This whole bull market was built not on growth but on stock buybacks by the companies themselves, using free money printed by the Fed. There has not been any r

This whole bull market was built not on growth but on stock buybacks by the companies themselves, using free money printed by the Fed. There has not been any real growth. I hate to sound gloomy, but the more I look around, the more I see the swindle, the bezzle, and the veneer rather than real value and real wealth creation. I also see a lot of cheapening of formerly great products--Macbook Pro newer models come immediately to mind. But of course, hardly the only example! The Fed operates on a razor thin ledge and is right to be putting rates back to normal levels vs. the 0.01% or whatever we dropped to--they were even working on how to operate at negative rates, and some bonds (Swiss?) actually paid negative coupons for awhile. Maybe they still do? Anyhow, I am in favor of reasonable interest rates because that is a major lever that controls price inflation. People think very one-dimensionally about interest rates, as in, how much they are paying to maintain their ridiculous debt loads. Me, on the other hand, I have no such debts to pay off. Freedom is not being a debt slave, being able to walk away from any job at any moment and not suffer a bit for it. I would like to see banks pay savings interest rates again. They cranked them down very fast, but have never restored them to anywhere close to where they should be right now. My checking account pays a paltry .25%, my bank acct, maybe .7%. Meanwhile, even 3-months CDs are in the 2-2.5% range right now and longer term CD rates are halfway decent again. Long term T-Bonds are up around 3%. You can find Munis and other riskier bonds with decent coupons as wells.