I usually don't pay that much attention to the stock market, but after seeing a chunk of my retirement go up in flames in the past two months, I've definitely been paying more. I think a lot of us have.
And I heard something interesting, which is that the market rose sharply the morning before Bush spoke on his economic stimulus package, and then dropped sharply after he was done. In the morning, the Dow Jones industrial average was up more than 180 points, or 1.5 percent. After Bush finished, it ended up down .7 percent. If you had $100,000 invested in stocks, you lost $2,500 from the difference.
The NPR commentator said the market dropped because investors weren't impressed with Bush's stimulus package. That's probably true. And probably any response would have been inadequate given the mess that we're in.
But maybe there's also something else going on. Maybe every time Bush opens his mouth these days, and tries to reassure us by doing things like comparing cranking up America's economy to cranking up a lawn-mower, more and more Americans think, "This joker is in charge? He's totally out of touch." And they recognize that we're in deep trouble, which may only get deeper, given how much the policies he's spearheaded have damaged our economy.
Even Republicans and stock market investors may be beginning to recognize this, which may be one reason Bush's words seemed to hurt, not help. Whether they recognize that the new Republican candidates will largely follow the same vein is less clear. I'm actually glad that people no longer believe Bush's words, although our faltering economy's already bringing a lot of human pain. I hope from all of it we'll emerge on some wiser paths.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, named the #3 political book of 2004 by the History Channel and the American Book Association. His previous books include Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time. See www.paulloeb.org To receive his articles directly email sympa@lists.onenw.org with the subject line: subscribe paulloeb-articles
Watching George Bush on everything he does is like watching a monkey try to fuck a football, end over end with that dazed and confused look.
So sad
Given my druthers, I'd prefer to be run over by the former, thank you very much.
All kudos to Shrubly!
All of the things that "Ike" Eisenhower warned us about, way back in 1961 (well, ahem, that wasn't really so long ago now was it?) have come true with a vengeance.
Now, we are nearly at the end of the parable of the Prodigal Son. The nation's ill-advised binging for the last 40 years have brought it to ruin, and the rest of the world (now more than ever) is "moving on." But somewhere, in many people's collective memory, is a knowledge of "much better days." Back when bored wives who did not have to work two jobs sold Tupperware to one another for amusement...
What has brought us here... is lawlessness, accompanied by an unlawful refusal to enforce our laws even against those who sign them. "Any civil officer" is subject to this form of law-enforcement but we all must compel those laws to be enforced.
We must (peaceably but relentlessly) compel Congress to do what the law says it "shall" do. And to do it as many times as necessary, against as many "civil officers" as necessary, until it is known throughout the entire world that America is a nation where lawbreakers will be punished ... according to the law ... even if some of those lawbreakers denied the most basic human decencies to their prisoners.
This nation must come together -- Republican and Democrat and Everyone-Else alike -- and purge itself of lawlessness. Once it does that, many things (including its slumbering but still-awesome economic strength) WILL come roaring back to life.
That would be the rest of the world afraid that the U.S. economy is going to drag everyone else down. Even the Chinese are concerned.
Bush's massive deficits are coming home to roost. I'm afraid we are all going to suffer.
Of course, that would devastate our housing market and a major part of our economy for good...
However, if there was a way to protect existing rates and ARMS from expanding on homes and property, maybe freezing them for 5-10 years so they cannot be effected, giving a determined date when the rates would rise... Much needed money would be moving like crazy to buy up to that date. Rules to protect the market from speculation would be needed, but could easily be put in place if the focus is maintained on bringing back our economy and giving our old and worn out dollar back some of its strength.
Bush and his policies have trounced our dollar and treated it like toilet paper. It's probably impossible and crazy, I know, but it seems something on a very major scale like this is what needs to be done...
Sitting back and doing nothing, letting things "fix themselves" seems to be absolutely much more dangerous.
Disasters definitely seem to be looming.
God bless the U.S.A.
He was delighted to see an enclave of Democratic voters washed away. He has no problem seeing the middle class pauperized. This is the guy that thought it a uniquely American virtue that someone had to hold down three jobs to make ends meet--this from someone that never successfully held down one job.
Bush is a puppet who resolutely serves his "base," the "haves and have-mores." The question is whether he can permit a stock market meltdown, which threatens the wealth of the ruling class or will use it as a pretext for something more diabolical.
Those of us who were conscious back in the 80's said of Reagan that he changed America from tax-and-spend to borrow-and-spend. He borrowed three trillion dollars and threw a party. Bush makes Reagan seem like a party-pooper, but the larger point is that Americans have been blinded to the reality of this version of class warfare (top down). We stumble around in a daze running up credit card debt, living far beyond our means waiting to win the lottery.
Such was the environment of the Weimar Republic: vulgar hedonism, hyper-inflation and depression, leading directly to fascism. The sequencing of events may be a tad different, but we are on the same path. It's only a matter of time until the ruling class excercises its option to merge our government into corporate America.
americans are fucking stupid!!! We deserve whatever we get for our collective stupidity, laziness and inertia.
Thats what you morons get for voting for the man youd like to have a beer with. (Im not taking any of the blame for that since I didnt vote for prez fucksupalot either time.) Can you even afford a beer, now, sparky?? Can you??
got a lot of cats? Them's good eatin'!
The only news is that nothing, repeat nothing, in the "bi-partisan" proposal to stimulate the economy will make a bit of difference. A one shot tax break is just putting more deficit on the national credit card. If we spend it now, to "stimulate the economy", we have just compounded and put off the problem until some future in which our lenders refuse to give us any more credit. It accomplishes nothing, and will probably make for a harder landing.
It is politically disastrous because it lends credence to Bush tax cuts stimulate the economy policies. They do not, never have and will not, because public spending is identical to consumer spending in terms of benefit to the economy. All we will do is change what the money is spent on in the short term.
If you, and I mean the larger, national you, want to fix the economy, taxation in any reasonable perspective is mostly irrelevant. The only impact taxation could have is if it is so high that no capital could be concentrated at all.
But since the world is up to its eyeballs in concentrated capital, how could the ability to concentrate more capital make things better? More money in the hands of government or in the hands of consumers is the solution and tax cuts and rebates do not accomplish that, as the offered rebates are incurred debt to the public.
No, to fix the economy, accelerate the increase in minimum wage. The crux of the problem is that too much capital is sequestered, languishing in private hands. If money does not move, it has no value, is only a concept. Decreasing profits and redistribution of same, is the only solution. If that is not done, depression and resulting deflation will take care of the problem for you.
I was watching Maher and he seemed surprised that in South Carolina most people were most concerned about the price of gas.
That is where we have a disconnect in America, between the stock brokers and most other folks. Their life has been pretty good and they have been positive and have been exceedingly positive in the light of all the bad news - but it is starting to pile so much that even they are getting worried.
What is a $800.00 tax refund gonna mean to the average joe on the street? Nothing. For the most part they aren't gonna by something at Circut City, they are going to use it to fill up their car or buy some food. Wall Street is starting to realize this package would do nothing and once they realized the package, they didn't like it.
Interest rates will most likely go down soon. That will bump up the market - but my bet (and obviously only my personal opinion) is that it will be a small and short bump and many people near retirement who are still fully invested in the stock market should get off the ride at that time.
Is this more denial or another neo-con job?