Posted on 07/28/2007 8:44:50 AM PDT by frithguild
What do the numbers on the horizontal line represent?
When two Dow components like Citigroup and J P Morgan Chase DID NOT participate in the run up from 13k to 14k, I felt that we were nearing a top as though I said last week calling tops is a fools game. This week those two took a further beating owing to bridge loans given on M and A action. When those two very significant Dow 30 stocks find some solid support, I think the market will get back to work on those historical highs.
Between increases in real estate taxes due to the housing boom, increases in interest rates (I have an ARM but the cap is below the current fixed term rate) and increased energy costs - there is a big segment of the economy that is not getting income from me - adding up to probably close to $800 per month. The extra would have gone to eating out, luxury food and wine, travel, new kitchen appliances, etc. Some local government bureaucrat and some arab oil sheikh has my money instead. It is a large fraction of my total income, everyone must pretty much incur the same things, and therefore it has to be having an impact on the economy.
When despite all the "good news" and all the postive shilling that goes on, and all the efforts by the local dealers in the market to keep prices going up, it tanks this much in two days, I think we can say we have seen the top.
A bargain is not a 1% dip. A bargain is a 30% discount or more on fundamental value. I don't think we have seen real bargains in the US stockmarket since Greenspan succeeded Paul Volker.
The economy and the stock market are not the same thing. The economy is in good shape, the stock market will correct itself by 8-9% by the end of the year :P
That would be totally unexpected, given the inverted yield curve earlier this year. Inverted yield curves have NEVER forecast recessions before!!
lol. good point. I almost forgot that. How many months was that light flashing danger?
Interesting analysis. Anything that starts out sounding like, "No news is good news - because good news 'isn't news'" gets my attention. Because I think that is a fundamental which is difficult to keep firmly in mind "when all about you are losing their heads - and blaming it on you."Journalism is about attracting attention and selling advertising. That is their business model. And since the construction of a house, tho good, is planned and executed gradually, it is naturally less of a "news" item than the destruction of that same house in a fire. And that explains why the Chicago Fire is much more famous than the prior construction of Chicago from scratch in a few decades in the Nineteenth Century.
Speaking of which, it is interesting to note that Chicago was the first place in which "balloon construction" was done. You have probably seen "balloon construction" - unless you are blind; that is how Americans have built houses ever since. It was called "balloon" construction because it was so light compared to the timber construction which was the norm from time immemorial. I got that information from The Americans: the National Experience, which is the second book of a trilogy by Daniel Boorstin. Fascinating book, highly recommended.
6 months, I think.
Mainstream media’s “news” is not objective — but a dysfunctional perspective of life, which attracts dysfunctional personalities to the profession — that increases that mob-think. Different professions, like every subculture, attracts a certain profile of personality as their ideal — which of course eliminates the kind of real diversity which would provide them perspective and insight. Instead, they are a narrow group of narrow minded people who get more inbred every year until they cannot understand why the rest of the world has passed them by, while they insist they are leading the parade, or at least the thinking in this country — when in fact, they have self-selected so nobody can think, so as not to threaten the editors and the rigid pecking order that drives out the talent.
When the talent is locked on the outside and regarded as the “enemy,” those subcultures, even if at one time predominant, have doomed themselves to sterility and extinction. And that is the present state the mainstream media (journalism) finds itself in. Yes, they have been successful at ensuring that nobody with talent can ever bypass all the drones who think the way to get to the top is just to outlive everybody else and harass the up and coming talent, into leaving, after exploiting them as much as possible during their internship, thinking they’ll always be an unlimited supply of ambitious fools willing to prostitute themselves and demonstrate their dedication to do “anything” to get to the top.
That’s why when one sees these “writers” on television or even pictures in their byline, one then understands why such hideous people could produce such a twisted and distorted view of the world — and think that’s what the rest of society should think to be accepted as “normal” in their opinion — as though that opinion should matter.
Journalists are very prone to envy and resentment because they often interview these “famous” people, many who have no talent and ability either, and wonder why that can’t be them — because they have no insight in what is going on, and think that they are entitled to be just as famous — but for what, they don’t think is necessary to master.
So basically that’s all we see these days in the mainstream media as the “news” — everything that is not important to know, while useful information is denied, suppressed or ignored. Meanwhile, they all think they deserve to be the next media icon. So what if they are coarse, stupid, ugly people: “look at Helen Thomas” and virtually everybody else featured in the newspapers. Why these people should have any presence in the American consciousness is beyond me.
Volume
Thanks
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