Posted on 06/19/2002 5:07:15 PM PDT by liberallarry
Edited on 09/03/2002 4:50:40 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
Since its peak in March 2000, the stock market has lost about a third of its value, or almost $6 trillion, according to Wilshire Associates. Everyone would like to think that these immense losses -- painful to individual investors and possibly threatening to the economy -- are someone else's fault. And now, suitable culprits seem to have emerged: Wall Street and corporate America, whose greed and dishonesty allegedly rigged the market.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Do not forget their efforts to keep bubble inflating (e.g. in the spring of 1998), I suppose that it could make a nice topic for investigation on the Hill.
It's always easier to blame THEM for bad investments, than one's own greed, wishful thinking, and lack of sense.
As you mentioned, Greenspan took tremendous heat for daring to mention "irrational exuberance." He was quite correct.
Regarding Clinton: I don't doubt that he did everything in his power to encourage the bubble. His popularity depended on it. Nevertheless, people *wanted* to believe a load of pleasant nonsense.
I go to Vegas with $10,000. I run it up to $100k and then lose most of it. I go home with only $5,000.
Have I lost $95,000 or $5,000?
Simplified, that is the story of the Great Tech Bubble. Most of the money that was "lost" never existed in any real sense.
What old "Boom and Bust" Greenspan said and what he did are two different things. While he was warning about irrational exuberance, he was pumping cheap money into the system -- under the cover of preparing for Y2K. I knew Y2K was a hoax and so did many other informed people. You make up your own mind as to what Greenspan was up to. Later, if you remember, Greenspan attacked average Americans who he thought had become "too prosperous." Lot'sa big bankers and Wall Street types made millions on the bubble. Greenspan burst the bubble and now the too prosperous average American working stiffs are going to pay the price. Greenspan is a ruling class elitist and he takes care of his friends.
Richard W.
Y2K, had no remediation work been performed, would have had consequences ranging from the trivial (incorrectly displayed or sorted dates) to the catastrophic (data disappearing or systems crashing). It was not by any means a hoax.
Much of the tech boom was fueled by Y2K remediation work. The work ended, and so did the boom.
Back when the stock market was at its peak, I said then that it was all an illusion, a soap-bubble castle held up largely by a lot of hot air from Clinton and his BS-spinning machine.
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