The start of a new bull market?

The US market has "gone nowhere" during the last decade and even more.

This "lost decade"^* came only after the longest and the most magnificent bull market of all times that started in 1981 and lasted for 18 years, ending the most amazing 5 years, from 1995-1999, the only 5 years in history in which the stock market returned over than 20% (24.5% p.a.) for 5 years in a row.

^{* (that "Lost Decade" was not lost at all for many value investors that stayed away from expensive stocks during the last two bubbles in the passing decade)}

After the anticipated collapse in China it is very well possible that business will migrate from China to the rest of the world, helping the US economy to grow itself out of the crisis.

It is very interesting to see the bets and opinions of Buffett on recent events. Buffett's take on unemployment is that it will drop below 8% till elections at 2012 (a little over a year!) and that banks will earn much more. The key to his thesis is that unemployment is directly linked to home construction, and his take is that home construction will begin to improve till the end of the year.

He also claims that when the improvement comes, Wells will do a lot better and they will have 100B$ out as loans (that can easily account for 4B$ more in interest profits).

Listening to them, it seems like they think we are in the start of a new bull market.

Buffett on unemployment:

Buffett on the debt ceiling and how can the deficit be fixed in 5 minutes: