Market crash: are we there yet ?

[wind_magic]

Originally Posted by chris_gee

As an observer, the issue of who gains and who loses is often a useful aspect to consider.

Oh well that one is easy ... the people who lose are single young males who work for a living. Same people who always lose when the government gets involved ...

Because there might be tax breaks for married couples, help for minorities, tax breaks for everything from house mortgages to children, programs to help seniors with drugs, to help people with drug problems, medicare and all the rest, help for disabled people, handicap parking spots, "save me i bought a house that is too expensive", "save me, i bought bonds backed by mortgage debt and i'm only worth a billion dollars now", and on and on and on. But there isn't a government program made that is there to do a thing for single young men, except to help them get a job. Because lord knows they need you to keep working to pay for it all ...

[nwpacketeer]

Nope, we are just waiting for Sailaway21 and his ilk to get us into enough conflicts and shift what wealth in this country to a very few (who will likely move to Dubai with their corporate cronies), with the rest of us holding worthless paper.

[Rickm505]

Originally Posted by nwpacketeer

Nope, we are just waiting for Sailaway21 and his ilk to get us into enough conflicts and shift what wealth in this country to a very few (who will likely move to Dubai with their corporate cronies), with the rest of us holding worthless paper.

Ah...heck... where ya been, these guys have already done that. I hear that Sailaway got an offer from Cheney to christen the new Corp headquarters in Dubai. So you see they are leaving this country after giving us a Consumer Price index that doesn't include Energy, Gasoline, Housing costs or food in it. But that's OK because now it reads just 3% inflation. Why heck folks, before they leave I do believe the entire CPI will consist of a single box of Rigatoni.

But lets not forget those terrific job numbers. Did you know that enough people were born and died last month to create 166,00 jobs? Incredible. Even more so since the household poll showed a loss of 250,000 jobs last month. Well ...who needed those pesky jobs anyway. Yep, those Halliburton.... er... Cheney folks sure do know what they are doing. Oh and in the process of moving ..... they closed all of their plants, laid off all their employees, and recorded a whopping 3% direct gain to our Gross Domestic Product. Yep, all it took is one Cheney memo to Bush telling him what to do.. ... oops.... I meant to say advising him on the correct political spin.... shoot... I mean.... advising the President as to the correct course of action.

Gosh darn it...are they good or what?

Folks.... it's economics republican style.. Praise the Lord and God Bless America

[sailaway21]

Rick,
You're back! Did you remember to pick up my rigatoni? (g)

[Rickm505]

Sailaway... that's a trick question. If I gave you the Rigatoni, the CPI would double the inflation rate as we would have to buy another box to replace it.. and of course Wall Street would drop more than 500 points next week.

Oh wait a minute.... I think that already happened.

[wind_magic]

Just tossing a log on the fire ...

[sailaway21]

Windy,
You'll note that the market lost 2/3rd's of it's value in 2-1/2 months. The current market would have to drop to around 5000 to emulate that.

You can otherwise take your log and your fire, and Bite Me! (g)

[cardiacpaul]

Rick, do you remember the name McNamara? do you have big problems with him too?

"A second major aspect of IAC's work dealt with discussions of broader policy issues. Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara made enormous changes in military procurement and management during the 1960s, so he established the IAC in 1962 to rally business in support of his controversial programs. A businessman himself, McNamara had been president of Ford Motor Company and he ran the Pentagon like a modern corporation. McNamara repeatedly assured the executives on IAC that his well-publicized efforts to cut Pentagon costs were not intended to whittle away at industry's profits. To quote the minutes again:

"He said it was very important to the security of the country that a strong Defense industry be maintained and that this could best be done by allowing good profits for good performance. He said it was essential to attract both capital and good management to Defense industry. He does not want the Defense industry to become a low profit industry." (September 1965)McNamara stressed that profits were "the number one priority" for the Council and asked for the advice of its members on this important subject (February 1966). He initiated a study of military industry profits by the Logistics Management Institute, a Pentagon-funded think-tank headed by Barry Shillito (who was later to become Assistant Secretary of Defense and Alternate Chairman of IAC). With considerable advice and participation from IAC members, the study concluded that profits of military industries were lower than other commercial profits when measured as a percentage of sales. This conclusion was self-serving, for military industries have always insisted that their profits be measured on sales rather than as a percentage of capital investment, because this method reflected lower profit rates and hid the true nature of their high earnings. By measuring profits on sales, the companies appeared to be making lower profits than other industries, thereby justifying their efforts to obtain ever-higher profits.

The military industries fought off attempts to change this method of measuring their earnings. During the meeting of October, 1968, when Pentagon officials proposed a new profit policy based on capital investments, IAC members objected vigorously. "A heated disruption erupted with some members of the Council threatening to go to the highest level-apparently to the President himself--if there was any attempt to adopt this plan placing profit substantially on contractor investment." We owe this revealing quote to the "Hearings before the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations of the Committee on Government Operations, U.S. Senate, June-July 1971 (Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1971, p. 321). That's because the IAC was used as a case study during these hearings."

[camaraderie]

Kewl tale CP. I remember him well and often thought of Rummy as a latter day McNamara. Good riddance to both.

[cardiacpaul]

lets see, its the gov'ts fault... no, wait, its big bidness fault...

I dare anyone to find a company OTHER that halliburton or KBR that could to the scope of work that is required.

and while i'm feeling my oats, to keep bashing on big bidness is really bashing on our own portfolio's.
If were involved in "the market" don't we own a bit of exxon/some oil company? (exxon up about 20 pts in 2 yrs)
Halliburton up 9 pts in a year.

Now I'm not sure about y'all, but thats the kind of profit I'm lookin' to MAKE on a stock. Sure beats the 2 pts I get at the local bank, eh?

If I wasn't making those kinds of bucks on those stocks, what would the shareholders say, throw the bums out? Hmmm?