Once again the East bleeds while the West (miraculously) watches its profits soar!
There is no rational explanation, nobody is buying stocks except traders themselves (and they don’t intend to hold them, which should scare the shit out of all of you!)
We could ask what is behind this irrational behavior but the answer is obvious, it is all part of the ‘everything’s fine’ Kabuki Dance.
Like the actions of a group of overpaid morons has anything to do with reality…
Yet it does…but not in the way most of you think.
As I have stated before, the only thing the stock market tells us is how rich the already rich have made themselves…the part I keep leaving out is the ‘at the expense of the rest of us’.
As long as you keep buying this bullshit you will continue to get ripped off.
Purely because they say so.
And THAT (to me) is the most fucked up thing about the whole situation…
Let’s have a look at how the corporate owned media spins this unlikely tale
Stocks were lifted earlier this week by modestly better news about the U.S. economy. The number of people claiming unemployment benefits declined this week. Housing construction picked up last month, at least for apartment buildings. Inflation remains low.
Among the companies reporting earnings late Thursday or Friday:
— General Electric Co.'s income rose 18 percent as its lending business recovered, but profit margins shrank in key business. The stock fell 1.5 percent.
— Microsoft Corp.'s income rose 6 percent and its revenue beat Wall Street estimates. The stock rose by a penny.
— Verizon Communications Inc.'s income doubled from last year, mainly because of pension adjustments. Its adjusted earnings beat expectations. But Verizon's bottom-line result masked a weak quarter for its local phone business, which faced a major worker strike and post-hurricane repairs. The stock rose 1.9 percent.
How does that grab you good citizen?
Commerce is BASED on the concept that companies PROFIT from performing/providing goods and services to society.
Did you catch the explanations for the three cited companies’ rise in profits?
The FORMER largest manufacturer in the world (GE) saw a recovery in its BANKING business! Which is actually a bit of ‘misdirection' on the media’s part.
You see, it says right on the back of the stock certificates that GE is a wholly owned subsidiary of the J.P. Morgan guaranty trust.
Oddly, being a profitable ‘bank’ isn't as good a PR message as ‘pretending’ your manufacturing arm returned to profitability…which it DID NOT!
Then Microsoft ‘beat expectations’…talk about your ‘captive audience’! If you’re not a PC then you’re a Mac (and there isn’t a REAL difference between the two!)
Worse, Microsoft being ‘more profitable’ only means their ‘forced migration’ actions are working…big whoop!
And our last ‘example’ of strong profitability is attributed to Verizon screwing its pensioners!
Capitalism at it’s finest!
THIS caused the Dow to climb almost 200 points…WTF!
Let’s have a closer look at GE as it warranted its own article in today’s NY Times business section…
General Electric, the nation’s largest industrial company, on Friday reported net earnings for the third quarter of $3.2 billion, up 57 percent from the same period in 2010 despite what the chief executive called a “volatile” economic environment. [sidebar, GE USED TO BE the largest mfr IN THE WORLD!]
The company said it had operating earnings per share of 31 cents, exactly in line with expectations of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters. That excluded the $0.08 per share impact of its redemption of Berkshire Hathaway shares, which it subsequently redeemed this month for $3.3 billion. But the company said it expected that retiring the stock would improve annualized earnings per share by $0.03 in future quarters.
Revenue for the period from July through September, 2011, was $35.4 billion, which the company described as flat when compared with the third quarter of 2010. When the impact of the sale of NBC Universal to Comcast was excluded, the revenue for the quarter was up 12 percent.
Which returns us to a very serious issue, good citizen.
Have you noticed how much of our economy can be attributed to ‘creative accounting’?
Worse, creative accounting has nothing to do with economic performance…but you knew that.
IF we let them continue to ‘whitewash’ true economic performance we will soon be faced with a very real supply problem that the meaningless data helped conceal.
When you’re being told that what’s on hand today is all of the bread you will have UNTIL NEXT YEAR it will be too little, too late to execute the people who ‘cooked the books’.
IF you can find them at all.
As bad as this sounds, once the dam breaks we will (suddenly) be faced with problems that should have been seen months ago…
And the ‘witch hunt’ will begin…after the damage is done!
Don’t let them get away with it.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
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