Last week, the news was about the 777.68-point drop in the stock market — the largest single-day decline in history (exceeding the previous record of 684.81 points on the first day of business following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks).
Yesterday, "[t]he Dow Jones Industrial Average fell as much as 800 points to trade below the 10,000 mark," reports Nick Godt of MarketWatch, "as nervousness over the credit crisis spread."
Eventually, as Godt reports, "hopes of a coordinated intervention to stop the bleeding in global markets helped the Dow recoup half of its losses, to close down 369 points, or 3.6%, to 9,955."
And he reports hopeful speculation that the markets could experience a "bounce" today — if there is a "coordinated rate cut by the three main central banks."
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that — although I guess it exists in the "anything is possible" realm.
It's one of life's ironies that it was only a year ago (on Oct. 9, 2007) that the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at the record level of 14,164.53 points.
And now, around one-third of that volume has disappeared. It seems to have vanished into thin air.
John McCain and Barack Obama are scheduled to hold their second presidential debate tonight. It will be done in the "town hall" format — first used in the 1992 presidential debates — in which members of the audience ask the questions in a freewheeling debate with no topic restrictions.
You might remember that 1992 debate. A man with a ponytail chastised Bill Clinton, Ross Perot and George H.W. Bush for their negative campaigns and tried to get them to promise to stop it and focus on the issues. His effort didn't succeed — but it was memorable.
I wouldn't be surprised if several questions tonight deal with the stock market and the financial crisis. That is what most affects Americans today.
The American people are entitled to know what the men who want to be the next president will do about the problem.
"Voters should demand that Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain level with them," writes the Dallas Morning News.
It seems to me that the truth is up for grabs.
"Did you hear about the U.S. senator who dared to utter an inconvenient truth about the poor quality of U.S. leadership and followership in taking on the looming entitlements disaster?
"'In what I regret to call a conspiracy of silence among all of the presidential candidates and most members of Congress, few of us are willing to talk about the real problem,' he said. 'Why? Because of the fear that if you address the issues honestly, you will lose votes — and possibly the election.'
"That brave senator had one colleague who rose to agree with him, saying of the Congress, 'Deep down in our hearts we know that we have bankrupted America and that we have given our children a legacy of bankruptcy. We have defrauded the country to get ourselves elected.'
"Good, right?
"Actually, it's depressing. Why? Because Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H., and Sen. Jack Danforth, R-Mo., made those statements, respectively, in 1992.
"Both left the Senate at the end of their terms. Nothing has changed — except that we're 16 years closer to the day of fiscal reckoning that will make this bleak and anxious autumn seem like a season in the sun."
Dallas Morning News
No comments:
Post a Comment