Occupy Reality, part one

The Dow Jones Industrial Average "soared" 330 points today.  What does that mean?  Well... nothing, actually.  But there's an interesting story to the DJIA when take in context.  Here are the numbers over the past two months:

From July 21st to August 8th it lost 1914.26 points.  That's... a pretty substantial drop.  Now... Seeing as how it had been an almost consistently upward trend for over a year leading up to that point - up 6097.27 points since its low, about six weeks or so after Obama took office.  So... What was going on during that time period that might have given the economy some jitters?  Hmmm.... Let me think...

OH YEAH!

The whole stupid DEBT CEILING DEBATE!  Thank you, REPUBLICANS! I mean, GOD FORBID the recovery happen when there's a DEMOCRAT in the White House!  Keynes might make a comeback or something!  (Of course, by stiflingng the stimulus packages, and seeing the recovery falter, they basically PROVED Keynes was right, but don't expect that liberal media (*barf*) to tell you that!)  They couldn't bear to see that Obama (and Keynes) were RIGHT, so they invented an issue in order to shit-can the economy.  Way to go, Republicans!

And since then, check it out:

UP 429.82
DOWN 519.83
UP 423.37
UP 125.71
UP 213.88
DOWN 77.707
UP 5.017
DOWN 419.63
DOWN 172.93
UP 37
UP 322.11
UP 143.95
DOWN 170.89
UP 134.72
UP 254.71
UP 20.7
UP 53.58
DOWN 119.96
DOWN 369.31
UP 15.04
UP 275.56
DOWN 119.05
DOWN 303.68
UP 68.99
UP 44.73
UP 140.88
UP 186.45
UP 75.91
DOWN 108.08
UP 7.65
DOWN 283.82
DOWN 391.01
UP 37.65
UP 272.38
UP 146.83
DOWN 179.79
UP 143.08
DOWN 240.6
DOWN 258.08
UP 153.41
UP 131.24
UP 183.38
DOWN 20.21
UP 330.06

Now, the trend? On average? Since, August 8th? Is DOWNWARD.  OK, yeah, the index is actually UP 193.41 points since the start period, but the trend-line says that we'll lose about 4.65 points per trading day.  The thing is?  Do you notice how many days there are that the CHANGE (up or down) was in the triple digits?  Because I did. Don't bother counting, I'm going to tell you: 32 out of 44.  That 72% of the time that the Index changed by roughly 1% of it's overall value.  To put that in context - a 1% change in a single day - if it went UP every day by 1%, in a year you'd have roughly THIRTEEN TIMES the money you started with.  Now, obviously, that's never going to happen.  Down days will cancel out up days and vice-versa.  But more than EVER OTHER DAY? THREE OUT OF EVERY FOUR?!  That's extraordinary.

So... what does it mean?

Well... You have to understand that the DJIA is nothing but a handful of stocks (30) that the Dow Jones Company picks because they feel that they are a good indicator of the countries overall economic health.  (It's actually one of THREE indices for this purpose, but it the only one anyone every talks about, so it's what we're going to talk about.)   And you also have to understand what a stock's price actually means.  What it is, is the net present value (which assumes some arbitrary inflation rate) of all future dividends (profits) divided by the number of shares.  IOW, it's a predictive value of how a company will do.  And, obviously, as new information comes in (like quarterly reports?) both that projection, and the price, will change accordingly.

So... what does it mean that "the experts" keep changing their prediction by such a significant amount every day, up and down? 

Well, for a start, it may seem that they don't what the hell they're bloody doing! But ACTUALLY, it merely means that there's a lot of economic instability at the moment.  Now the Republcians will balme it on all kinds of things that eitehr haven't happened yet (like tax increases) or things that have no chance of happeneing. (Like tax increases.)

But I have an alternate theory, and it's fairly simple.

The economy is trying to recover.  It really wants to.  There is pent up demand and people are starting to spend money again. Sales of Halloween Candy/Decorations/Cosutems/etc..., for example, is WAY up from the last two years.  I can tell you that Automotive sales (and profits) are generally up as well. But then...

HERE COME THE REPUBLICANS...

Debt crisis = higher interest rates = harder to borrow = lousy economy
No More Stimulus = hampers demand = lousy economy

Raise taxes on THE POOR (a favorite of Fox News these days!) = hampers demand = lousy economy
Cut Social Security and Entitlements = hampers demand = lousy economy

Cut Government Salaries and jobs = hampers demand = lousy economy


You see the trend?

The ECONOMY? Would be doing just fine if the Republicans did what they always say the Government should do: STOP FUCKING WITH IT!

All of this instability is due to Washington's (read: REPUBLICANS) refusal to simply DO WHAT IS NECESSARY to make things better.

Now... You might hear the Right tell you that their thinking LONG TERM instead of SHORT TERM.

To which I'll answer, "Yeah..." and point out that, to a Republican, "Short term" means the next fourteen months, while "Long term" meand 2013 through 2016.

If I had my way, I'd execute every one of these scumbags for treason. As it is, they should be impeached and jailed for theft, fraud and corruption. But, at a minimum? THEY SHOULD ALL BE VOTED OUT OF OFFICE. EVERY LAST MOTHERFUCKING ONE OF THEM!

I've said it many times on MMFA, and probably once or twice here, and I'll say it again:

Anyone making less than $250,000 a year who votes Republican is either clinically psychotic or functionally retarded.  The rest? Are just greedy.