onto something. There's a huge and widening gap between GAAP vs. Non-GAAP earnings: http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/im...

U.S. corporations have issued more than $9.9 trillion in debt since 2008. Last year, corporations issued a record $1.5 trillion in debt.

76% of the companies in the S&P 500 bought back their own shares ...most companies used debt to pay for these buybacks, in a clever move of financial engineering to boost EPS.

To top it off, we've been in a multi-quarter earnings recession for the S&P, and total retail sales growth has dipped below 3% which has always correlated with a recession:

http://i0.wp.com/bawerk.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/201...

[tostitos1979]

The stock market seems sane when compared to real-estate prices in major cities. In Canada, people are mostly pointing fingers at foreign buyers. People are generally ignoring the elephant in the room - lowest rates in a generation. Despite being in the 1% of wage earners, we personally are so badly screwed ... we'll never be able to afford property in hour home towns unless there is a 50% crash. I don't think that is likely at all ... so we're (and most of our friends who missed the buying opportunities of 2011-12) are figuring our what remote town to move to so we can earn some fraction of our salaries but have a shot at home ownership. As rational people, we know we cannot afford million dollar homes if interest rates ever normalize. In Canada, you cannot get mortgages longer than 10 years ... so it is very grim for us. People who don't know math are raking it in while we are suffering in no uncertain terms. But no one seems to care.

[mttddd]

I am just hoping self driving cars come out in the next 5-10 years and hopefully that expands the geographic area you can reasonably live in and still commute to work.

[tostitos1979]

The LA to SF bus comes to mind. Seems like a miserable existence to spend so much time couped up in a car but the self-driving option will allow more productive use of time.

[Domenic_S]

Traveling long distances is a pain even by transit -- mobile data needs to catch up first. Dropped calls, dropped vpn connections, slow speeds... it sounds great to work during your commute until you have to actually do it.

[bubbleRefuge]

You are right, and there is no fracking boom on the horizon to save us. We just had 0.5% gdp growth. Where is the growth needed to sustain the stock market going to come from? If you read between the lines, Icahn is essentially saying that monetary policy is not effective as an elixir for the economy, though it may be a short term elixir for speculators, and that absent Keynesian fiscal policy(thank you politicians) he doesn't see growth drivers.