Dow jones plunges 512 points in one day; nasdaq down 136; s&p down 60

Holy ********.

You're making contentions left and right (some of them awesomely absolutist) and putting the burden on the person who is questioning them?

George W. Bush is a lizard-man. Prove me wrong!!!!!!

 

Exactly. Austerity and cuts is like bleeding a severely ill patient and hoping everything turns out all right. But all the talk how that is the solution to the creating more economic growth because it will create confidence - well I think there has been a realization that more is needed than that.

For today's event, I would blame the euro-zone negativity. I would blame the US debt negotiations for the general negativity in the markets over the last two weeks though.

 

They're both a cause and effect. Recession leads to growing deficits, policymakers respond with austerity, which deepens the recession (and thus further worsens deficits).

 

Yes, people who question the overwhelmingly-accepted status quo are supposed to provide the overriding evidence.

It was faked!

 

He is really a chimp. http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushmonkey3.htm

 

I thought we were still around 80%? As much as I hate to do this............do you have a link for that?

The austerity measures are certainly not a cause of the crisis, but they're exacerbating it.

 

Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News.

But I thought it didn't matter. 80%, 100%, it's all awesome.

 

Our only hope is to finally get government involved in our economy. They'll fix it!

I bet there's some crack team of government economists - the elite, the guys behind the guys behind the super committees - in a bunker somewhere planning to rescue us from ourselves.

We need to go to Defcon Norris, 1932 mode, so that we can be pulled back from the edge of the abyss by 2025 or so.

 

Not speaking for the original poster, but austerity measures are a reaction to the economic crisis, not the cause.

Likewise, austerity measures are not helping to pull us out of the crisis. This is not so much a double dip recession as one long period of very slow growth.

Everybody feels it as a recession, no doubt. But unlike all post-45 recessions, this recession was caused by outside factors. The 2002 and 2008 recessions were caused by a market bubble and a housing bubble, whereas all post-WWII recessions were caused by the fed slowing growth through raising interest rates.

And since the government can increase demand artificially through spending, it makes no sense to impose austerity measures.

 

The 80% ratio is from 2009 when Obama took office.

 

It's the computers, silly. One big firm makes a big move based on some insider information, and that triggers a whole lot of pain.

Then, the talking heads try to guess what happened.

What happened is people that run companies have made a lot more money moving the jobs that make things Americans used to buy overseas, and the credit that middle class Americans used to buy those things is gone, and the manufacturing companies have not yet "decoupled" their manufacturing markets from the "consumption" markets, so when the US gets a cold...

What this has to do with debt I'm unsure of, although we *do* owe other people a lot of money, as individuals and as a nation. Perhaps people are worried that we won't raise income through taxes, which is the basis of our debt rating. People lend the US government money because they think we can raise enough income to pay them back.

 

Evidently, 117,000 jobs is about 30,000 below population growth.

Not a perfect comparison, but it IS below replacement.

 

Fair enough - I hadn't checked the number in a while.

The markets just recognize that the US is paramount
Clever, clever markets!

So you think the sell-off yesterday was due to one firm's insider trading? Oooook.

 

The logical thing is to force the lenders to take significant hair cuts. I mean, the risk is why they get to charge interest, right? So now that risk is coming home to roost.

The only reasons that's pretty much impossible are political reasons, not economic reasons.

 

It's a hair austerity program.

 

So how are our T-bond interest rates doing?

Even with the down grade I imagine fearful investors are still running to the safety of the US bonds, at least the short term bonds.

Here is Friday
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-ce...interest-rates/Pages/TextView.aspx?data=yield

I wonder what they will be on Monday.