Can't make this crap up!

Greetings good citizen,

Left to your imagination is how much the US stock market is ‘really’ worth. You know as well as I, stocks in companies that don’t have earnings aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

Worse, many companies have ‘boosted’ their profits ‘the old-fashioned way’ they screwed them out of their employees! Bizarrely, slash and hack until your payroll matches your sales projections, then cut the salary of the ‘survivors’ and viola! You have ‘profits’ without selling anything!

If you thought yesterdays’ post was ‘happy talk’ based on the ‘flimsiest’ of evidence, wait until you get a load of today’s first offering!

Dow Enters Positive Territory for the Year

By JACK HEALY
Published: June 11, 2009

Lately, many investors have worried that weak demand for government debt could push interest rates on home and business loans higher, harming the economy. But those worries were blunted on Thursday after an auction of Treasury bonds drew a strong response from buyers.

Stock markets pushed higher in mid-afternoon trading after the government’s auction of $11 billion in 30-year Treasury bonds. The auction drew bids from investors attracted by recent increases in interest rates. [Um, wait a minute Slim, aren’t the 30 year Treasuries the ones the Fed is buying to facilitate ‘Quantitive Easing?’ If the Fed is buying them ‘regardless’, it’s no ‘miracle’ that they sold, is it.]

After three days of lethargic trading, the Dow Jones industrial average rose 94 points or 1.1 percent, crossing into positive territory for the year. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index, which is up about 5 percent since Jan. 1, was up 1.3 percent, and the Nasdaq was 1.1 percent higher.

Investors hoping for an economic recovery also seized on slight improvements in retail spending and a dip in first-time jobless claims. [Which were still over 600,000…for the freakin’ week!] Many put an optimistic gloss on two new government reports showing that retail sales were up 0.5 percent in May, and that initial unemployment claims dropped by a seasonally adjusted 24,000 last week.

Even though the economy is floundering and unemployment continues to rise, some analysts said the reports offered more signs of an economic bottom.

Utility companies, a traditionally defensive stock investment, led the gains while oil companies including Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Hess moved higher on rising oil prices. Crude-oil futures continued higher, rising $1.17 to $72.50 a barrel in New York, on false expectations that consumption will rebound. [Hmmn, speculators (have returned to) driving up commodity prices up…isn’t this how this whole mess started two years ago? Yet these fucktards are ‘happy’…WTF!]

A sharp increase in gasoline prices — driven largely by oil’s recent rebound from $33 a barrel — was responsible for much of the increase in retail sales in May. [They do like to slip a fact or two in with the generally ‘misleading’ comments.] The Commerce Department reported that sales at gasoline stations rose 3.6 percent for the month, but they fell or rose more tepidly at other businesses. [So there’s your ‘improvement’ in ‘retail sales’, in the meantime we’re literally swimming in oil!]

Although some investors idioticallycheered the rise in retail sales, economists said the figures offered little evidence the economy was poised for a consumer-driven turnaround. After a sharp increase in January, consumer spending has flattened out this spring as unemployment rose to 9.4 percent, making people warier about losing their jobs. [If we add fear of losing one’s job to the fact that many have lost their job…and everything else besides that, how do these morons explain ‘rising’ consumer spending? It’s not there, what we have here is data manipulation, not the truth.]

And economists said that a spike in gasoline prices willcould stifle spending on clothes, restaurants, travel and other non-essential goods and services. [Really bad news as 90% of what passes for our economy consists of ‘non-essential’ goods and services!] In the credit markets, an auction of 30-year Treasury bonds drew healthy demand, easing some jitters about the consequences of huge government deficits. Some investors are worried that $2 trillion in new Treasury issues will overwhelm demand for government debt, raising a host of consumer and business borrowing costs. [Note how they ‘conveniently’ forget about the Fed’s ‘Quantitive easing’ program, none of our ‘creditors’ are buying our ‘long’ paper.]

Treasury prices rose moderately in afternoon trading, cutting yields on the 10-year note to 3.85 percent from 3.94 percent on Wednesday.

“None of the factors are in place right now where you start worrying about inflation or higher interest rates,” said Scott Marcouiller, senior equity market strategist at Wells Fargo Advisors. “We think these fears are overblown.”

There is so much ‘dis-information’ in the above article that I would liken it to posting a ‘swim at your own risk’ sign in known shark infested waters.

As we approach the second anniversary of the collapse of the financial markets (that are STILL unregulated) we can only wonder how much longer the public will continue to swallow this ‘happy talk’.

Let me draw an uglier picture for you good citizen: Foreclosures are off the charts, tent cities are popping up everywhere and absolutely nothing has been done to stem globalization and put our people back to work…nothing!

We’re talking millions of families being kicked to the curb because it’s Summer…what are these people going to do when summer is over and there still aren’t any jobs at any wage?

Will the fucking government offer to eliminate the minimum wage so employers can hire more people? (Not that this will ‘help’ anyone besides the damned ‘slavers’.)

No, the ‘clearest’ explanation for all of the ‘talk’ (and it is just talk) about ‘green shoots’ and the irrational Stock Markets is to provide cover for what is likely to happen during ‘danger season’. The desperate are more inclined to fight in better weather than during the bitter cold of winter.

Naturally, the happy talk is intended to make their violent actions less ‘defensible’.

As our cities burn this summer, I present to you tonight’s second offering. Just read Ilargi’s intro and ask yourself which article you find more ‘credible’.

Are the rioters ‘justified’ in acting against a government that has abandoned them?

You decide.

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner

PS. In the time it took me to ‘parse’ this article circumstances have changed somewhat. More interestingly, I suspect the ‘anticipation’ of another ‘tape painting’ session (that didn’t happen) was to blame as the market sold off sharply in the last minutes before the close.

Apparently, the markets are no longer in 'positive territory' for the year...

here’s the link for the now totally different article…