Friday, May 7, 2010

One For The Money, Two For The Show


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Yesterday saw the biggest one-day point drop in stock market history, owing to a combination of factors. The first was the ongoing economic crisis in Greece, whose government has been spending imaginary money for so long that they've now been forced to tell people "you know those entitlements we promised we'd give you?
We can't really afford them and never could."

The Greek people, in turn, are rioting in the streets and throwing molotov cocktails, outraged to find out that their government has been using Barack Obama's fiscal policy.

Meanwhile, Wall Street brokers realized that things could get ugly in
our streets at the point the government finally admits that America can't pay for promised entitlements and never could. Which is why the brokers quickly started selling off stocks, someone accidentally typed "billion" instead of "million" while making a transaction, and 9% of Wall Street's value vanished in minutes. Fortunately, some of that value was recovered in the closing minutes of trading...making the day only terrible instead of disastrous.

But could the U.S. ever really see riots in the streets, or fire bombs thrown into banks? Apparently Barack Obama thought so one year ago when he (in)famously declared to bankers: "My administration is the only thing standing between you and the pitchforks." And the president continues to preach anti-capitalist rhetoric to make sure those pitchforks stay sharp.

All of this fiscal volatility boils down to one simple principle: governments that are playing "musical chairs" with unpayable debts
will be thrown into chaos when the music inevitably stops.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it too late to press "Cntrl,Alt,Del" for the USA and start over again?

Anonymous said...

Obama condemns Wall Street yet this election year bankers gave Senate Democrats three times what they gave Senate Republicans. Republican Senator Richard Shelby offers an amendment to limit the scope of the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Obama says, "I will not allow amendments like this one written by Wall Street's lobbyists to pass for reform." Problem is, according to the WSJ, this attack on Shelby was false; the proposed bureau would not regulate Wall Street. Obama is, dare I say, a LIAR? At the very least, his rhetoric is thuggish.

Stilton Jarlsberg said...

Anonymous1- Remember the good old days when investors jumped out of windows instead of Windows forcing investors to jump?

Anonymous2- There's no need to choose, Obama can be a liar and thuggish. And he is.

Pete(Detroit) said...

Stock up on precious metals - brass and lead..

Dr.D said...

Communism has long been openly advocated in Europe, and now we are seeing it openly advocated in places like Phoenix and Atlanta. The communists will not hesitate to promise the people that all the entitlements will be paid and even further expanded, while anyone who stands for fiscal responsibility is likely to be stoned, both in Europe and in the USA.

No one wants to face the reality of the need to pay for what is consumed. It is universally popular to think that someone else should pay for my needs, my health care, my retirement, etc. This is truly an easy sell. The days of rational thinking seem to be long, long gone.

Beside having lost all sense of rational thinking, we seem to have lost all sense of honor, the idea of providing for ourselves, our families, and for leaving an inheritance for the future. Today people mostly think in terms of trying to live as large as they can, only trying not to exhaust their means before they die (and some give little thought to that last part).

Thus it is really easy for any lying communist, such as Obama & Co, or most of the European governments, to simply continue to promise more and more, knowing full well that they do no have the means to pay that which is promised and never will. They simply try not to think about the chaos that will ensue when it all comes due!

Joe said...

As soon as the economy went into recession, I said precious metals would get a surge in popularity. As if on cue that night I saw the first tv ad for 'Cash 4 Gold'. And they're getting more frequent as these people are making a killing buying old jewelry at ripoff rates and then sitting on the gold reserves while the value of our currency plummets. Why didn't I get involved...

Stilton Jarlsberg said...

Dr.D- Great post, and filled with (sadly) relevant and logical points. We especially note the tendency of people to "live large" these days - and why not? The bailouts all go to the people who are irresponsible...and those bailouts are funded by the only ones who can fund anything - the fiscally responsible. In other words, the virtuous are punished and the villains rewarded. When the government itself structures the system to make responsibility (indeed, even obeying the law) into a fool's game, then we're well on our way to being the next Greece.

Joe- Yes, we wish WE had bought gold way back when, too. At $1200 an ounce, it's out of our league - although will we eventually be smacking our heads at the "bargain" we're passing up when it hits $3000?

Larry Sheldon said...

"But could the U.S. ever really see riots in the streets, or fire bombs thrown into banks? "

Don't read the news much, do you?

I think even the LSM has bee reporting exactly that, right here....

Unknown said...

one of my favorite posts yet, thank you!

i believe riots are definitely something that could happen. especially once people start realizing their Social security is non existent

fred said...

How much more proof do we need,that this imbecile should have never been givin the job in the first place!Cut and dry he has to be removed!

TheOdlMan said...

I remember the '67 riots which is a big reason why I live way up in the mountains - I have a fear of mobs.

Anonymous said...

IMHO the USA should not be investing a dime or bailout out the euroean union with our tax dollars. Let the rest of the world fall into the ocean and take care of our people only. We need to be out of the UN, out of this one world economy and never become the socialist democrats dream of a one world order. These three things will destroy America. The first problem to resolve is geting rid of the 20,000,000 illegal alien we have on our soil overnight. www.anti-amnestyinternational.org