Thursday, October 09, 2008

The Dow Dives: Bailout in Action? Who can tell?

utterli-image
Got the above screencap from here: http://is.gd/3MTw (a live graphic of the Dow at NYTimes.com).



Now, I can't remember where I read this, but apparently that bailout bill that got passed won't kick in until after the election. So, all those billions of dollars won't go anywhere until it's too late. Now we watch as the Dow, the NYSE's main guidepost, nosedives to just above 8,000. So, no, this isn't the bailout at work, it's the bailout not existing for another month. Why should the market care about what will happen in a month's time if businesses can't function now?



It seems like no matter what the USG does it just can't follow it's own rules. First, the free market is supposed to be fine on its own. Then the bailout is supposed to help save the free market. And now... ?



OK, just checked the latest and now, at closing, it's back up to 8711. That puts the Dow down nearly 6% from yesterday. Specifically, it's down 547 points.



Can you say "weeee!"?



In case you're wondering, the Dow does not represent the market as a whole. It's just a chunk of it--the most important chunk. According to Wikipedia.org's entry for the Dow Jones Industrial Average (here: http://en.wikipedia.org/…l_Average), the DJIA is an average value : "...of 30 of the largest and most widely held public companies in the United States."



In short, when it goes down, people panic. Ultimately, though, the Dow usually climbs the day after a spectacular drop. However, it's kind of like how you feel so much better after you puke. It's not that you legitimately feel good, it's just that after your previous ordeal ANYthing feels better.



Then again, these days, everything's screwy and hard to predict, so who knows?



I mean, hey, the USG said that we had to move quickly, so why is all of that bailout money sitting around doing nothing during all of this? What was all that rush and lack of public discussion for?



Oh and it looks like I had my numbers wrong above--just checked the numbers again and while it looked like the Dow had rebounded a bit, it just went ahead and dropped again, making it down to 8579--that's a percentage drop of over 7% and a point drop of almost 680.



I guess that was the last drop of a really good rollercoaster ride--just when you were thinking "Oh, that was quite a ride! There's the exit coming up--WAHHHH!!!"



It's times like this when I ask just what the hell are our leaders up to?
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