stock market down almost 5% shortly before close

[Liberal_in_LA]

:banghead:

[scheming daemons]

1. Paulson speaks, money leaks.....

January 20th can't get here fast enough.

[still_one]

5. paulson changing the rules on his own, I suspect to hurt the incoming administration /nt

[TexasObserver]

2. I tried to tell people we haven't yet reached the bottom.

Until the DOW closes several hundred below 8K, we haven't hit bottom yet.

Today, the market is reacting to the news from Paulson, which suggests auto makers may be allowed to fail. Of course, Democrats will ride to the rescue, soon enough.

I always considered the past few weeks rallies to be a bubble, yet another bubble, built on undeserved optimism.

This is a bad recession, but it is a recession, not a depression.

[scheming daemons]

3. We agree, TO

I think the recession lasts through at least two more quarters..... by fall of 2009, the GDP will begin growing again.

[DJ13]

4. Today, the market is reacting to the news.. auto makers may be allowed to fail

GM is the only Dow 30 stock green today.

[TexasObserver]

8. Isn't that what I just posted above?

"Today, the market is reacting to the news from Paulson, which suggests auto makers may be allowed to fail."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4447214&mesg_id=4447260

[uppityperson]

10. great minds think alike

[Warpy]

7. I said in January that I expected to see it hit 7000

before we get stupid out of office. I hope I wasn't overly optimistic.

In any case, we really don't know where the true floor is because we don't know what true inflation has been over the past 40 years and have no way of calculating it. We don't know what stocks will survive and what stocks will go bust.

All we can do is hunker down and keep hope alive that getting rid of the GOP radicals will allow us to return to a more rational economy.

[TexasObserver]

9. 7500 is my number

I'd been expecting it to fall below 9000 since January. I settled on 7500 as the bottom in July.

[Warpy]

6. Sic transit glorious money

The problem is figuring out what real inflation has been since, say, 1969. The official figures, which we know are all sick lies, would put it at 800% since then. The market in 1969 was in the 270 range, which would make the floor today 2160.

However, if we look at gold, a more reliable indicator of what true inflation is, the inflation since then has been 1800%, making the market floor 4860. If we go by the price of a head of lettuce, eight cents then by supermarket circular and $2.19 yesterday, the rate is 2738% and the market floor would be 7393.6. If we use medical care, then the floor is closer to 9500.

The problem is that we don't know the overall inflation rate because the conservative governments from both parties have had a vested interest in lying about it for the past 40 years to suppress wages and cheat social security recipients.

And that is why none of us knows just how far down the floor is at this point. We just know that all the funny money lavished on the wealthy for the past 40 years was an illusion. It's evaporating and taking everything else with it.

[TexasObserver]

11. Clearly, the floor is lower than 9500. I like 7500.

Under Bush, the government is literally playing a shell and pea game with us, hiding the materials necessary to calculate inflation more thoroughly.

[Warpy]

12. The floor is the place where it will eventually stabilize

It will crash through that floor from time to time, though, as the drumbeat of bad news continues.

I've seen it guesstimated mostly 6500-8300. My own guess, pulled out of my rump, was 7000.