I have an eerie feeling that we are on the verge of a major event that will be a topic of discussion for a some time. I wont speculate if it will be positive or negative but I cant see this current economic trend continuing without the current system collapsing. We need to begin a recovery now.
Either the whole stock market will be reduced to nothing but a ghostly penny stock exchange after all remaining investors get fed up and pull everything out, or we will begin the greatest sustained rally ever seen.
The latter is not probable in the near future, I believe hedge funds are making substantial profits from shorting the financial sector every day and this could continue. The current crash of the markets is the necessary counterpart to the unregulated period of leveraged growth we have all benefited from over the last decade. However, we are soar winners in times of prosperity, and get frantic when we lose. The dooms day scenario is a real possibility considering the fear mongering, and constant negative exposure supplied by mass media which we all take so seriously.
Just like we are conditioned to buy a certain product, or listen to a certain band, we have been conditioned to sell stock in good companies, lay employees off, not buy cars we can afford, and in some situations unnecessarily cut bonuses that would otherwise help to stimulate the economy. Recession related activities such as those mentioned are becoming the cool thing to do. America's paranoia has the potential to lead to her ultimate demise.
This market is so paranoid that when our "Leader" speaks it equates to an instant 100pt drop in the Dow Jones. Its getting to the point where traders look up the scheduled times of a Timothy Geithner testimony and trade around him. We see traders dumping minutes before the guy even says anything. We hang on every word and deal millions of shares based on essentially nothing. When the word "nationalization" is mentioned out of context thousands are sitting at their desks with itchy fingers on the mouse ready to click sell without even comprehending the complexity of the discussion. Why would somebody want to invest their hard earned cash into this casino? It deeply saddens me that my generation (I'm 26) will be paying for mistakes by our greedy predecessors. Greed which was instilled from birth by families with entitlement complexes.
My friends cant buy houses, and the married ones are afraid to bring children into this mess. There is no escaping the severity of it all, maybe the best thing to do is let the whole thing come crashing down, this way at least we know things couldn't get much worse(as long as we dont start killing each other)
The government, it seems, will continue to let this happen. Its Obama's job to stop pointing fingers and take responsibility for what he has inherited, and restore confidence in the American people. I almost think a lie here and there would do more good than harm. Tell us it will all be ok, and sell it good enough to break through our thick skulls so I can stop checking my stocks for a second and enjoy the only thing I'm looking forward to right now, baseball season which will consist of buying $400 tickets at Yankee stadium with money I don't have, watching overpaid selfish athletes compete at the highest level, only to boo them unmercifully when they fail.
Hopefully this panic that we are in is only cyclic. Once hope runs out, we have nothing left.
has capitalism failed us? by us i assume your refering to the united states and the answer is still to be seen for that nation - for most of the rest of the world the answer has been yes for a very long time. sure capitalism spurred a global development that has been more rapid then we otherwise would have seen, but the benefits of that develpoment have been mostly in the first world at the expense of everyone else. in capitalism there is a rich and poor which is not defined by how much money you have but how much more you have compared to everyone else. if the us (west) is rich the rest of the world is necasarily poor. capitalism has only ever worked for a small part of the world, the real question now becomes wheather it has become so grotesque that we all collectivly throw it out.
ReplyDeletegood writing joe, keep it up.