Global Markets bled from the eye sockets for the second straight day, opening sharply down this morning on the NYSE, that fabled home of ‘the greater fool’.
I was originally going to ignore this story because we long ago established that the stock markets no longer reflect the health of the economy in any meaningful way.
HOWEVER, in light of the very real danger of a systemic collapse of the global financial network. (It appears we will soon get to witness what happens when all of those ‘credit default swaps’ get actuated…which will be especially curious since most of them are ‘unfunded’.) I decided it was a good idea to shout ‘HEADS UP!’
Here’s the problem WE ALL KNOW the global banking system ‘sank’ four years ago, BUT, thanks to ‘extend and pretend’ none of the associated shoes have dropped…YET:
All three major stock indexes on Wall Street -- the Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index and the Nasdaq composite index -- were off more than 1 percent in early trading.
Heightened tensions over Greece come a day after China cut its growth forecast and data showed the European Union is unlikely to avoid a recession. The data was a worry for the market, which has rallied largely on hopes of a strengthening economy.
“What is driving the market now is the outlook for economic growth elsewhere and, pretty importantly, the U.S. and China,” said Jack De Gan, chief investment officer at Harbor Advisory Corp in Portsmouth, N.H.
European shares fell more than 2 percent, and the euro declined, as riskier assets bore the brunt of fears that the global growth outlook is darkening. Wall Street fell hopes that this week’s unemployment report for February would show a significant rise in new jobs.
Quick note good citizen, when I see typos like the one in the last sentence I will USUALLY take a stab at correcting it…but in this instance I can’t even imagine what the writer was thinking when he (obviously) shifted mental gears mid-sentence.
Hopes fell is one thing but ‘fell hopes?’…baffling!
We could ‘reconstruct’ the entire sentence to say “Hopes fell on Wall Street that this week’s unemployment report for February would show a significant rise in new jobs.”
But maybe he’s not supposed to tell us that on Tuesday…I’m just surprised it got past an editor.
What should baffle us all is how the corporate owned media can talk about an eminent recession in Europe and not warn of one here?
Or do they think we are ‘uninterested’?
One thing obviously hasn’t changed, we (the US) sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold!
Shop clerks in a wholesale market complained about the scarcity of customers. At a factory gate, workers said that few jobs were available except at the minimum wage. And at an employment office, the jobless fretted that even if they found work, they would have little hope of buying apartments typically priced beyond their means.
Su Weizhong and three other clerks late Monday morning stood at a desk with little to do at a plumbing supplies store in the wholesale market. “A year ago, there were people in every shop, looking and asking about the prices,” Mr. Su said. “Projects are finishing, but there are absolutely no new projects this year.”
With China having been the world’s main growth engine in recent years, a slowdown is hardly welcome news for the global economy. Neither is the prospect of a restive population — a continual worry for Beijing, if it cannot meet the aspirations of a rising middle class.
What’s odd is this time around nobody is predicting disaster because China’s economy ISN’T growing at a ‘double digit’ rate.
Left to our imagination is whether or not 7% growth is sufficient to keep China’s billions employed…
For their 1.2 billion people, their workforce is only a few hundred thousand larger than ours!
Which should tell you something very worrisome about their variety of ‘State Sponsored Capitalism’.
Worse, if you’re too old to work on the production line (30) then you’re a sustenance farmer, literally living off of the land.
Can you see your doom yet? (if you’re too old to keep up with the kids on the production line then you’ll be back on the farm, living hand to mouth…
Oh, and if you don’t have a farm…that’s not their problem it’s YOURS!
Well good citizen, I have decided to spread this warning because the consensus is growing that the Euro-zone WILL ‘crash an burn’ by the end of the month.
PLEASE don’t be deluded enough to think that this won’t effect the rest of us. You’re ‘beyond stupid’ if you let them fool you that easily.
And to my international readers, same deal.
There is no irony here, the global race to the bottom is OVER and they all crossed the ‘finish line’ at the same time…so there wasn’t a clear winner…but what is pretty clear is that we all lost.
The time to start suffering those losses is almost upon us.
Even extend and pretend couldn’t go on forever.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
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