Friday, December 05, 2008

Paradox

No OJ Simpson post for me tonight. (see my comment on Aunt Jemima's Revenge about a circle closing). Nor will I post on the perfidy of the book biz and how publishers acting like the music or TV or film industries was their death knell. Nothing on Barack, or Bush's Interior Department allowing concealed weapons in National Parks or the top of the Washington Monument (I think it was Reagan, paradoxically, who'd decided against that in the 80s). Or, speaking of the 80s, the GOP deciding to doom themselves to the same path as the Democrats back then by affirming bumpkinism just as the Dems embraced only trade unions and black folks. Palin-Huckabee '12? OK, maybe they dream of '64...
Nope, this is about Wall Street rebounding on the news of murderous job losses. Click here. Draw your conclusions, send me your thoughts. There's a difference between being hurt, and being injured. I think most Americans have crossed to over to injury...

7 comments:

Knute Rife said...

It isn't news, Chris. The market has risen on the increasing misery of ordinary folks for years. The interesting thing here is that it seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to job cuts. Typically, the stock market likes job cuts because it shows that companies are reacting to a market weakness rather than absorbing losses. But 533,000? That can't be a reason to buy by any measure. Unless you're a speculator who has a programmed buy order in for every job cut announcement. Which is further evidence of what I've believed for several months: The only ones left in the market are the speculators, and they're just sitting around a table passing the hot potato among themselves.

Chicama Vineyard said...

It is indeed old news. But perhaps now is the time they stand and deliver under the full daylight of their failure. They can't hide behind these facile or pat econo-speak answers anymore. What should scare them is that the Republicans two top 2012 prospects are also populists!

Hathor said...

They may not only think that companies are going lean to reduce their losses, like Knute Rife said, but I think they think it might guarantee a bigger handout from the government.

Anonymous said...

Have you read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine ? I feel like I have a blueprint for what's been done to this country and I have only read a third of the book. These Friedmaniacs from the Chicago School wait like buzzards for disasters or provoke them so they can take advantage of the dazed populace and swoop down with their privatizing, cutting social programs and deregulating. It's totally spooky to see how they did this here after experimenting with it in South America, Tsunami-stricken areas and Iraq. Fishermen in SriLanka and poor folks in New Orleans were both swept aside by developers with government support.

Knute Rife said...

@CV
Are you talking about Caribou Barbie and Upchuckawannabee? They talk Populist talk, but they're pwned, and to the extent they aren't yet, they will be by 2011. The Religious Right gripes and moans about the GOP leadership, but it keeps coming back to be cannon fodder and keeps allowing itself to get riled up so long as the leadership throws it a bone every now and then.

@Hathor
Traditionally, leanness efforts explained Wall Street upswings. What we're seeing here is no leanness effort; it's just, plain not being able to make payroll. That the Street still went up indicates that the market consists only of speculators and institutions on autopilot.

@Rast
And the Chicago School is simply the Austrian School with Posner grafted on to create a jurisprudence to enforce it all. And the Austrians would never admit that all unfettered markets lead to is kleptocratic oligarchy.

Anonymous said...

kleptocratic oligarchy ? hmmm sounds kinda familiar especially if the kleptos are stealing prime coastal acreage for their high end monstrosities...

Lisa said...

I am holding out hope that at least the SEC director will be a hawk...or hawkish. Was the last one even an attorney? (Do you have to be?). Maybe that person and Richardson will be a foil for the Treasury secretary?