Is Wall St. deliberately crashing the US economy just before the elections?

[99th_Monkey]

Dow drops (by mid-day) more than 500 points
by Sylvan Lane * 1/15/16 * The Hill

The U.S. stock market was hit with heavy losses Friday as the Dow Jones industrial average fell by more than 500 points by midday trading.

The S&P 500 at one point fell 3.5 percent, and the Nasdaq dropped more than 4 percent.

It's been a treacherous January for the stock market. The latest losses were spurred by the lowest crude oil prices in decades, disappointing December retail sales and concerns about slowdowns in international economic growth, according to The Associated Press. Other worries for investors include a third consecutive month of dropping U.S. industrial production and weak Chinese economic growth.

A plunging stock market could quickly become an issue on the presidential trail. President Obama touted the nation's economic recovery during his final State of the Union address on Tuesday, but critics say those gains haven't reached most Americans.

“The United States of America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world,” Obama said in his speech. “Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction.”

Republican presidential candidates ripped Obama's take on the economy during Thursday's night's debate. Chris Christie called it "story time with Barack Obama."

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/economy/266049-dow-tanks-more-than-400-points-on-open

[Katashi_itto]

1. Yes Beacuse Trump would be such a capable president.

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. Nope!

The Baltic Dry Index (index of global mercantile shipping) is below 400 for the first time ever: http://shipandbunker.com/news/world/323829-baltic-dry-index-falls-under-400-for-first-time-ever-demand-recovery-could-now-be-as-far-out-as-2018

Know what that means? Significant demand slowdown globally. A global recession looks to be on the cards for 2016. And the US economy isn't isolated from what's going on in the rest of the world (especially not when most of the companies listed on the NYSE/NASDAQ are multinational and their perfomance in non-US markets affects their stock price).

[99th_Monkey]

5. Perhaps, but you must admit, the timing is a bit 'convenient' for the GOP

I can't get this FDR quote out of my mind, in this regard.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. This is the economy, not politics, and the US, shockingly, isn't the world (n/t)

[99th_Monkey]

17. Granted, it's the economy, not politics.

Yet like it or not, the two have become inextricably intertwined, as Mr. Bernanke points out here:

Warning bells just keep getting louder and louder as the countdown to the Crash of 2016 keeps ticking. Wall Street’s in denial, but the Washington Post warns: “U.S. economic growth slows to 0.2 percent, grinding nearly to a halt.” USA Today hears “Bubble Talk” at the Vegas “Davos for Geeks.” Earlier the Wall Street Journal warned, “declining population could reduce global economic growth by 40%.” Then recently the “slow-growth Fed” was blamed.

Wrong, former Fed chief Ben Bernanke counterattacked: “I’m waiting for the Journal to argue for a well-structured program of public infrastructure development, which would support growth in the near term by creating jobs and in the longer term by making our economy more productive.” But for years the Fed “has been pretty much the only game in town as far as economic policy goes.” Today “we should be looking for a better balance between monetary and other growth-promoting policies, including fiscal policy.”

Fiscal policy? No, Ben, not a chance. The GOP controls economic policy. And they will never give “growth-promoting fiscal policy” victories to President Obama and Hillary Clinton before the presidential election of 2016. Never. In spite of Bernanke’s obviously rational solution to the core problems of the American economy, one that would help the American people, the GOP will never, ever agree to fiscal stimulus programs that give the Democrats bragging rights and make Obama and Clinton look good before the elections.

The GOP is hungry for power, very hungry. They lost the presidency twice to Obama. They want it back. And now their collective ego is convinced that with the $889 million backing from the Koch Empire they can beat Hillary and take absolute control of the American democracy: win the presidency, hold Congress, gain the power to issue executive orders and veto legislation, appoint more than 6,000 insiders including cabinet officers, regulatory heads, federal judges, ambassadors, staff bureaucrats, and more. Yes, the GOP knows all that power is on the line in 2016.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/countdown-to-the-stock-market-crash-of-2016-is-ticking-louder-2015-05-08

[Spider Jerusalem]

21. Which has what to do with falling demand and declining output in Asia and Europe?

[99th_Monkey]

39. And your dismissive snark has what to do with Mr Bernanke "take" & the article I posted? nt

[truedelphi]

29. The black ops section of the Wall Street monies is significant enough to

Crash the economy any time the Elite decide it needs crashing.

And their ability to "arrange" certain matters is also impressive.

Look at how Jimmy Carter held something like 60% of favorability ratings, late April 1979.

This was the highest favorability rating any modern President had ever received.

Some three months later, after a Halliburton, Bush empire oil "shortage" was created, Carter's ratings tanked. At one point, over a 90 day period, his ratings were a mere 16 to 17% of citizens' favorability. This was the lowest ratings any President of modern times has received.

And less than 3 months later!

We now know that this was all artificially created.

[Wellstone ruled]

18. So true,

geo-politics in play. You just knew that China had to take a dump and we are seeing it. Remember our Wall Street Bankers suckered millions of people to buy into this concept of emerging markets bullcrap. And now after transferring all of our manufacturing to a Red Army run economy,we are seeing the ugly side of the Jack Welsh effect. And today is Triple Witch on options. And Commodities are still in free fall,watch for a ton of Farm Foreclosure activity after April.

[bvar22]

40. The last heist was also perfectly timed

to happen during an election and White House Change over so all the politicians could blame the other Party.

[font size=3]Paulson with Co-conspirators

Now THIS is Bi-partisanship![/font]

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. All the major indices are down and heading lower.

The big banks are hedged on the down, but Wall Street is "causing" this only because they never cleared the bad debt from their books, and eventually there had to be a tipping point.
Now, the consumers who have been propping up the markets are simply too broke to continue doing it.

[Spider Jerusalem]

16. "Wall Street" has fuck-all to do with it

it's a global recession.

[leveymg]

3. They did it eight years ago. Why not again?

It's called profit-taking. They'll move their cash offshore and wait and roost on some palm trees until they can see what the pickin's are like under the next Admin. They'll move back or move away.

Welcome to to the global vulture capitalist system.

[whatthehey]

4. Tell me how they take profit

Short sales? Need somebody on the other end of that deal.

Buying at rock bottom share prices? Needs somebody stupid enough to sell at the bottom.

If you don't want Wall Street traders to make money off you, don't sell.

[leveymg]

7. There are any number of ways to hedge and make money in any market.

Take it from someone who long ago worked on the Floor of the NYSE and has been published in Technical Analysis of Stocks and Commodities Magazine.

There are books on market cycles and the political process.

[whatthehey]

13. Yes - and all involve other parties to the deal

There are no bottom feeders without panic sellers, and no shorts win without somebody betting the other way.

[Rex]

9. That is exactly what they do, buy back (others) stock at pennies on the dollar.

You are correct, yet goodluck telling people not to sell off in a 'panic'. Happens every time.

[KamaAina]

8. Never mind the stock market. We've been hit with a bunch of store closures.

Wally World: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141315584

Sears/Kmart: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014959976

[TampaAnimusVortex]

10. Pretty obvious the fed rate raise certainly didn't help.

[Rex]

11. No this is probably another self created panic so the owners can collect that much more

assets as the small fry sell off in a panic. Works just like Pavlov's dog.

[Sam_Fields]

12. I'm sorry there is no man behind the curtain running the world economy

That is conspiracy theory thinking.

[randys1]

31. True and I am not sure who the theorists think this benefits, politically

[libodem]

14. Would not put it past them

In 08 it seemed to be designed to fall on President Obama's watch. Calculating bastages.

[tblue37]

19. I wouldn't put it past them, but probably it is more a matter of criminal mischief fueled by

mindless greed for short term profits than by long range thinking and conspiracy.

[bluedigger]

20. 10 months seems like quite a lead time.

A lot of shit will happen in the next year. Nobody will vote based on what the market did back in January.

[B Calm]

22. This week they are pointing their finger at dropping oil prices, last week it

was the falling CHINA MARKETS, and a couple weeks ago it was Greece markets. They been stealing from our retirement funds
since June orJuly 2015.

New York Stock Exchange needs to feel the Bern!

[Spider Jerusalem]

23. Shocking, isn't it?

Who'd ever think that in a globalised economy what happens in other countries could possibly affect the USA?

[B Calm]

24. I remember the days when the New York Stock Exchange set the trends of markets worldwide.

[Spider Jerusalem]

25. the US doesn't represent the largest consumer market, anymore

China has a higher GDP (although not GDP per capita), and the EU is a larger consumer market. What happens in China and Europe affects the US economy, especially in the era of multinational corporations and globalisation. Just the way it is.

[B Calm]

26. So you agree with Trump that we're not great anymore?

[Spider Jerusalem]

30. Define "greatness"?

I'm kind of surprised at the levels of insecurity that so many Americans seem to have at the idea of not being "number one!" The relative decline of America compared to the rest of the world has been both inevitable and, honestly, too long in coming; the USA represents 5% of the global population. Europe has 2x as many people; China, 4x as many. Of course Europe is going to be a larger consumer market; of course China (which has only really entered its own industrial revolution in the past few decades) would eventually overtake the USA. (And American dominance was only ever based on luck, anyway; the US was the only industrial economy left standing at the end of WWII, and in 1950 the USA produced half of the world's oil; the rest of the world has since recovered, and US share of oil production has declined to about 10%).

[B Calm]

33. Don't have to, you just answered my question.

[elleng]

27. No, and this is a ridiculous suggestion.

[PatrickforO]

28. Sure they are. They are afraid of Bernie and possibly afraid of the fascism

coming into bloom in Trump's campaign because they have longer memories than most of us and probably are thinking of the German industrialists hung or sentenced to long prison terms in the post-WWII trials at Nuremberg.

So they are doing their patriotic part to make sure they get someone in the White House they can MOLD! Who will actually LISTEN to them...who FEELS how they FEEL...who WANTS what they WANT.

They must be feeling pretty fearful because they are going to try and throw a nice little depression, which is where they always start when people begin to notice their stealing. Their hope is, of course, that we will become divided and begin to fight among ourselves. This has provided an excellent diversion from nefarious Wall Street activities many times, but...

If Bernie faces off against Rump, get ready for them to attempt to manipulate us into another nice war, which has always been Plan C, if Plan B (divide and conquer) doesn't work.

Yep. But they think they can rest easy because if we do hit the streets, they have militarized the police so the streets can run with the blood of Americans if need be.

And Plan X - the final plan involves activating the heavily armed crazies. Problem is, these people have crawled out of the woodwork TOO SOON to be of help.

My, don't we ALL feel in SUCH good hands with Wall Street???

[fredamae]

32. The timing of the 2008 crash

is eerily familiar again in 2016....Cyclic? Predictable? Planned? Hell, I don't know.

Hartmann wrote a book awhile back called "The Crash of 2016"...and while I haven't read it...I'm guessing it was based on lots of problems like Student Loan Debt crises, Banksters still pulling their crap ie: they got bigger, more powerful without being reined in and other global trends. So some folks saw this coming long ago.
The reasons-if planned-are beyond me. At the end of the day, no matter why-just follow the money, as always, imo

[Spider Jerusalem]

34. The 2008 crash happened for a couple of specific, systemic reasons that weren't "timed" at all

1) persistent high oil prices because global consumption was at or near the level of total production (conventional oil production peaked c. 2005)

2) the high cost of oil and thus gasoline fed into higher prices for consumer goods and many people having less disposable income and also fed into the subprime mortgage crisis (because you suddenly had a lot of people faced with the choice of being able to put gas in their cars to get to work, or to pay the mortgage; unsurprisingly in that situation, there was a wave of foreclosures)

3) the foreclosures and collapse of the subprime mortgage market contaminated other financial assets because of the practise of "packaging" mortgages in bonds (collateralised debt obligations) which left a lot of banks with a lot of exposure and a lot of bad assets they couldn't easily untangle.

[fredamae]

37. By timing I meant right

before the GE. As this newest crises is also unfolding. Not that the 2008 event was timed.

I hope I made clear "Cyclic? Predictable? Planned? Hell, I don't know."
And re: the current ripples?: "lots of problems like Student Loan Debt crises, Banksters still pulling their crap ie: they got bigger, more powerful without being reined in and other global trends. So some folks saw this coming long ago."
Is my best guess.
Thanks for your info, tho-I'll be the first one to raise my hand in admitting I know Nothing about "the big $ game".

[leftynyc]

35. Huh

That would mean China is in on the conspiracy as it's their slowing economy that has made the market swoon, second reason would be the price of oil. You think Saudi Arabia is purposefully pumping out more oil than is needed to effect our election? Those two things are the main drivers for the market dropping.

[Skittles]

36. no, the economy is just shitty

[bigwillq]

38. Unlikely (nt)

[moondust]

41. No, but the GOP candidates will blame it on...

take a guess.



Most corporatists seem to focus mainly on this quarter's profits rather than any long-term strategerizing.