For the political junkie, today would be the day to receive the daily White House directives and talking points following the worst World Stock Market meltdown since 9/11.
Regardless how little the mainstream media (MSM) may have covered the subject of the financial freefall of America over the past three years, the facts have not been lost throughout the World's investment community. And today, the White House will communicate several basic tones to all of its talk show cronies; political talking heads and pundits; and members of its control group and party.
The underlying theme will be diversionary (accent something else), but when pressed; respond that this is primarily a course correction or profit taking.
But it's not.
Today, every state investment fund or major stock fund with government leverage will be used to soften the blow of what is anticipated to be a record fall following two days of record declines in the World financial markets. Double digit percentage losses throughout the World's stock markets welcomes traders back to Wall Street this morning. Don't be shocked to see trade halted at some point in the early hours to stem the decline.
All night I've watched news clips of local traders; regional experts and economists try to jawbone today's impending decline. After a while, one understands the realities of it all.
At some point in your life, you reach a saturation point of having heard or seen most everything and no lie goes unnoticed.
What happened?
I'll try to keep this brief, but what has transpired is a vast combination of poor economic policy for a period of years within the United States. Lest we forget, and we must fashion this into the equation, the United States claimed the ultimate prize of being the World's strongest economy and thus the weight that also brings. Today's truth is that a meltdown in America can easily turn the World into a recession because America has been termed and become a "consumer economy"-.
So when GW Bush finally agrees to an economic stimulus package, why wouldn't the World's markets respond favorably?
1. Because it was too little too late and the structure of the package is a band aid rather than a permanent fix to the many ills that have been created over the past seven years. 2. Because this administration has a history of lying and misleading; warping facts for political purposes, so World traders have little credibility about the size and nature of true challenges such as what is embedded on the American economy and has been now for over seven months.
But don't forget that America investors are actually World Traders and they have been in play the last 48hours across the board; trying to stem the impending fall. So, too, have your government dollars, trusts and investment funds been heavily invested. Would the declines have been worse, without them?
With all of the investment fund accounts being used to soften the blow, we have now made investment counselors and account executives into co-conspirators as they use your money to avert losses of others or political losses to the administration, and it will happen again today.
What to Watch
The critical measurement is not as much what happens at the end of today, as the open trendlines over the markets within the next two weeks.
What we need now is more of what you presented in your article: practical suggestions on courses of action and sources of information for all of us, individually and as survival groups.
Thanks, and keep it up. Whether FDR co-opted Long's stuff or not, the New Deal is the closest thing we have to a model for survival as a nation.
I don't think individual or even small group survival is a realistic prospect.
jf
by
Jay Farrington (13 articles, 2 quicklinks, 9 diaries, 159 comments)
on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 at 2:27:12 PM
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