World stock slump hits second day

[malaise]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6402915.stm
<snip>
A global stock sell-off has moved into a second day, after a wobble in China sparked fears of a big price correction and hit UK, Asian and European indexes.

The UK's FTSE 100 index shed 1.9% in early trading. That took declines in the past two sessions to 4% and knocked £65bn off the market's total value.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

1. Just one of those things you knew was coming.

Kind of like the drunk who starts puking blood after drinking 1.75 liters of straight cheap vodka a day for months on end.

Actually, the similarity is rather startling.

[MADem]

2. But...but...it's just a GLITCH!!! Nothing to see, here...move along!

[Warren Stupidity]

3. When will the lying stop? nt

[malaise]

4. When these criminals are kicked out of power

Maybe this is the straw to break the camel's back.

[sendero]

5. It's times like these...

.. that I'm glad that very little of my retirement or savings is "invested" in the stock market. OTOH, my silver is doing great :)

[B Calm]

6. Corporations are homesteading our IRAs, 401k plans, Pensions, Mutual Funds, etc

[izzie]

7. My father who spent 45 years making money on stocks told me

you can count on people knowing what is going on on the market because they are the bank people who watch the world very well. Money always talks. Course one has to know which ones to talk to. But if many bankers are pulling their money I would be on edge. They all hear things we do not. Or it maybe they just put what they hear together better. I am sure they all bought when they heard Cheney would be Bush's vice. Even Bush the first is in arms.

[KharmaTrain]

8. For Everyone Losing Money, There's Someone Making It

That was one of the things my mother, who was a maven at stocks and bonds, would tell me. The game was to see who owed the money and who they owed it too...especially the banks...if they're lending like crazy, the market soars, if they're tightening, a correction is sure to follow. Also, it's where that money is moving...into the private sector (profit taking) or for mergers or bailouts...with the global economy, there's too many places to look these days.

The Chinese and Asian markets are "shedding" their speculators similar to the correction we saw in '98...when the market tanked over 300 points in a day (the Dow was closing in on 10,000 at the time). I remember all the doomsdayers predicting we'd all be selling apples on street corners...but it didn't happen. Just like now, it was the Asian markets that were melting down and massive infusions of cash from various reserves stopped the hemoraging...but that all but signaled the end of the dot com boom as banks started looking a lot closer on the loans they were writing for the start-ups.

In '98 it was China's Central Bank that was the hero and this looks like we could see this happen again. China's economic growth is hindged to our consumer markets...without all those fine WalMart shoppers buying, the Chinese machine really hits the skids.

Despite this regime's "optimistic" view of the economy...how great its doing...this year is already a mess. Wasting 60 billion of borrowed dollars on a war that hasn't returned anywhere near the profits it promised is going to be the real boat anchor on the American economy. As has been said before, never has a country gone to war and lowered taxes at the same time. Debt in the U.S. is soaring and the Fed's ham-handed playing with the interest rates has boxed them into a corner...raising rates will cover their asses, but force defaults and all but kill any housing market and economic expansion/growth that's left...lowering the rates and watch inflation come back in a way we haven't seen since the 70's.

There's a price to pay for those pallets of money that vanished in Baghdad as well as the other billions that have been squandered...all "off the book". Again...another Repugnican chestnut of them "being good for business" (exception Defense Contractors) is a joke.

Good luck to all today...let's hope this is just a shaking out...as all the markets seem to be affected.

[izzie]

10. I am sure your mother was right and this

a lot is the number making it and the number not doing that that really counts.

[KharmaTrain]

11. So Much Is Smoke & Mirrors

My parents were depression kids...they distrusted the stock market and invested in primarily in bonds and guaranteed securities. My mom would joke that stock money is money that really isn't money. Unless you cash out, it's all just numbers...not wealth. Witness all those who had Worldcom stocks who saw those go from top dollar to wallpaper in weeks. Stock rich and cash poor.

:hi:

Cheers...

[izzie]

12. My father said only money you did not need should be played with.

It was a side line thing with him but he loved to plan and watch then buy. I grew up having to read the Wall St.J even if it came in the mail and was a few days old. Odd little story. When my father died the lawyer had to get rid of his penny stock and was at a lose as this was sort of a side line with my father's reg. stocks. So the lawyer hunting around on how to do it and the expect said 'go to so and so he knows it all' and it was my father's name the stock expect gave my father's lawyer. I was born in the middle of the depression so guess it was the times that made so many so careful.

[KharmaTrain]

13. More Depression Mindset...

Thank you for sharing...

Sounds like we came from the same fiscal ethic. My parents never borrowed and maintained a ledger with every expense...even cash, itemized. The fear of credit was always a mantra around the house...I would catch hell if my parents learned I had tried to borrow money as they felt "if you don't have the money, you can't have it...you have to earn it". At the time I thought they were excessive in their paranoia of losing money or having others in control of it, but now I not only understand it, I appreciate it and practice many of the same things.

Many of our generations have grown up around a plastic economy and easy credit...building up huge debts with the mindset of "i need it now, I'll figure out how to pay for it later"...and get sucked into the bank rathole. Those who didn't end up bankrupt were saddled with being house and cash poor...throwing money at the banks they didn't realize they were going to when they pulled out the plastic and ran up the tab.

My mother's big interest was municipal bonds...especially the tax-free type. In the 70's, at the height of inflationmania, she cashed into some 20 and 30 year bonds at 12% and higher. She would joke people would always need to flush toilets, drive on roads and it'd be all but impossible for a municipality to go bankrupt.

Cheers...

:hi:

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

15. No one in my family ever invested in stocks

either on my mother's or father's sides, and they had large families. And my parents were the same as yours, they truly despised the idea of buying anything on credit. And I'm pretty much the same way; somehow I've managed to never accumulate any credit on any credit card apart from my monthly statements, although it hasn't always been easy.

I hate the fact that in today's world, everyone has to be an enterpreneur of their life. Life is a business in today's world. You need an MBA just to manage your life properly. Everyone has to be a stock investor just to make it. Just to make by, it seems you have to shop for the right credit card, the right accountant to give you the most tax deductions, the right stock, the right IRA account, the right bank, the right CD, the right health insurance, the right auto insurance, the right mortgage on your home, the right car loan, the right college loan for your kids, ad nauseum. And you have to constantly monitor all of these factors and switch constantly in order to get the best deal. You have to constantly be on the lookout to switch jobs on a moment's notice in favor of a better salary, or better perks, or to avoid being stuck with an employer who will eventually lay off their work force. And you always have to consider retraining in another field, just in case. In the day of my parents, and of their parent's parents, and in the generations that went before them, people just lived, they worked, they saved, they married, they bought a house, they raised a family, they sent their kids to school, and then they retired. Things were a lot less complicated and worrisome. Maybe that's just the way it is today, but frankly I just don't like the world we now live in.

[BlooInBloo]

14. Bullshit. If it's not "really" money, then Worldcom investors didn't lose anything....

It's the furthest thing in the world from smoke & mirrors.

EDIT: Errant "you" in subject line.

[terip64]

9. kick and recommend