Dow hits 11,000 because Bush is doing such a great job! Really!

[politicaholic]

He's cut taxes and slashed regulations for corporations so that they can finally, for the first time in history, make a profit rather than those "fat cat" union workers and all of those BMW driving/caviar eating welfare recipients.

It's time for abortion to be rendered illegal so that all of those freeloading embryos can have a chance to grow butts so that they can get off of said butts and start paying off the deficit.

Ever since fast food workers have joined the category of "manufacturing workers" and the "manufacturing family" can no longer declare bankruptcy, it has given Jack In The Box and other manufacturing corporations the opportunity to finally break into the next logical step for fast food...Credit Card Services. Want to pay for that Whopper in installments? Sure you do. Yes, the $.99 menu items now cost you $12.50 each in the end, but remember the people who died in 9/11. Remember them? I thought so.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank George W. Bush for allowing the market place to profit and stocks to go higher. It was all him. Really. The corporations would have never figured out how to make a profit on their own without a push from a man who couldn't even figure out how make a profit in the OIL industry! And though "how stocks work" and "how to make a profit" isn't taught in public schools leaving the common people sort of left out of the loop, that's okay. Its not for THEM! What IS for them? The opportunity to mow the lawns of the people who DO understand...and democrats said that trickle down economics doesn't work. *pfft*

Seriously, the Bush/Cheney-bot is going to be out flailing its cheap metal arms around over this. The soap box will be higher than it's credibility. Corporate donations will be up and the GOP will use this all the way to November, because the dow WILL stay above 11,000. Here's a counter offer. For the middle class and lower, salaries are down and hours worked are up. The deficit/trade deficit monster is hiding like King Kong behind a postage stamp. The difference between Bush #1 and Bush #2 is that Sr. came to his senses and raised taxes, too late, but still. Bush/Cheney will be lobbing smoke grenades out of their mechanized mouths until they leave in 2008.

11,000 is horrible news in supply side economics in a service based economy. It proves that only the needs of the top 1% are being addressed. Sure, economics trickles down, but culture trickles up and that's when change happens. They'll find out in November.

[Loonman]

1. That's funny

We kept hearing that the president had nothing to do with the economy when Clinton presided over the biggest economic boom in history.

[LoKnLoD]

2. Who the hell

can afford to invest in the market because the inflation is so high? My $25 a week that I can afford to put in my 401K is doing splendid :sarcasm:

[lectrobyte]

3. Speaking of credit cards, I'm not a big fast food eater, but we did

hit Burger King for lunch the other day, and I was amazed to see someone charge $10 worth of food on a credit card.

[politicaholic]

7. That's pathetic...

have you noticed that the poor are fatter and the rich are thinner?

Fast food did that. Large corporate farms and ranches only made food cheaper for other large corporations. The quality went down because they're just processing the food to be preserved longer anyway and to make it more afforable so that it can be sold to the poor for less with less nutrients and more additives.

The only people who can truely afford organic foods are the upper class.

Sucks huh? Unless of course, you can pay off your healthy diet in installments.

[MercutioATC]

8. Sometimes I just don't have cash on me...I've done it before.

Not at Burger King, but at a Convenient store...

[ClintonTyree]

10. I know, I could believe that either........

I very seldom go in fast food places, maybe once a year. Seeing a credit card terminal blew my mind. I saw a woman buying a pack of cigarettes the other day, one pack, and she put it on her credit card. I know it was credit and not debit because the clerk asked her. :wow: This is some crazy shit going on! :crazy:

[MercutioATC]

20. Some people (me included) find it easier to transact that way.

I don't have any cash on me. My bank is 20 minutes away. I can either use an ATM which will charge a $2.00 fee or I can use a credit card that won't charge me anything as long as I pay off my balance at the end of the billing cycle.

It seems an easy choice.

[The Revolution]

34. Some debit cards can be used as credit

My debit card can be used as either credit or debit. Either way, it comes straight out of my checking account, but if I use credit instead of debit, the bank gives me some kind of cash back award (similar to what Discover card does).

[girl gone mad]

63. Exactly.

I don't get cash back, but I use my debit card as "credit" all the time so I don't have to enter my PIN.

[yankeedem]

52. I do it all the time- saves money

My debit/credit card charges me if I use the keypad, but doesn't (and can't) if I use it as a credit card. All comes out of the same pocket.

Ask yourself, when you withdraw $20 from an ATM to buy lunch, does the change end up back in the bank? You're pretty rare if it does. When I charge lunch for $6, the other $14 stays in the bank, and I don't piss it away.

[spuddonna]

25. I will often use my credit card for small purchases...

I use my credit card to order food at fast food places all the time. We get free airline miles for any purchase, and it's amazing how little things add up. Plus, we rarely carry a balance so it works just fine. Also, I find with credit card or debit cards it's much easier to track receipts.

[fight4my3sons]

26. It was probably their debit card.

We use ours all the time instead of carrying cash. It looks like a Visa card.

[unblock]

44. i do that all the time. in fact, i avoid paying cash as much as possible

four good reasons:

1) card transactions (whether credit or debit) are easier to track. everything i purchase on cards goes into quicken, so i know exactly where my money is going and can budget accurately.

2) credit transactions get a free float of around a month, interest free. so instead of my money coming out of my bank account in a trickle throughout the month, i can earn interest (or equivalently, keep my home equity line of credit paid down as much as possible and only draw down once a month). $10 worth of food is not a big deal, but daily purchases can add up.

3) cash is FAR easier to lose or get stolen. and if someone else acquires my cards, a phone call cancels them all.

4) no counting change. they rarely, if ever, charge the wrong amount on the card. but i get the wrong change all the time when paying with cash (and it almost always works in their favor)

[wtmusic]

4. Sending my dividends to the ACLU

to help put the crooks away. :evilgrin:

[ProfessorGAC]

5. Um! Isn't 11,000 Where It Was More Than 5 Years Ago?

So, we're trumpeting a success because most of the damage has been repaired? Sort of like asking the neighbor to be paid for replacing a window you broke with a baseball!
The Professor

[Yavin4]

11. Professor, You Know Who Larry Kudlow Is Right?

I clearly remember in January 2001 when he, and the other CNBC bozos, were just gushing that the Dow would hit 20K or 30K with Bush in the White House.

[ProfessorGAC]

14. Yeah. Larry Kudlow. Why Did You Have To Bring Him Up?

I loathe that guy! His knowledge of economics wouldn't fill the void in an amoeba's nucleus.

I can't remember the guy's name (Jim something, but not Kramer) wrote a book called Dow 30,000. I read it. What a piece of garbage. The only way that guy will see himself right is if he lives to be 250 years old.
The Professor

[Elwood P Dowd]

43. It was that jerk James Glassman. (nm)

:evilfrown:

[ProfessorGAC]

46. That's The Guy! Thanks!

Man, his name would just not pop into my head! Thanks loads, Elwood. That would have bugged me all night.
The Professor

[politicaholic]

13. good analogy...

but make yourself also the window replacement company owner and you're right on the money.

[ProfessorGAC]

15. That Would Be Fraud

Doing the damage so you can get the job falls under the statute of frauds and in contract law, under unconscionable contracts. Both very illegal. And the repubs wouldn't do anything illegal to make money, would they?
The Professor

[politicaholic]

18. Fraud look at Worldcom or Energy One...

Worldcom had one of the biggest stock scandals in history and Energy One caused the East Coast black out over lowered stock prices in 2003 and look! They both have major bailout contracts in Iraq!

Its so blatant it just makes me want to puke.

[ProfessorGAC]

22. I Was Being Facetious

These guys would steal from the collection plate at the churches they claim are so important to them.
The Professor

[unblock]

16. actually, today is lower because the dollar has eroded since then

$11,000 today isn't what $11,000 was in 2001. and even THAT isn't what it was at clinton's peak.

[ProfessorGAC]

31. I Know. Thanks

I wasn't going for detail. Merely pointing out that this particular number is apropos of nothing. But, thanks.
The Professor

[unblock]

33. oh, i knew YOU knew this :)

but posts on a public board are viewed by many :hi:

it's amazing how no one thinks to adjust stock market figures for inflation or currency depreciation.
hell, it's amazing anyone cares about the DOW, of all the market averages out there....

[ProfessorGAC]

35. Especially Since There Is An Overall Equity Market Index

It includes everything over a certain total value and a minimum trading volume. But, i think it includes about 99.8% of everything publicly traded at equity.

Yet, most newspapers don't even publish it. Duh!
The Professor

[sofa king]

27. I think you're right.

It looks as if 11,000 was the high point first reached in the Clinton Administration in January of 2000.

http://www.the-privateer.com/chart/us-jpn98.html

Similarly, I think the net job loss of the Bush Administration was recently erased, after five incompetent years.

I think there is an analogy to be made between the Bush Administration and Microsoft. Some of you have probably noticed that only recently have long-promised advances such as wireless computing, video conferencing, and VOIP become practical options for users, because they now work.

I place the blame for that squarely on Windows 95, which was so bad it halted the progress of computing for nearly a decade. Only now that the last of the W95 incantations (Windows ME) is dying a slow and painful death are these "advances" available to us.

Both the Bush Administration and Microsoft are patting themselves on the back for clawing their way back to where we were six or more years previously, before their own incompetence dealt the entire world a blow from which it has yet to recover.

This, they will both claim, is progress.

[ClintonTyree]

6. They're drawing the little people's money back in........

so they can steal it once again. This is it, the last hurrah for the Stock Market. The economy is going to bottom out soon so the people on top want to get one more redistribution of wealth under their belts before the second great depression takes hold.

The little people are testing the waters again after being so badly burned in 2001-2003. They said they'd never trust the Stock Market again, but people's greed will always surface. They think the time is right to get back in and make back what they lost earlier in the decade. What they don't know is, like always, it's the rich that are baiting the trap again. They're suckering them in again, then...........WHAP!! It's all gone again, the rich have made off with their money again and they have to work until they're 85 now just to live.

It happens all the time, but bush's unfettered looting of the Treasury has probably made this the last time for quite a while. The people with all the information are the only ones who make out big in The Market and the little guys get ZILCH for information. All they see is the Market going up and up and they KNOW they have to get back in and make a killing! POOF! The rich will steal their money and that'll be all she wrote.

[Greyhound]

53. How perceptive of you. Absolutely correct, the sheeple will be

sheared again in the coming year, but I think there may be time for one more shearing before the final collapse. Buy in at the top, try to unload while it falls, Sheeple never learn, they are dumb. In the meantime gold is up almost 200% since fratboy* took over.

[meganmonkey]

9. It reminds me of the Simpson's episode

(I don't rememebr the details, forgive me)

where Bart gets like a C- on a test, and since it is so much better than the usual D or F he gets all these treats and gifts and things. And Lisa is like :wtf: I have been getting As forever and I don't get shit for it!

[TahitiNut]

12. Are we feeling "Irrationally Exuberant" again?

:eyes:

[Maccagirl]

17. Great post (and rant)

Kudos! One for the ages.

[Lochloosa]

19. Interesting Graph....I think you can pick out the years

when there was a DEMOCRATIC president.



This graph runs till Jan. 2005

[Lochloosa]

24. Here are a few more interesting graphs I ran across when searching

for the dow jones one.

[politicaholic]

38. that's great! Thanks! n/t

[happydreams]

21. Drug money and the stock market

What is that connection? I heard that the stock market is pumped up with drug money (to launder it).
Any comments?

[politicaholic]

39. I personally would doubt drugs would have a substancial impact...

The majority of the drug money is made by foreign cartels. Sure they might invest in the US stock market, but I think other factors impact it far more.

[happydreams]

47. If my memory serves me the author said that

the CIA dumps its drug profits into the stock market.

[politicaholic]

50. Which author?...wait a sec...are you high?

I know that the CIA was popped for their splended "crack scandal" to aid the Contras, but I haven't heard about the CIA dumping drug money into the stock market. I always suspected that the CIA had the good stuff. I thought those long haired tattooed guys I get my weed from looked kinda wierd with those coil ear pieces, but I just shrugged it off as a trend.

[happydreams]

55. Don't get impolite pal. Here's something

.....Why? Again, the answer is simpler than you might think. While the Department of Justice estimates that $100 billion in drug funds are laundered in the U.S. each year, other research, including research material from the Andean Commission of Jurists cited by author Dan Russell in his soon to be published book Drug War place the figure at around $250 billion per year. Catherine Austin Fitts places the figure at $250 to $300 billion. Given the fact that the UN estimated that in the early 1990s world retail volume in the illegal drugs was $440 billion, $250 billion seems about right. Fitts, using her Wall Street experience as an investment banker is then quick to point out that the multiplier effect (x6) of $250 billion laundered would result in $1.5 trillion dollars per year in U.S. cash transactions resulting from the drug trade. How many jobs does $1.5 trillion represent? Why do President's get re-elected? As Bill Clinton's staff recognized in 1992, "It's the economy -Stupid!"

During the Contra years, when the CIA and Bill Clinton were swimming in cocaine, and Arkansas became the only state in the Union to ever issue bearer bonds (laundry certificates), employment in Arkansas rose to an all time high because there was so much money floating around. So what if they donÕt count all the dead bodies like two young boys Kevin Ives and Don Henry, shot, bludgeoned and dismembered on a railroad track after witnessing CIA drug drops. "It's the economy - Stupid!"

The Pop

Corporations trading on Wall Street, including many implicated in money laundering schemes where products are sold with questionable bookkeeping throughout drug producing regions, all have stock values that are based upon annual net profits. Known as "price to earnings" or "The Pop" the multiplier effect in stock values is sometimes as much as a factor of thirty. Thus, for a firm like GE or Piper Aircraft to have an additional $10 million in net profits based upon the drug trade, the net increase in these companies' stock value could be as much as $300,000,000. Did GE make a $10 million net profit on consumer products in Latin America last year? Easily. And since GE owns NBC is there a chance that accurate reporting on the drug trade and CIA's involvement therein might hurt their stock?

Disney owns ABC and has a huge retail, resort and entertainment empire that benefits from the "drug multiplier." Would ABC consider hurting its parent's stock value? Ronald Reagan's CIA Director, William Casey had been Chief Counsel to Cap Cities Broadcasting until 1981. His old law firm represented Cap Cities when it bought the ABC network in 1985. ABC's Peter Jennings, by the way, had been doing a series of investigative reports on the CIA drug bank (and successor to the Nugan Hand bank) Bishop, Baldwin, Rewald, Dillingham and Wong when the buyout was initiated. Cap Cities (not surprisingly) secured SEC approval in record time and effectively and immediately silenced Peter Jennings who had previously refused to back down from Casey's threats. Thereafter ABC was referred to as "The CIA network."

I have no doubt that the ABC "object lesson" was front and center for CNN founder Ted Turner and Time-Warner when Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell and (CIA vet) John Singlaub put the pressure on in the wake of April Oliver's 1998 "dead bang accurate" Sarin gas stories connecting CIA to the killing of American defectors.

Every major media corporation in the country trades on Wall Street. There are no "independents" left and the American people are left with the increasing cognitive dissonance of recognizing that they are being fed useless bullshit. I wonder how they would respond to real a news corporation if they saw or heard one.....

It's Legal to be Bad





http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/dontblink.html

[politicaholic]

59. Whoa, sorry, I was just joking...

I write comedy for a living, sometimes I can't help myself.

I'll pick up Rubicon, it looks very interesting.

[happydreams]

60. That's cool. nt

[Kalisiin]

23. What Money??

And where's the jobs?

I think we need to run an advertising campaign like that. We need to get a Clara Peller-type cranky old lady (except make it a middle-aged worker who has been laid off) And have them looking at a map of the United States (or a newspaper's Help Wanted Section) and blaring out "Where's The Jobs??"

That needs to be our campaign slogan in 06 and in 08....Where's The Jobs??

I'm going on nine months unemployed. My unemployment long ran out. I have done so miserably in 2005 that I am actually likely to qualify for the Earned Income Tax Credit for the first time in my life.

Nowadays, I live at home, and what little income I get is derived from the crumbs and dribs and drabs I can catch doing work as a mystery shopper.

I'm going to school to learn medical transcription, so that I can work from home and set my own hours, and not worry about the rotten economy, and discrimination against me because I am of an alternate lifestyle. Then I can go to REAL school to finish my paralegal certification, and hopefully open my own freelance practice, working from home, and serving several attorneys with Paralegal Services.

I'm gonna have to take care of myself, because there are not, nor will there ever be...jobs again in this country.

One day, i'll be back on my feet and doing well. And maybe then Corporate Amurika will want me back. And I will tell them to go take a flying fuck at the moon! They coulda had me...when I needed them...but they decided it would be more fun to deny me a livelihood, and to watch me starve, and struggle, while they laughed all the way to the bank. Well, then it will be MY turn. They will be denied the talent I could offer them, bbecause they decided, way back then, that I wasn't worth shit...I wasn't worthy of life...of decent wages, of health insurance, of a steady paycheck...of pride in my ability to support myself...well, when the day comes, THEY won't be worthy of my money, skills, abilities or talents....they won't suck me dry anymore.

And I'll go out of my way to support local businesses, and Ma and Pa type stores, all the better to not give my resources to those bastards who screwed me over way back when. Time to bring the corporations to their knees, by hitting them where it hurts them the most. Who's with me??

The day will come when the corporations will PAY for their evil...and I intend to be around to see it happen, so I can laugh in their face, and hopefully spit on their graves.

[MrMonk]

37. "Clara Peller-type cranky old lady"

For you young'uns, she was the original "where's the beef" lady.

If she was in the "where's the jobs" ad, it would bring a double message about the Bush2 economy: (1) there are no jobs and (2) even cranky old ladies have to go back to work.

[politicaholic]

41. I stopped buying from anything but small busineeses in 1998...

hopefully the culture of entrepeneurship that Clinton began can be brought back. That should give an incentive to break up the conglomerates.

Good luck w/ your education. "Where's the student funding?!"

[Kalisiin]

62. Yeah

In my case, the student funding is coming from my mom. At least SOMEONE believes in me!

Thanks for the good wishes. I'll need them.

[area51]

54. Welcome to DU, Kalisiin.

And great post.

[Jacobin]

28. Dow was at 15,000 at the end of Clinton's economy

Oh and its back below 11,000 this afternoon, soo.....

[Walt Starr]

29. then I guess it;'s Bush's fault that the Dow is now below 11,000. n/t

[Zenaholic]

30. How often do they change the companies in the DOW INDX?

I seem to recall they recently switched out some of the poorer performing companies and replaced them with better performing ones. If that's true then is this index a true measure of the stock market? I would think something like the NASDAQ index would be a better indicator.

[ClintonTyree]

36. Yeah, they've done it more than a few times........

they have to keep that index artificially inflated, you know? :eyes: I remember Eastman Kodak used to be a part of the Dow. Then their stock plunged so they removed them from the index. We can't have anything representing the true economic outlook, can we? :shrug:

[politicaholic]

42. good point...

The manipulation and movement of the market is reactionary in the short term and subjective in the long term. Hind site is an apologists greatest tool.

[bostonbabs]

32. bottom line.....

The Bush corporate tax rate is around 7%....very low. Under Clinton it ran between 27% and 34% and there is still no confidence to "buy". I think that is why the shill Kudlow thought the market would soar......China is cutting back on dollars they announced yesterday.... bad sign.
"Money is an idea backed by confidence" Toffler
Confidence in a monkey?......What a mess these brilliant neocons have us in. My fear is that like the Iran Contras they will be pardoned and all the slime will slip away and slip right back in to screw it up again.

[politicaholic]

45. If China pulls back then Bonds go up...

And that is the section of the United States that China owns.

[MadHound]

40. Though highly touted, the Dow Jones Index is really crap

Especially for guaging how well our economy is doing. It is the big splashy index that everybody knows, but in all reality, the DJ is only comprised of thirty companies. A much more accurate guage of the health of the market is to look at the S&P 500 and the Russel 1000 index. And both of these are still doing much worse than they were before Bushco took office. The S&P is off about 350 points from its high of 1580 six years ago, and the Russel 1000 is now trading at 531, way down from its high of 1412 six years ago.

In addition, the Dow is highly suseptible to manipulation by corporations and government officials. Back on March 3, 1988 Reagan signed Executive Order 12631 creating President's Working Group on Financial Markets, otherwise known as the Plunge Protection Team. Comprised of the President, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, this group artificially props up the market to give investors the false illusion that all is well with the stock market and the economy. A direct result of Black Monday, 1987, this team is tasked to keep another massive crash from occuring. Yet it is also able to manipulate the market to favor its cronies or punish enemies, or just to paint a rosy picture that all is well with the world.

Though there are no known records of PPT's dalliances in the marketplace, if you scrutinize the markets carefully you can find traces of their work. Bad economic news fails to drive the market down? There is the hand of PPT. Unwarranted exuberance in the market? Again, the PPT. Bushco desperately needs good economic news to prop his sorry ass up? Send in the PPT!

The markets in this country have become, to a large extent, nothing but legalized gambling, and the dealer is playing with marked cards. While I do have investments for my retirement, they are diverse and somewhat off the official radar. They have continued to perform well, and will continue to do so hopefully for a long while. But I do not put any economic faith in the Dow Jones as a good barometer of this country's economic health. Too many people play political games with for it to be anywhere close to an accurate guage.

[politicaholic]

49. Good Post...I personally have my money in real estate & currency...

I can project those a little better and all in all just feel more comfortable with something tangible rather than allow guys like Kenneth Lay pull the rug from under me.

[MadHound]

51. I dropped real estate over a year ago,

And never got into currency. My best speculation of the past ten years(which my broker poo-pooed at the time, but now thinks I'm a genius)was to put some money into a gold dealer's mutual fund. I did that in late '00, realizing that with like other Bushes in office, war, death, and a bad economy were sure to follow, thus driving the gold bugs into a frenzy. Sure enough, and since I got in when the market was low, I can make money off the dealer as the gold market goes both up AND down(since they will get their commissions both coming and going).

I've also been a long term investor in alternative energies, lots of white hat portfolios, that sort of thing. All in all, it has done well. But damn, when that real estate bubble pops, which I think is this year, it is going to drag the rest of the economy with it, right into either a serious depression, or a recession. And that will be hard times for all investments.

Good luck with real estate. You wouldn't catch me dead in that right now, but hey, if you ride it well and get out at the right time, it's all golden.

[politicaholic]

58. I'm talking on a little different level than a house somewhere...

I'm talking about raw land with some kind of water rights or in a projected growth area outside of a high density area in or outside of the US. I'm only concerned with commercial growth. I'm waiting for the day that I can tell Wal-mart to blow me and sell to (blue) Costco.

[SlipperySlope]

56. One word: "GOLD"

[Zinfandel]

48. The Dow was 11,351 the day Bush took office five years ago! Get real...

Bush has got a long way to go even show any real growth...Going into his sixth year and the Dow is still hundreds of points down from when he took office.

Five years, millions more people in the work force and millions more consumers AND still no growth??? -- Corporations are filthy rich, as are only 4% of the population, and are getting wealthier each day...

As 46 million Americans go without health care insurance and another 20 million with far inadequate health care, that doesn't pay for shit! That's 66 million fucking people, with little or no health insurance!!! Wages & salaries going down for most workers, unemployment is only being counted for those who can still collect or check in...tens of millions aren't even being counted...price of gas and everything else going up...as interest rates also creeping back up...

What a stagnate fucking economy for the last five fucking years!

[Catfight]

57. you lost me at caviar...yum....nt

[fooj]

61. 2757 Plants closed or closing...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=102090&mesg_id=102090

Here's the list. They can't print that money fast enough, can they?

Peace.

[greiner3]

64. b*** sucks. He can and does anything to get him out of the dumps;

Poll-wise. Hell he couldn't even run his own business profitaly. everything he has or will ever have was given to him. F b***