C
awesome.
now, when the market drops again in the early summer, we can certainly blame it all on Obama. Then it will be HIS recession/depression.
thanks for clearing all that up.
geese remember all the right wing talk of Bush inheriting a Clinton ressesion?
When will people understand that the stock market is not the economy.
The stock market goes up when people get laid off.
The stock market is doing better because Obama is pouring billions upon billions of dollars into it, not because the economy looks any better.
I disagree, BAC. Wall Street if very tied into Main Street, like it or not. Many corporations & businesses use the market as a gauge. They base hiring & firing decisions on the fluctuations in the market; most of the layoffs over the past 6 months have been based on the severe drop the market saw in the fall...it feeds the fear that businesses are prone to during these kinds of situations.
Well, I agree that it shouldn't be a gauge, but for most, it is. When it drops in any kind of dramatic fashion, it feeds the fear, much more than the fundamentals of the economy do.
I personally believe the market over-reacted in the fall, but that led to an over-reaction on the part of business, in turn. There were some good reasons for a cyclical downturn & accompanying layoffs, but the fear fed on itself, and led to a reaction that was out of proportion to the reality.
Its a piece of the puzzle that makes it all up.
401Ks make that even more true than it used to be.
Bac its a piece of the puzzle even if you dont want it to be.
I'm going with BAC on this one. The peoples economy relies mostly on small business, not large corporations. The stock market is what relies on the big corps. Neither is an indicative sign of health or illness to the other.
It's all completely interconnected, though. It's a real mistake to think that Wall Street is just about he big corps & fat cats. It's comparable to the GM situation; GM is the big corp that is seemingly getting all the bailout, but there are a huge # of small businesses that rely on GM and are connected to it in a vital way.
The point on 401K's is not a small one, either. Wall Street's surges & dives affect everthing from consumer confidence & spending to corporate layoff decisions that affect smaller businesses like falling dominoes.
GMs business is derived from car dealers, who are usually NOT on the stock market. The only way the interconnection works is when people are buying cars and, guess what??? People are not buying cars. So if cars aren't moving, how is the stock going up? simple answer is that their capital and shareholders are being supported by our tax dollars. It works out great for them, but if the people on main street can't buy cars, the stock is going to go back down when cars still aren't being sold.