House of Eratosthenes

Because when He was trying to get you to vote for Him and promised that “change,” He very seldom went on to elaborate what kind of change was being offered, did He? Now there’s a tiny bit less reason to ask. You know now.

Wall Street plunged for a second day, triggered by computer gear maker Cisco Systems warning of slumping demand and retailers reporting weak sales for October. Concerns about widespread economic weakness sent the major stock indexes down more than 4 percent Thursday, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which tumbled more than 440 points.

Major indexes have lost about 10 percent since Barack Obama was elected president — a vote preceded by a steep rally — and the losses represent the Dow’s worst two-day percentage decline since the October 1987 crash.

Two ways to look at this.

One: Oh, don’t be a silly goose! He is not the President yet, so He could not have had anything to do with this.

Two: Pretend you’re an investor; He has said He is going to spread the wealth around, which means you can’t accumulate it anymore. Remember, that doesn’t mean it’ll be a little bit tougher to accumulate wealth. He’s not raising the bar, holding investors to a loftier standard, cleaning up the gene pool. He’s going to change laws. He has made His intentions specific and plain.

When you’re an investor, it’s your job to accumulate wealth.

Stock prices are based on the anticipations of the investors, on what kind of job they think they’re going to do, in accumulating that wealth.

It’s just become something of a pointless exercise to even freakin’ try anymore. We’re not all the way there yet, but we just took a huge step. And it had a chilling effect.

One way to get the stock prices up again, might be to define how far we want to go down this road. Uncertainty is bad for the market. If we wanna go all the way — get rid of money, get rid of industry, when you need something you present your citizenship papers and some government agent just hands it to you — then let’s just declare that. If we’re only going halfway, then let’s declare that. If it’s just a li’l dab’ll do ya stuff, a little sprinkling of marxism on our capitalist sundae — then we’ll stop — then declare that.

We haven’t declared squat. Obama is a synonym for uncertainty. He has a completely blank slate, and nobody knows how far He’s going to go with this stuff. Right now He thinks you’re rich if you pull down 250k a year, but no one knows if the line is going to stay up there, or if it’s going to creep down.

He hasn’t had to commit one way or the other. He’s just so wonderful, He has not had to.

“Right now He thinks you’re rich if you pull down 250k a year, but no one knows if the line is going to stay up there, or if it’s going to creep down.”

We all know he’ll have to “readjust” his tax plan. It’s “patriotic” Morgan, come on, get on board already. Yippy!
- tim | 11/07/2008 @ 10:56
Morgan,

The market drop can still be blamed on Bush until January, even though it’s a leading indicator. Most of the general public don’t know that; they will blame Bush for everything until January. Sometimes the press will give the new guy more time if they hate the outgoing guy (“his policies are still toxic and irreversible, etc.”) – and we all know they do.

Obama is rewarded for continuing to be vague about taxes and the economy – every drop of the market until January helps him; therefore, he will continue to be vague.

Worse yet, the press is still enamored and have much to lose if BHO’s term sucks eggs. They will not push BHO to talk about the economy in specific terms. Both BHO and the complicit press know the only way to ensure BHO’s legacy is to have the stock market at its lowest level before he’s installed as prez, so the rise can be higher (when cooler heads prevail), and their love of BHO justified. Human nature, nothing new there.

The press hammered Bush every time the market sentiment was bad, and he did not have the strength or political capital to pull a Rumsfeld (patiently explain what his reasons are for doing what he’s doing, and letting the press jackals nip at his ankles to no end). If I remember correctly, that didn’t work out for Rumsfeld. Lesson learned.
- wch | 11/07/2008 @ 13:22
Yes, because there’s no way it’s related to the continued stream of poor economic data that came out every day this week. It’s the President-Elect that is solely responsible for every single aspect of the business world, regardless of exactly how powerless he is. Because investors and large financial institutions, mutual fund managers and stock brokers, base their billion-dollar decisions not on hard financial data, but on the nebulous comments of a non-President. In a similar vein, I base all my purchasing decisions on whether or not Zanzibar the Magic Pony likes me today.
- dcshiderly | 11/07/2008 @ 14:43
Congratulations, you have made me see the error of my ways and successfully swung me around to the polar opposite of my previous viewpoint.

That’s what I’ll be saying, dc, if you can find me…oh, let us say…five meritorious examples in our nation’s history, in which we’ve enacted (or made noise about enacting) policies that punish success, with neutral-or-better ultimate effect.

Until you can do that this really looks pretty cut-and-dried. The new boss is going to make prosperity pointless, and those whose job it is to create and exploit prosperity, responded. Ya gotta admit, it’s the one big huge thing on the list of unknowns on Tuesday morning, that fell into the known column by Wednesday.
- mkfreeberg | 11/07/2008 @ 15:11
Oh, don’t be a silly goose! He is not the President yet, so He could not have had anything to do with this.

Of course that’s the answer now. But once he becomes president it’ll be different. Anything bad that happens will be because of “the failed policies of the previous administration”, and anything good that happens will be because of his grand plan.

On a side note, as I typed in my [blockquote] tags, I made up a new word which would make a great new HTML tag. [BarackQuote]. Anything you put in BarackQuotes will not only be indented by the browser will also render a border of flowers, butterflies, rainbows and unicorns wrapped in a loop of elegant ivy. 🙂
- philmon | 11/07/2008 @ 16:21
“Anything you put in BarackQuotes will not only be indented by the browser will also render a border of flowers, butterflies, rainbows and unicorns wrapped in a loop of elegant ivy.”

I don’t care who you are, that’s some funny shit right there.

Makes me just want sing, (que the video), “Barack is gonn’a change it…”
- tim | 11/07/2008 @ 16:47
Have you seen the Matthews video where he talks about how it’s his job to make the Obama presidency work?

Instapundit has the link.

At first I thought it was code: Chris Matthews obviously wants a job in the new administration. He’s been auditioning for the last two years, and he’s obviously stopped being a journalist (or caring about its principles). But Obama’s not going to buy the milk when he’s getting the milk for free, Mr. Matthews. Or should I say, Fred Garvin (male prostitute).
- wch | 11/07/2008 @ 17:34
You touched oh-so-lightly on this, Morgan, but I think the KEY point is the market HATES uncertainty, of any sort. We’ll continue to see extreme volatility in the markets for the next three months or so, with wide swings in both directions. That’s assuming GM doesn’t fail, at which point in time the market will tank to an extent that will be shocking. And that looks like a pretty strong possibility at this particular time…
- Buck | 11/07/2008 @ 19:55
All this talk about unity and patriotism sure would have been nice four years ago, huh? I’m sure it’s Bush’s fault that Democrats weren’t feeling patriotic. Just like it’s republicans’ fault for any divisiveness that will happen now. And I love that Bush was held responsible for every bad thing that happened in America and around the world, but now the media will make sure that the people understand that the president can’t be responsible for everything.

I guess “love” is the wrong word. It actually disgusts me.
- JohnJ | 11/08/2008 @ 00:29

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His Blank SlateFriday, November 7th, 2008

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Friday, November 7th, 2008