Saturday, May 08, 2010

The Dangers of Madcap Capitalism

By Danny Schechter
May 8, 2010

The Wall Street Journal headline on the day after we almost lost the U.S. stock market reported that the wise men on the Street were “baffled” by the big drop Thursday. The Financial Times called the event “Shambolic” as if only a shaman can decode it.

Read on.
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2 comments:

big em said...

As others have long suggested elsewhere, countries (especially ours) need to draw a distinction between the success of the stock market (and the financial markets in general) vs the success of the overall economy -- they are NOT the same thing and by no means is there a 100% correlation between them. We could have strong, thriving stock/financial markets and still have 20%, 30% or more unemployment and wretched social conditions, much like some of the 3rd world countries. If an incident like this 'fat-finger' episode doesn't wake people up to this idea, it may be getting past the point of redemption. To me it's obscene that this financial sector can create so many of the fiscal problems we're having here and world-wide (Greece, Spain, Britain, Germany, etc) and yet the economic pundits keep preaching the SAME bad ideas that lead to this situation (i.e.; that countries need to have MORE privatization, LESS government social spending, LESS regulation, MORE 'free-trade', in order to 'attract investment', etc). I don't know about you, but I DON'T want these kind of investors around, whether they're accidentally doing this or (worse) intentionally. We have to stop letting them have enough power to ransom our economies. Their role in the world's economies should be greatly reduced to the point where they're no longer a significant factor; they should be regarded much like the Mafia.

Sat May 08, 04:32:00 PM 2010
Unknown said...

Today's newspaper (Mon 5-10) noted that many CEOs were awarded unusually large stock option bonuses moments after the 1,000 point drop. Their excessive profits are said to be astonishing as the market rises again. Probably just a coincidence, right?

Mon May 10, 11:30:00 AM 2010

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