October is the cruelest month -- at least for the Dow--only 30 stocks but more influential than than the price of tulips in 17h century Holland.
Stocks that were cheap last summer are so cheap now that it astounds me no one is buying. Mass hysteria has set in. The species that gave us Tulip mania and the South Sea Bubble is at it again. It's time to buy since all the pishers are selling. Time to buy since Jim Cramer -- that 21st century Barnum -- says, "sell!"
What is value? It used to be gold and silver. What is it now? Goldman Sachs? Lehman Bros, hah, J.P. Morgan? Morgan Stanley? What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as Paulson, Corzine or Bernanke.
Bernanke is a scholar of The Great Depression. So nu?
My best friend's father made his Fortune at Lehman Bros. when people shook hands and meant it. Then they started selling derivatives of derivatives, swaps of swaps -- and the Bush administration cheered.
Every time Bush and Bernanke speak the market tanks. Where is the ghost of FDR? Laughing. "I was called a traitor to my class" he says, giggling.
Nobody -- not even the seller -- knows what derivatives are worth. Or even what they are. Guys tried to explain 'em me and they couldn't even 'splain 'em to themselves!
Everyone wanted the commission -- even if the stuff was treif. Self-delusion is human nature.
My father and my father-in-law believed in government bonds. But what if the government is lying? And what if China is selling poisoned yuans? I watch South Park and I'm afraid of the Chinese too.
Is a currency worth anything if no one wants it? We used to buy shoes in Italy. Remember?
These are the questions of Oct 2008. I belong to a family of bears. And bulls. Some say the Dow will dip below 5000. Some say stocks are undervalued and that the sellers will be left out in the cold.
I will consult the Oracle of Delphi. She burbles that "fools sell and fools buy." She says our parents were right: the Great Depression will come again. She says: "buy low, sell high." She says: "never put own money in show business."
But even the Oracle cannot time the market.
"Your grandfather should have held US Steel in1930," she says.
Who knows?
All my forebears worked for a living. My grandfather painted portraits. My mother too. My aunt painted seascapes. My father played the drums, wrote songs, and then made his fortune in tchatchkes, made in Japan, then Taiwan, then China. My husband bills his time by the hour. The bucks sound big but there are only 24 hours in a day. I write slowly by hand. Publishing is effectively bankrupt for you unless you are Danielle Steele. It takes a year to write book and advances are going down or disappearing. I never wrote for money, but I can't swap poems for my iPhone.
I thought to spend my declining years writing poetry and teaching -- but that won't pay the Bergdorf's bill.
I think I'll move to somewhere life is cheaper. Papua New Guinea? With the ghost of Margaret Mead?
But what about my adorable grandchildren who live in New York City?
I'd really miss them in Madagascar.
"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies."
Thomas Jefferson
Jon Corzine left GS in 1999, entered politics, and since 2006 has been trying to get NJ out of debt. He is the exact opposite of Paulson.
Only a true disaster (Iraq, the Depression) can make the American public face the truth. Even Iraq still has a sizable minority in denial.
Every excuse for more public funding to pump up the economy rings hollow, ... are the words extortion in a veil? If this process is the greed of the families at the top of our economic system grabbing additional wealth from the rest of us, when will their greed be sated? What is "enough" when there is no more to give? To what lengths will people, desperate, unemployed and homeles, go to survive? To what lengths will our Government go to maintain order is an increasingly disorderly period?
To my children and grandchildren, I am so very sorry that you have to suffer through any of this. It was not of your making, nor mine. Vote your hearts and your interests. Have faith in me and in one another, and in your neighbors. Keep a cool head and a warm heart toward people. They may be all you have that you can count upon.
I'm hot happy about any of this--but at least it happened on the Bush Crime Family's watch--so it's clear to most of us who is to blame. I think the Republi-cants thought it would happen after January20, 2009--but these recession/depressions are so hard to time precisely.
I hope you read these comments.. I feel the same way you do about the state of things. There is enough blame to go around. I know some smart people who did take too much equity out of their homes living under the delusion that the bubble wouldn't burst.. I also just heard Barney Frank's comment regarding Fannie and Freddie.. something to the tune of let's roll the dice?
No one understands the worth of anything simply because one of the ways they were able to hide the dangererous risk was to create these complex derivitives.. so no one could quesiton or value the paper. The Insurers underwrote the risk not understanding anything..
These sub prime things.. have destroyed the entire worlds credit markets.
You do remember how we really pulled ourselves out of the Depression don't you?I mean we've studied the history. :)
We had WWII.. then came the WPA?
I used to sell homes.. never participated in a transaction that had a risky mortgage.. I'm too middle class for that.. I am presently not working.. there is no business.. Sellers can't sell.. because of negative valuation, and buyers won't buy because they correctly feel the market is going down.. and oh.. banks don't want to lend.. unless you have enough cash in the bank to buy it yourself. .Let me close with.. the fact that this is not the worst crisis our people have faced in this century.. we are still free.. to flee !
boomerbabe
Republicans stand firmly against art, literature and culture. They stand for the suburbs and the SUV. I once read a book by a daughter of a Nazi who grew up in what she called a "junkyard" of a country, thanks to her parents' politics. It now will be up to the next generation of Americans to correct the delusions that have guided our recent history.