Could This be "The Big One"?

"Share buybacks in the US are on pace for their biggest year since 2007, he adds, estimating $561bn for full-year 2015 (net of share issuance) and a decline to $400bn in full-year 2016." ("Share buybacks, the markets miss you") FT Alphaville

By some estimates, buybacks represent 20 percent of all share purchases, so obviously the current drought has contributed to the recent equities-plunge. All the same, G-Sax Kostin expects a robust rebound in 2016 to $400 billion. As long as cash is priced below the rate of inflation, corporations will continue to borrow as much as they can to ramp their own stock prices and rake in more dough. Greed trumps prudent investment decision-making every time.

As for the trouble in China: While it's true that China's woes could have been the trigger for the current ructions on Wall Street, it's certainly not the cause which is the Fed's failed monetary policy. Besides, the whole China thing is vastly overdone. As Ed Lazear told CNBC on Wednesday:

"A major recession in China that lasted ten years would cost would costs the US 2 % points in GDP. So you're not going to get a market fall like we're observing right now based on that."

Economist Dean Baker basically agrees with Lazear and says:

"Even a sharp downturn in China would not send the U.S. economy plummeting, our total exports to China are only about 0.7 percent of GDP. China's weakness will have a major impact on other trading partners, especially those heavily dependent on commodity exports. But even in a worst case scenario we are looking at a major drag on the U.S. economy, not the sort of falloff in demand that puts the economy into a recession." ("Wall Street Rocks!" Dean Baker, Smirking Chimp)

As for the plunging oil prices, there's not much there either. Yes, quite a few high-paying oil sector jobs have been lost, capital investment has completely dried up, and many of the domestic suppliers are probably going to default on their debts sometime in the next six months or so. But are these defaults a significant risk to Wall Street in the same way that trillions of dollars in worthless Mortgage-Backed Securities (MBS) and CDOs were in 2007-2008?

Heck, no. Not even close. There's going to be a fair amount of blood on the street by the time this all shakes out, but the financial system will muddle through without collapsing, that's for sure. The real danger is that falling oil prices signal a buildup of deflationary pressures in the economy that isn't being countered with additional fiscal stimulus. That's the real problem because it means slower growth, fewer jobs, flatter wages, falling incomes, more strain on social services and a more generalized stagnant, crappy economy. But as we've said before, Obama and the Republican-led Congress have done everything in their power to keep things just the way they are by slashing government spending to make sure the economy stays weak as possible, so inflation is suppressed, the Fed isn't forced to raise rates, and the cheap money continues to flow to Wall Street. That's the whole scam in a nutshell: Starve the workersbees while providing more welfare to the slobs at the big investment banks and brokerage houses. It's a system that policymakers have nearly perfected as a new Oxfam report shows. According to Oxfam: "the 62 richest billionaires now own as much wealth as the poorer half of the world's population." (Guardian)

Wealth like that, "ain't no accident," brother. It's the policy.