Neutron bombs kill broad swaths of a human being without inflicting serious collateral explosive damage on physical infrastructure and systems. Fed monetary policy and GOP fiscal policy are like economic neutron bombs.
The early ‘risk on’ trade and big acquisition by IBM of Red Hat had the bulls and their spokesmodels all giddy this morning.
Alas, it was not meant to be—again.
Stocks gave up all their morning gains, and sold off hard, although they did come off the lows of the day as the financial TV carnies pointed out so hopefully.
‘What will turn this market around?’ they plaintively whined. ‘The puppies aren’t eating the puppy food’.
US equities will soon be coming out of the ‘blackout period’ for buybacks of their own stocks, which has been a major and sustaining force of stock price gains in this latest financial asset bubble. Before they were financing these buybacks, designed to hollow out the company’s value while enhancing executive option gains, with corporate debt.
Now they also have a huge grant from the US government in the form of tax cuts in addition to the tax subsidies for executive compensation. The wealth transfers will continue until they can no longer be sustained— because it pays so well for the decisionmakers.
It’s a big club— and you aren’t in it. No matter what political party of economic school to which you proudly pledge your loyalty and proclaim your faithfulness. You are not counted by them as among the winners. You are cannon fodder, food for predators, a foolish chunk of meat.
The dollar was up again today, to the higher levels of its recent trading range. Gold and silver were lower as a consequence, although gold came back a bit on a big stock sell-off.
