It keeps the masses from panicking and trying to cash out. Human psychology.



And what exactly is going to drive our economy forward?

Unless the world gives us unlimited credit in perpetuity, which isn't going to happen, the game has just about run it's course and we'll soon be forced to default on our debt.

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Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush?

--Hunter S. Thompson

Regardless, using a one month statistic to prove some point about the DOW that is exponentially up over the long term seems a bit of a stretch.

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http://www.fairtax.org

Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Your a good poster jv...but I am afraid your mistaken on more than just this.

Pogo is dead on, the "talking head" eco-gurus hired by MSM are so inaccurate it leaves little doubt they are at least encouraged to spin the data to make things appear well...call me crazy but it might have something to do with MSM all being owned by giant corporations that depend on the very consumers watching these guys to stay way from maybe putting a little money away instead of buying their products.

Every single economic indicator, except the GDP (surprise, surprise) points to a baaad ass economy, many are at record lows, many at decade(s) lows.

Face it - this sucks....just ask the RECORD number of laid off people.

You can quote me later, I said months ago the DOW would dip into the 11000 number by mid-summer...I still maintain it will dip into the 10000 by the end of August....and I am sure the GDP will still be up

Greetings and Felicitations,


I am curious about what effect the changes in Dow Chemicals pricing will have on the economy. If you are not aware they are raising their prices another 25% effective July 1st after raising it 20% effective June 1st. This makes almost 50% in one months time.
Dow Chemicals are everywhere.
Plastics
Chemicals
Agricultural Products

The prices haven't been passed down yet but they will soon.

Sincerely Yours,
C. David Neely

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10 (More) Reasons Your Not Rich

Emotions are the toxins that poison rational thought.

lol...where you invested in 2000 and 2001? this ain't shit.

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"My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to
change it." -- Barack Obama

That is happening in many industries, steel is up 30% over PY last I knew in May.
Paper has risen 6% (on average), with another 3-5% hike July 1st.
These two materials of course are also in many, many products.

Shipping is another killer, UPS has had BIG increases as has FedEx and DHL - as a matter of fat earlier this week a client of mine ordered an ERR (exact re-run) - last June it cost $118 to ship UPS ground to WV, we shipped it today and I believe it was over $160...the product she ordered cost $640...so she had to pay me 6.5% over last year JUST to ship it.

Your wrong. (now whose laughing)
This is much worse than 2001.
2001 had a huge fall after 9/11, but quickly recovered.
For the year 2001, the DOW only fell 752 points....we have fallen a total of 1326 for the year, with NO signs of improvement.

For 2000 - the DOW fell 1123 points...again, 2008 (not even half over) tops that.

Shit iamwhatiseem, you're scaring me... maybe I shouldn't buy that yacht. j/k... I should really start trying to squirrel away some more money each week to savings, though.

jviehe - you post one of these threads pretty much every month, and I can't recall any of them being pessimistic about the economy. No offense, but what would it take for you to remove the rose-colored glasses (sorry, I couldn't think of a better way to word it)? I mean, at what point will you start thinking that our economy is kinda sucking? I'm asking seriously, because again, I'm not all that knowledgeable about this stuff.

true but then again, we again, what was the dow back in say December 2000? I hear you, the gains are being given back, a correction is taking place, it on depends what sectors suffer more and the longest. With all of the issues in the past 7 years, and especially in the last 18 months, I am not very surprised.

for everyones perusal.....

Attached Images

 

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Obama-e fungis nati homines....

I have been invested in the stock market since 1981. We've had far worse years in that time. The DOW is not stock market. The DOW does not measure economic activity. The DOW is the weighted value of 30 stocks. We have over 8000 public traded stocks in the US.

Still, I agree that we have had an economic slowdown after 7 years of solid 3-5% growth. So what? Do you really expect the economy to grow every year without fail? I don't. I expect the economy to have ups and downs.

I also wanted to point out that while I feel your pain, your personal situation in business is anecdotal. You say business is bad for you - therefore we are all in a recession. Well, my business is up 25% over last year and my profit margins are higher too- does that mean we are in a boom? Of course not. It is the overall economic picture that matters and we have measurements for that. Those measurements look backwards, so in 6 months we'll know whether we are in a recession or not.

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"My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to
change it." -- Barack Obama

I would beg to differ.
The market today is so different, that it can't be compared to anything in history.
401k's and drastically reduced investment requirements have led to the worst public fleecing in history. Never could anyone imagine that practically all of th middle-class and above households would have $1,000's and $10,000's in the market. Such a humongous increase in available funding is what led to all of the false gains in the last 20 years. And it is not just the financial markets, it is other markets as well...you have two critical differences in today's economy that never occurred in the worlds history - an economy based on debt, with it's trading markets overly funded to such degrees.
Without the fleecing of 401k's - which were used by fund managers everywhere as the default net for high risk investments, and outright theft to repay the market over resulting losses - the market would be in the tank.
So much so that many could consider their 401k as a "second tax system" - only the monies went to fat cat corporations than the government.

AUSTRALIA ?????

oh... I mean China.

You are free to your opinion. Personally, I have my money invested in a globally diversified portfolio of stocks, Bonds, REITS, Cash, and Commodities. I am really not worried, not even one tiny bit.

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"My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you'll join with me as we try to
change it." -- Barack Obama

And neither am I, I moved my investments last fall...right now I am only down $183.
However would you not agree that at least 90% of 401k owners leave it up to the fund managers to "manage" their money?
Of my friends who didn't listen to me, listened instead to the media heads who said "stay for the long haul" - one is now down $4000, one is down $2300 and the other down $11,000!!
You and I, rare breeds that we are, moved our funds and avoided the losses we could see coming, when I enter back in late August, when I believe the market will bottom out around 10,000, and when the markets climb back up - I (probably like you) I will actually GAIN from this mess...

While China's growth is impressive, it is still a relatively small economy, with insufficient ability to abosorb the types of foreign capital that sloshes around in the world equity markets. China itself can't find useful things to do domestically with all of its capital, which is why even China, with its excellent growth rate (although I suspect that will slow down appreciably over the next 5-10 years) buys U.S. Treasuries. Also, most players on the world financial market stage (including sovereign funds) know that the U.S. is still the safest long-term bet.

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"It's a good feeling to shoot a bad guy. Something you democrats would never understand. Americans are homesteaders, we want a safe home, keep the money we make, and shoot bad guys!"

----Denny Crane