Wall Street Skids On Weak Manufacturing Report, Record-Breaking Oil Prices

AP:

Wall Street skidded lower Wednesday after a weaker-than-expected reading on the manufacturing sector and a spike in oil prices to $100 a barrel triggered concerns of a further slowdown in the overall economy.

The major indexes each lost more than 1 percent, with the Dow Jones industrials giving up more than 200 points. It was the blue chip index's biggest point decline for the first day of trading in a new year.

Read the whole story: AP

Comments

[Nova16]

The failing economy and dollar was predictable the day Bush/Cheney were appointed to office. Their greed, corruption, chicanery and incompetence in all matters foreign and domestic were only topped by their disregard for the welfare and security of the American people. As Pat Buchanan has claimed, we lost three million manufacturing jobs under Bush/Cheney, created more personal and national debt at a faster rate, squandered our national wealth, allowed our foreign competitors to surpass us with a growing military and economy while we fight endless war, lost our prestige around the world and created a constantly bickering factional society at each others throats. What ever happened to our once proud and progressive democracy in only seven years?

[ajax2]

MSN, "Stocks have their worst opening day in percentage terms since 1983. Though crude oil slips back, a close above $100 may come soon. Gold hits a 27-year high on inflation worries, and a weak manufacturing report ignites recession fears."

[ajax2]

marketwatch, "Managers predict 2008 will be the seventh consecutive year in
which foreign-stock funds top their U.S. rivals. The biggest gains for international funds came from portfolios with growth-stock strategies­."

[godlessclif]

This is a general Federal Reserve currency failure, not a business or energy policy failure. If you were using gold backed currency like the Arabs do the price of oil would not be any higher.

[themodernleader]

realitytrumpsbull. You and countless others miss the point of industrial degradation. Our citizens lose their knowldege and skill. The jobs that derive research breakthroughs, the jobs that provide low, medium, and high paying jobs, the occupation­s/physical plant and equipment that pay money to all governments, that give generously to the needy and public projects and give guidance to future worker preparation. All these possibilities disappear as factories , technogies and supporting plants and enterprises disappear. What we have left is the underemployed, indebted, and welfare entrapped, infilitrated with a dangerous underclass of anchorless, unhinged individuals who survive by theeir wits mostly of an illegal orientation.
Think again of cheap foreign imports and the well being of your family and community and the future of your children's children.

[samuraijack]

This is the best late present ever! Thanks Huff Post! A broker looking dejected and down, possibly considering jumping from the windowsill because the old folks he conned out of their money and into some cheap, two-bit fucking stock may not get their dividends. Actually, he is thinking about his shrinking bonus. Fucking douchebag. Plunge Dow, dive, dive!!!

[outnow]

After free trade policies undermined our manufacturing base, and oil prices skyrocketed, even a falling dollar will not help our exports.

Eliminating tariffs allows the flow of cheaply manufactured products from labor within confined borders to flood the domestic market.

Patrick Buchanan who is a conservative who ran for President explains that he no longer supports NAFTA, CAFTA, and the WTO. He broke with Milton Friedman and the "Chicago Boys" who sold us a load of crap. Yes, Wall Street investment bankers made money but real wages for the rank-and-file worker in this country has grown by one cent, as adjusted for inflation, in four years! That figure is quickly reversing itself - you can kiss that one cent good bye. In fact, the price index is rapidly6 rising for food and gasoline.

"Free trade" undid the British Empire because the manufacturing base was destroyed. There is a social contract within countries. If capital flows internationally while labor is confined to within borders, jobs flow out and investment capital flows in to that country.

Blame Ronald Reagan for the war on the Middle Class. Blame Margaret Thatcher for her one way New World Order for the capitalistic elites of the multinational club. Blame Bill Clinton for deregulating everything. Blame Bush for his gun-boat diplomacy. Blame Greenspan for his asset bubbles. Blame the banks for lending to poor credit risks and then bundling the loans and having the bundle rated as triple A.

Without a manufacturing base and a solid middle class with jobs and a national health care system, the gap in wealth will increase, consumer spending drop, and the US will become the beggar-debtor nation with big military expenditures.

We don't have manufactured goods to export so a weak dollar will not help.

We need a "new deal" and direct investment in infrastructure. The government needs to print the money rather than the Federal Reserve Board bankers. Put people to work on highways, energy programs, education, conservation, research and development without raising taxes or cutting them.

[themodernleader]

The dollar is a pariah. The crop commodities are going through the roof after about doubling last year. That is the reason that food is also going through the roof for the consumer. Energy, transportation, heating, countless manufacturing materials are breaking old records---$100 a barrel oil.
How are fixed income folks able to purchase enough to sustain themselves? How will suburban folk afford the transportation bill to get to work? How will new home owners or upward mobile owners afford to heat ostentatiously large dwellings?
How will destitute people afford to pay the larger tax bills to make up for lowered tax receipts due to precipitiously declining economic activity? How will debt swamped citizens cope with the coming mass lay offs?
These questions have arisen because of our living through a fraudulent prosperty that every economist in this country worth his salt knew. In their responsibile positions of leadership they should have screamed to high heaven at this squandering of our economic sustenance?
They kept silent and are part of the problem of a bankruptcy of leadership resulting in the bankruptcy of our Republic.
The Stock Market is responding to our hollowed out manufacturing, technological Nation. This Nation is headed for the poor house and not one leader at any level of this disgraced organization can do a damned thing about it. The opportunists, purchasers of previlege, and swindlers have made sure of that. They stole our Country and ran.
Our only hope is the return of honorable, competent governance---and soon.

[thefireguy]

It's time the auto makers get off there butts and product a car that gets 48MPG... if I was the next person to live in the white house I would the industry together the same day I took office and give them 9 Month to product a engine that got 48 MPH... or I would nationalize the industry on the day after the dead line... I would make it a nation project equal to the building of the A-bomb!

If Honda can do it then so can GM!

[wadenelson1]

The US still has manufacturing? Who knew???

[DBlake]

Where would you invest your money in 2008, Energy or the S&P500?

http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=1423
.