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Ear to the Ground

Dow Hits 10K, You Can Go Back to Work Now

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Posted on Oct 14, 2009
Flickr / I.Gouss

Touching the Wall Street bull statue is supposed to give you good financial fortune, but this guy may be taking it too far.

Put down your pitchforks and pick up the champagne. Boom times are here. The Dow is over 10,000 for the first time in a year. What’s that? Real unemployment is at 17 percent, and they’re foreclosing your house? Stop being such a communist and party!  —PZS

Bloomberg:

The Dow’s rally above 10,000 was led by banks and erases about half the damage done since the gauge soared to a record two years ago. More gains may depend on meeting profit estimates that call for per-share earnings among the 30 companies in the average to rise 22 percent next year and 18 percent in 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Leaders to 10,000

Bank of America Corp., American Express Co. and JPMorgan more than doubled since the Dow slid to a 12-year low on March 9 as global financial firms began recovering from $1.6 trillion in writedowns and credit losses. International Business Machines Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. jumped at least 54 percent since March 9 on signs the nation was recovering from the worst recession in seven decades.

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By Fraser Tothus, October 17 at 10:04 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

The trillions that bailed out the bankers could have been put to productive use, thus making the pumping extra bills into the economy by paying labor to do something or make something only a temporary inflation.  But they kept it all for themselves, as usual, making private profit with public funds, all with the collusion of their henchmen in government.  What we have yet to see. I believe, is the second (commercial real estate) shoe in the real estate market drop, as it will, because there are few small businesses left after the depression; many have been wiped out. (I happen to work in a now nearly vacant technology park amongst many other nearly-vacant office parks) The enlightened seem to be getting out of the dollar for a more reality-based currency, despite the US war with Saddam that was to ensure the dollar’s hegemony as it is in Saudi Arabia (which is our “ally” for this reason).  Saddam’s major crimes were three: 1) threat to sell oil in euros, 2) threat to sell more than OPEC allows, 3) thumbing one’s nose at the bully.  It’s difficult to explain properly without going into much greater detail, but isn’t the dollar now based on oil, as it is, of unknowable value (which is why restricting the flow of oil, and constricting the refining are “national security” -meaning dollar security - issues)?  The only thing it’s good for, seems to me, is buying arms, which are heavily subsidized with domestic tax money.  What else do we make that the rest of the world wants?

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By Leefeller, October 15 at 4:03 pm #

carlinnyc, it may be a Republican thing like airport rest rooms.

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By de profundis clamavi, October 15 at 1:04 pm #

Don’t miss the fact that the stocks leading this rally are bank and insurance company stocks. What do they produce? Nothing. How do banks prosper? By charging borrowers more in interest and fees than the interest they pay depositors. That interest, by the way, is near zero for private depositors and absolute zero for bailout money (funded by taxpayers) and loans from the Fed (a quasi-public creation of the banks that is empowered by Congress to “print” money the same way God said “Let there be light”). Oh yes, and don’t forget financial speculation. So it seems that this resurging Dow has nothing to do with productive sectors of the economy, but everything to do with the success of the parasitic finance sector in consolidating control of the American government. Banks are buoyed up further with the prospect of turning a handsome profit on millions of foreclosed homes and transaction fees for buying and “reorganizing” bankrupt companies, throwing millions more out of work. The more we suffer, the more they prosper. The more we lament, the more they celebrate. It’s time to turn the tables.

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By carlinnyc, October 15 at 12:56 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Can anyone explain why there’s a photograph of a man fondling a bull’s testicles ?

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By C.Curtis.Dillon, October 15 at 11:50 am #

The elites delude themselves if they think that the common citizen believes for even one minute that the recession is over.  If unemployment persists, they can shovel all the stupid statistics they want but it will not change conditions on the ground.  Every person who is being shoved toward the abyss knows the true facts and they will not forget anytime soon what was done by these corrupt vultures.  If, as I expect, this unemployment is systemic and permanent, the seeds for revolution have been planted.  We have only to nurture them and await the right time.

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By Leefeller, October 15 at 10:57 am #

Putting away ones pitchfork could be a mistake, one needs a pitchfork to shovel manure!

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By Carl Spackler, October 15 at 10:27 am #

Another thing to consider is that Dow 10,000 is based on a dollar that is worth 18% less than it was 10 months ago. It is these dollars, in ever dwindling numbers, that most of us need to survive.

One would think with all of the money being created that some of it would find it’s way to people who need it. No, we are better off that it is given to the people who are the architects of this disaster who produce nothing.

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By so left i am right, October 15 at 8:17 am #

The disconnect is truly a reality now.

“Dow hit 10,000, first time in a year!” 
“Goldman Sachs Profit Tops Analysts’ Estimates…”

Then the disconnect:

“Foreclosures: ‘Worst three months of all time’”
“Unemployment rate near 10%” “‘Real’ Unemployment now over 17%”

I used to think that ‘we the people’ had a say in our government. We do vote
after all. But in this supercharged media overload society we live in the winners
are those whom can outspend and out slander their opponent.

In reality, ‘we the people’ are now a minor inconvenience. The funding of
politics is out of our hands and in the corporate budgets. They rock and roll
while we search for Obama’s “Change” under the couch cushions.

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By Ray Duray, October 14 at 9:43 pm #

BLOOMBERG: Leaders to 10,000

Bank of America Corp., American Express Co. and JPMorgan more than doubled since the Dow slid to a 12-year low on March 9 as global financial firms began recovering from $1.6 trillion in writedowns and credit losses. International Business Machines Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. jumped at least 54 percent since March 9 on signs the nation was recovering from the worst recession in seven decades.

THE REALITY:

BAC today: $18.xx -> Peaked Nov, 2006 at $54.xx Net decline of 66%

http://www.google.com/finance?q=BAC

***
AXP today $35, at peak $65

http://www.google.com/finance?q=NYSE:AXP

Cheers

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By yours truly, October 14 at 7:29 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

A Call To Rise Up*

Could anything be more indicative of how Wall Street not only owns our (er, its) government, but of how, as far as Wall Street is concerned, only its health and well-being matters, the rest of us be damned?  And we are, have been and ever will be, not just damned but kept down, down, down - until, that is, that glorious moment when we say to ourselves, “I’m not only mad as hell, I ain’t gonna take it no more, never, not one more time.”  Then what?  With all of us thinking alike, seeminlgy effortlessly we rise up en masse, whereupon, this land becomes our land, with a world soon to follow.  Our other options?  There is no other option, what with perpetual wars + global warming + economic collapse = doomsday, and time running out.

*peacefully, of course, with anyone advocating violence, until proven otherwise, considered to be an agent provacateur, insane or both

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By chris Fretwell, October 14 at 6:55 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

Those investors don’t speak for the unemployment disaster as this article tells.

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By johannes, October 14 at 6:18 pm #

If you are not happy go an live in an other dimension.

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