Is VRWC driving down the market?

[GoesTo11]

I know that Rush Limbaugh, Jim Cramer, Wall St. Journal, Fox News and all sorts or Republican politicians are blaming the collapse in stock prices on Obama. It's a given that they would (even though the market fell 6000 points under Bush).

But here's the question: Are they just trying to spin the crisis as it happens, or are they actually trying to exacerbate the crisis to make it worse so as to cause Obama to fail?

They can do this by: short selling, margin calling, talking the market down, screaming SELL SELL SELL, sabotaging stimulus plans, etc.

Another possibility: talking the market down is a side effect of their primary goal of shifting the blame from Bush to Obama, and they don't care much that this is causing further drops in confidence.

Crazy? Likely? I haven't seen this theory anywhere, so probably just tin-foil hat. Right?

[CoffeeCat]

1. They'd be stupid to try to manipulate the market...

...because the vast majority clearly understand that Obama inherited this mess
from Bush.

People aren't dumb.

But yes, as the stock market continues to tank, and other economic indicators spiral--there is more pressure
on Obama to do something and fix it.

It's a clusterfook.

[Art_from_Ark]

7. As H.L.Mencken once said

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public".

In 1977, Jimmy Carter inherited an inflation mess from Nixon and Ford (remember Ford's "Whip Inflation Now" buttons?), and the vast majority of voters understood that. But three years later, he was taking all the blame for inflation.

[MercutioATC]

2. If I spit in the ocean, am I responsible for rising sea levels?

This crash is based on fundamentals. Sure, a strong market can be engineered to fail, but this crash doesn't need any help...it's going to happen regardless of what anybody says on TV.

[indepat]

3. Some MFing talking-heads on CNBC and their loaded questions to rabid 'pukes are probably a driving

force in driving the market down with the parent company's stock (GE) a major benefactor of their malevolence: good work guys, drive down your GE to a penny stock. :P

[girl gone mad]

4. No.

People do not see stocks as a good value. They do not trust business leaders and executives. They don't trust the system and they're getting out.

We won't recover until we actually fix (nationalize) the banks, prosecute the criminals who created and profited from the crisis and shine a light on the balance sheets of these companies. Even then, a lot of stocks listed on the exchanges today may not participate in the recovery.

[Dreamer Tatum]

5. You are the reason for my avatar.

Seriously, what a stupid question.

[GoesTo11]

6. Well, the leader of the Republican party has repeatedly said he wants Obama to fail.

I am not asking whether the entire decline to date has been driven by VRWC - obviously the economy stinks and the market had a bunch of fraudulent companies with overstated values, plus a lot of additional fraud with the mortgages etc. But psychology and systems play a role too. In the middle of all the crisis, there is a group that really wants to make sure everyone panics and it becomes worse. My question, then, is whether they are succeeding in having effect in making it worse than it already should be.

By the way, I expect the Dow to drop to 2000 (1988 levels).

[notesdev]

8. It's the persistence of fraud

The core problem in the economy is fraud. Fraud so common it has become routine. And the Federal Reserve is at the heart of it.

The readers digest version goes like this: The Fed's money is a Ponzi scheme. It makes the people with first access to it rich while screwing the people at the end of the line. All it needed was a continuing supply of 'greater fools' to buy into it, and everyone was happy with their paper profits.

Well, they ran out of greater fools - they signed every last one of them to an option-ARM or such and stuffed them into a Mexican-built McMansion in the exurbs. There was nobody left willing to shell out the kind of numbers needed to buy into the market, and no loan that could be offered that was more aggressive than the NINJA (No INcome, Job, or Assets) loans already on the table. They got everyone who would take out a second mortgage (cash-out refinance or HELOC) to do so... hence all the large and expensive vehicles you see people driving, and all the other excesses of the bubble age too numerous to mention.

Now a lot of people who thought they had a lot of money - for retirement or medical expenses or savings or pensions - are finding out that it was all a debt-fueled scam all along.