The Economy Makes Drudgereport

[Brandonf]

Quote from cable:

There are rumors that the government is behind the stock market boom of late -- they have been buying massive amounts of shares in the NYSE and Nasdaq in order to prop up the market and 'prime the pump' and get others buying. Mind you, that's just a rumor (from an insider friend of mine, but still a rumor).

But that's what I'd do, even though I'd have to 'cook the books' to keep it off the record by borrowing funds from social security or the CIA's drug money or whatever. There *IS* an election coming up, and the economy has to be booming if Bush wants to get re-elected.

I don't see a lot of legitimate improvements in the economy around here, either. Certainly not "record" levels of growth.... but if you question the official government-approved numbers you'll probably be hanged as a terrorist, so just go with the flow and make some money off it. The trend is your friend. Just don't get caught napping, or they'll hang your ass in the breeze.

I have not ever been big on consipercy theories, but here is what I have thought for a long time. I started to aggressively get long for position trades between March and May. Im just starting to sell most because I think there is going to be an intermediate term correction here..but here was my thinking.

President Bush wants to win the next election. He does not want to be like his father and be thrown out of office 6 months before the economy starts to turn around. More and more people are invested in stocks. Most of these people THINK THE STOCK MARKET AND THE ECONOMY ARE THE SAME THING. If their stocks are going up, they think all is well. Over the last several years things have been done (the credit bubble namely) that eventually are going to totally fuck the economy over, but in the mean time..its much easier to manipulate the stock market higiher and create an impression that all well or getting better. As long as that is the perception, reality does not matter, then Mr Bush will be our President for another four years. Realizing this, I suspect that they have done a number of things to artificially inflate stock prices, again making most uninformed people believe that the economy is better...true fact of the matter be damned.

Now, please take this all with a grain of salt because I am a total novice to consiprecy theories..this being the first one I have come up with.

Brandon

 

[waggie945]

This has been a "jobless" recovery.

Go back over the past 26 months and you will see ZERO job creation because businesses are still very uncertain about the economy going forward.

The 8.2% increase in GDP last quarter is reflective of inventory replenishing. Meanwhile, companies continue to "outsource" any need for jobs.

There are "structural" impediments to job creation this time in the business cycle. It has been different this time around, and it could very well continue to be different, with a lack of job creation that NORMALLY occurs at this time in a recovery.

When you don't create any new jobs ( only about 120,000 for the past 4 months, which is mediocre at best ) then you don't have a lot of pomp and circumstance.

It's a simple as that.

 

[illiquid]

My family is in retail in NYC and this year is adding up to one of the worst in a while, and much worse when compared with the last two years (which were actually pretty good). Whatever improvements the talking heads have been pointing to as of late seems to be losing steam, could just be a local thing but the area I speak of has had one of the highest home price increases over the past years.

 

[oten]

Quote from Baruch:

And USA has found another Vietnam.

Seems that way.

I'd be surprised if they do not create a new "terrorist" event close to the election - great vote builder!

 

[ges]

Quote from oten:

Seems that way.

I'd be surprised if they do not create a new "terrorist" event close to the election - great vote builder!

A couple of years ago I would have scoffed at this idea. Not now. The American public seems woefully ignorant. They just gobble up the garbage they are spoonfed by the media.

m

 

[jbtrader23]

Stephen Roach, the Morgan Stanley chief economist, is the only major Wall Street strategist that I really follow. His views on the economy are dead on IMO.

He recently wrote about the jobless recovery. Did you know that the "great job creation" in the past few months is just a mirage? That most of the jobs being created are temp jobs. Jobs in finance, tech, services are still being slashed. At this point in the business cycle, the US economy is over 7 million jobs short compared to previous post war business cycles.

Bush and Greenspan are printing money and spending money like wild to ensure a 2004 win.

All these news articles about 10,000 are classic contrarian indicators.

Consider, that since June, with all of the positive economic news and all of the stimulus and new job "creation", the market has only rallied by 600 points.