Wednesday, November 19, 2008

No soup for you

After reading this article about our wonderful Auto industry CEOs I wouldn't give them a plug nickel. All of them came to the meeting yesterday in their own private jets.

Greedy bastards

In other financial news the market took another dump today. Not that I really care at this point because I'm not in the market but I did hear a short time ago why it keeps going up a bit and then down by a bunch. It works like this (don't quote me though). People buy shorts which is a bet that the market or industry or company will go down in price. It's an attempt to cover downturns of a company something like insurance. So now we have people cashing in on their shorts. To add to this you have investors trying to find a bottom to the market. They are buying thinking that the bottom has been reached. Some stock prices are at historic lows but they could go lower or even bust leaving a trail of worthless paper. I had almost considered buying WaMu when it dropped to $2 to $3 a share. Glad I didn't as shares are now of TP value. I could have used it as Charmin in the bathroom. General feeling is that the market will continue to drop to the 7000 level and if it goes much lower than that then the whole economy will be at an end. Think of it this way. Right after 911 you could have rolled a bowling ball down the isle at any local mall and you wouldn't hit a customer.

3 comments:

BBC said...

Yeah, in their own private jets, fuck them, most of the parts are built in other countries anyway.

In 29 on Black Friday when things tanked, that wasn't the end of it. The markets came back up in a few months, but the economy didn't.

So began the great depression. What I'm saying is, just because the market makes a comeback, don't expect the economy to.

Unless of course, you enjoy delusions.

Demeur said...

What scare the hell out of me is that in spite of what the financial gurus are saying this is turning out just like 29. It was about 1930 - 1932 that the real poop hit the fan.

MRMacrum said...

There is no way to know if there is any real correlation to 1929 and after just yet. One difference at the moment is the unemployment rate is not climbing as quickly. But as I said, it is way to early to tell where this will all settle out. When we hit 20-25% unemployment, then I would say there is not much difference.

One thing is for sure, if we do go down the same road, I am guessing the overall effects will be more devastating than in in the 1930s. Our economy was not so intertwined and dependent on things going smoothly at the national level and international level. Many local economies were able to sustain themselves to a degree by just relying on their localized efforts. Others of course, the mid west comes to mind, were devastated.