Thursday, February 12, 2009

ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE

I don't trade stocks. I don't have any to trade, and it always seemed like gambling to me, something my father turned me off of when I was a boy (you'll have to read my next memoir to find out how, which is still in the works).

But I pay attention to "the market" (as the movie and TV business refers to itself egocentrically—maybe even egomaniacally—as "the business" as if there is no other, the brokers and economists and rightwing Republicans refer to the stock market as "the market" as if there is no other kind), and read what economists and politicians and CEOs and all the rest have to say about it (which is why I have no "economics" category for my posts, I put them under "politics" because that seems to be the basis for most economic news anyway).

And I have to admit, a good friend of mine who started a blog about daily stock trading—a woman with a law degree and experience in financial and stock trading businesses, but from a working-class background who had to learn all this on her own while working various kinds of blue collar as well as white collar jobs—has created a spot where I can get economic news and analysis that not only makes sense, but is plain spoken, practical, and clear. Maybe she should be the new treasury secretary.

Check here for a sample.

11 comments:

JIm said...

Couldn't do any worse than Geitner.
The Obama, Pelosi, Reid non stimulus bill continues to tank the market.

JIm said...

So much for Kennedyesqe. Obama preselects questions. I remember Kennedy press conference as being, witty, interllegent and non scripted. He wasn't a wimp who needed prompts.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123431418276770899.html

About half-way through President Obama's press conference Monday night, he had an unscripted question of his own. "All, Chuck
Todd," the President said, referring to NBC's White House correspondent. "Where's Chuck?" He had the same strange question about Fox News's Major Garrett: "Where's Major?"

The problem wasn't the lighting in the East Room. The President was running down a list of reporters preselected to ask questions. The White House had decided in advance who would be allowed to question the President and who was left out.

Anonymous said...

Ever since Reagan the "primacy of the market" has been the favored myth. What does the market think? How did the market react? It's down, it's up, it's bullish, it's bearish. Everything that's important in life must be measured by the market! At least that's what the media and politicians tell us.

I agree that "economics" is really an aspect of politics, and vice versa. Michael's post is a great starting point to have a discussion around this.

Remember the first bailout was pushed through in September, after a couple of weeks of Henny Penny wailing? The Fed and the Treasury still won't tell us how the money was spent. $3/4 Trillion and the citizens aren't allow to know how their money is being spent.

That's politics.

An aside:

I read the Alley's comments frequently, but most times when the window pops open my first reaction is feeling sorry for Michael. It's like there's something stuck to his shoe, he can't get it off, and it really smells. I'm talking about his MPC - Most Prolific Commenter.

MPC, instead of cutting and pasting from Fox News, Tom Friedman and Little Green Footballs, why don't you address the topic of the post with your own words?

Am I the only one who feels this way?

JIm said...

Butch,

Thanks for the glossary on MPC. I had no idea. Further, just because Bush, Paulson, the Democrat mojority congress and congressional Republicans messed up in the fall, does not mean that we should not protest an even worse economic screw up now.

JIm said...

To Butch: The one who feels safe calling me a shit from afar

Possibly the next time you pass through Denver you will call me a shit to my face. I assure the response will be appropriate.

Lally said...

Enough with the threats Jim. You're saying nasty and often false things about people I and many who read this blog care deeply about and no one is threatening you. And many who you quote and admire on the right wing of your Republican Party are saying things that are not only hurtful and mean to many of us and those we care about, but are damaging to out country and the things we love about it. When Democrats disagree with Republicans, the rightwing nuts you often quote and sound like accuse the Dems of all kinds of nefarious deeds and intentions and of being everything from communists to terrorists and traitors. But when someone not a rightwing ideologue challenges you and your rightwing cronies you either want to fight or throw mud etc. It's tiring and often boring. Anyway, you're too old to be getting into actual fights, and as I remember it, all the fights you and I got into as kids, no one ever really won. Which I think is the usual case.

JIm said...

Truth and nastiness is in the eye of the beholder. I have no problem with someone who disagrees with me. I have a problem with people who ascribe scatalogic and nefarious terms to a genuine philosophic disagreement. Disagreement is a fine and hallowed American tradition. Hopefully, that tradition will not be snuffed out by the current administration and it's allies who call for an end to free speech a'la "Fairness Doctrine".

JIm said...

PS: I may be an old Fart, but if someome calls me a shit, I would rather fight and lose than let it pass. Not much has changed in 60 years.

JIm said...

PSS: As I remember I had no problem whipping your ass, it was John Atterbury who regularly humbled me.

Lally said...

I'm gonna have to start deleting your comments Jim if you keep going on with all your phony outrage after all the nasty things you've said on this blog. And your memory is even weaker than your arguments if you think you ever kicked my ass in a fight. I remember us fighting often, and I remember me fighting many of our contemporaries as well, and though I was no champion and won very few fights. I don't remember ever losing one, not even to Atterbury. I remember him, in fact, saying he wanted to end it because despite the fact he was killing me I wouldn't quit. You were pretty tenacious yourself, but that schoolboy stuff isn't very wise or mature or useful for the challenges this country faces right now, challenges created by your party and its leaders. You keep yelling about the deficit and spending but when your guys took over from our guy last time, he handed you a huge surplus and a peaceful and prosperous country (and his administration suffered an attack from terrorists as well, outside the country and inside (the first World Trade Center attack) and then kept the nation safe from any further attacks for the rest of his two terms and turned it over to your leader with a clear warning about specifically what to look out for, and your boy ignored that and as a result we got 9/11, the largest deficit in the history of our world, the destruction of the world economy (even his own advisors warned him about Iraq and about the deregulation of banks and where it was taking us). Obama is riding to the rescue of a pile of problems your party created. And all your party can do is yell about how anything other than continuing the same policies that got us into this mess is unacceptable to it, and you. I suspect all your yelling and schoolboy posturing is a result of your knowing in your heart that you and your fellow rightwingers screwed up and you can't face that fact and accept responsibility. So blame the victim is the name of the game as it always has been with the rightwing Republicans. It just doesn't work here Jim. You're hypocrisy and empty posturing is transparent, at least to most people who care about and read this blog. But go on shouting and threatening if it makes you feel like a big man, and go on lying about who caused this mess and about historic realities and about anyone and anything that challenges your blind faith in your rightwing ideology and its main flag bearers. You'll still be wrong.

JIm said...

Wow,
Michael, I must admit, what your lacked in ferocity in your youth, you make for with your verbosity now. Yours or my memory maybe correct, but your defense of one “leftist view to the exclusion of the conservative or of the Founder’s View (a’la Adams, Jefferson, Washington, Hamilton) of America is not an accurate vision. It is a vision of Cuba, USSR or Chavez’s country. Hopefully it will not come to fruition under Pelosi, Reid,Obama,