Dow is getting crushed

"and when all else fails, make shit up. barney frank is my hero?"

Did I misunderstand the following quote HR? Is hero and love that far apart?

Happyrenter - "if you are going to insult me at least get your facts in order. middle office? please. but i do love that barney frank--brilliant man. "

"i'd much prefer unbalanced."

That is pretty evident.

yes, i love barney frank. yes, barney frank is brilliant. no, barney frank is not my hero. is that too complicated for you?

JM - I don;t think you recognize how important the glow worm is to society. Please educate your self on all-things-glow worm before you tear down the poor little critter.

waverly, how can you be mixed up in all this liberal propaganda? You are way to smart for that :)

And help me learn to typ while you're at it....I'll buy you a glo-worm.

JuiceMan, have you ever been to Berkeley? Or Brown? Or Oberlin (so I hear anyway)? They make Harvard look like Washington and Lee.

my academic advisor was robert nozick (before he got too sick to teach). nyc10022, as an expert in political philosophy, clearly knows all about him, but for any of you who don't know he wasn't exactly a quintessential lefty.

s&p closes *up* today -- obama a genius!!!

Hey, they knocked down my noisy screaming block capitals!!!

Oh boy - I can't believe it - Meathead starts things up and again we get over 100 comments. So much for not feeding the Trolls. Obama won the election - end of story.

happyrenter, do you support the plight of the glo-worm?

Are you really trying to convince us that Harvard isn't a place where liberals go to learn more about liberal activism? You are completely in denial.

10022 - I think Obama needs to find his voice also, and soon. I've always said that this economic team is a fiasco. But I don't think it because of the market.

I knew that the two comments weren't intertwined, btw. May have difficulties with grammar, but can read.

I want a glo-worm.

"don't 'think it,' i know it and experience it. my secretary pays a significantly higher effective tax rate than i do on her 85k salary. with long-term capital gains taxed at 15%, and taking into account payroll taxes, her tax rate is 30-40% higher than mine."

Yes, who needs the actual data proving him wrong... leftie has an anecdote!

Also, on the ivies as liberal note, NYMag (not exactly a conservative rag) did a poll on party affiliation of Ivy professors. It was crazy.... something like 80-90% democrat, some independent, and less than 5% republican.

Anyone claiming that academia isn't left leaning is lying or a moron.

"yes, i love barney frank. yes, barney frank is brilliant. no, barney frank is not my hero. is that too complicated for you?"

Yes, backpedal away!

> JuiceMan, have you ever been to Berkeley? Or Brown?

That a place is slightly less liberal than the most liberal campuses on earth.. thats supposed to prove a point? bjw, are you actually trying to use this as a logic point? Thats reaching.

Like it or not, academia has swung way left, going back years.

nyc10022, I think bjw was adding to the point not disagreeing with it.

alanhart - they are stifling your screaming on an anonymous board....bastards!

Be a patriot and buy a glo-worm. You will support our economy. This is the way that we will fix things. Glo-worms for everyone!

Thanks JuiceMan. It's ok, I just think nyc10022 has a little case of logorrhea today.

When I was 4 I wanted a glo-worm so bad and my parents refused to buy one for me. It's good to see there wasn't any permanent psychological scarring.

> nyc10022, I think bjw was adding to the point not disagreeing with it.

unsuccessfully, then....

Dow doesn't get crushed today -- it does the crushing! Up 0.09% at close! Wall St. is gaga for the stimulus plan!

waverly -- you should have been more persistent (in fact, you can start again now).

The Wikipedia suggests several other special friends for you beside The Glo Worm hisself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glo_Worm

I'd say a <1% gain is more "ok with" than "gaga"...but at least it's a start

My bad -- the Dow did indeed get crushed: *down* 0.09%, not *up*

Apologies to all those I hurt by spreading disinformation.

So in the realm of measuring presidents via the Dow, does down .09% make Obama a slight disappointment today? Perhaps almost mediocre?

alanhart - very funny! I have to say I am a traditionalist, so when my wife and I do have kids they will get the original glo-worm. And of course, I will get to play with it too. Yeah, add this to the list of reasons for therapy. And BTW, shame on you for spreading disinformation. You must hate America.

Only fly-over country.

j/k!!!

"So in the realm of measuring presidents via the Dow, does down .09% make Obama a slight disappointment today? Perhaps almost mediocre?"

about 400 down since the announcement

as for daily fluctuations, ask the guy who tried to make a point with 36 points up...

NYC - Just to clear-up your misinformation. It was you who pointed to Obama as not being an effective leader becasue the Dow was down. Following your faulty logic, I then proposed that by your standards Obama must have been an effective leader yesterday becasue the Dow was up. Of course it was a ridiculous statement. It was purposely ridiculous to show you how faulty your logic was. You failed to understand that and just ran with the "ask the guy who tried to make a point with 36 points up" part...which just proved my point again and again.

> It was you who pointed to Obama as not being an effective leader becasue the Dow was down

Nope, incorrect premise, and your argument flops from there.

My point was his handling of the plan announcement and specifics) with Geither... horrible market reaction to that, so obviously it was a mistep there.

"It was purposely ridiculous to show you how faulty your logic was."

Well, you got the ridiculous part right, but not the judgment of logic.

> You failed to understand that

No, I got what you attempted, you just failed at it.

"about 400 down since the announcement" ... and about where it was on February 2. alanhart and I are making the same point -- the stock market is not a reflection on how good a job the President or Treasure Secretary are doing. Cross-reference Bush's popularity rating at the time of the Dow's peak, if you must.

"the stock market is not a reflection on how good a job the President or Treasure Secretary are doing."

In specific reactions to specific policies made to address market confidence and functioning?
It absolutely is...

A market tanks 400 points specifically because of the words out of someone's mouth, designed to get the markets functioning, and you think its irrelevant?

Thats just being silly.

> the stock market is not a reflection on how good a job the President or Treasure Secretary are doing

In the medium term, I do actually agree with you. Long term is tough, depends on what the other factors are. But short term votes of no-confidence. Those are absolutely telling when its market confidence you are trying to build.

"A market tanks 400 points specifically because of the words out of someone's mouth"

prove it

Imagine for just a second that Wall Street expected Geithner to push through the type of bank-saving provisions that they wanted (relaxation of mark to market, buying bad assets, etc). Not an unreasonable expectation given his background. Then they priced that into the market over the last weeks. Now they don't get it and start selling. Does that mean that Geithner screwed up? You may think so but it is certainly arguable that buying toxic assets at high value is not the solution.

Uhhh....no. You seem to think everyone is wrong, but you. Your words:

"We had dow at 9k pre-obama.
So, at some point Obama has to start taking responsibility for the new government...
so either it is calculating in what they think his actual effect is, or he's just a cheerleader and he failed at that.
Either way, the one thing he can do (and NEEDS to do) is inspire confidence and he's not doing that very well.
his primary role right now is instilling confidence
We're off 600 points and still sinking days later... and we were at 9k weeks ago. This isn't daily, this is just more of a negative trend.
He needs to do better."

And just for good measure, let's also criticize a person who is agreeing with you because you are so darn self-righteous:

nyc10022, I think bjw was adding to the point not disagreeing with it.
unsuccessfully, then....

> Your words:

Yes, my words. Your point?

"Imagine for just a second that Wall Street expected Geithner to push through the type of bank-saving provisions that they wanted (relaxation of mark to market, buying bad assets, etc). Not an unreasonable expectation given his background. Then they priced that into the market over the last weeks. Now they don't get it and start selling. Does that mean that Geithner screwed up? You may think so but it is certainly arguable that buying toxic assets at high value is not the solution. "

two levels.... it doesn't mean Geithner screwed up policy.... just rollout of such.

As for the policy being right, we shall see.... (but not before we actually see it).

> let's also criticize a person who is agreeing

Funny way to "agree".... note that something is liberal and "agreeing" is nothing that something else is MORE liberal?

Saying that as agreeing is just silly.... especially when traditionally when providing examples making something seem comparatively LESS so that original point made is used as argument against.

But, hey, I know you're not big on the logic.

"it doesn't mean Geithner screwed up policy.... just rollout of such." or, maybe investors did not get what they expected to get and it would not have made much difference if he had written out longhand.

Haha...such the need to put others down (grasshopper, you're not big on logic, you’re unbalanced, genius, you’re confused, you are crazy and idiot). You may want to take a step back and realize how off-base you are and crank the condescension down by a large amount.....of course you won't. You will unleash more of it, think you're even more "right, and just prove again how wrong you are.

I'm going to eat a giant steak now....have a great night all!

Amen waverly! Just don't try to tell him you're "dumbing" something down, because he thinks that's a personal insult...

What happened to happyrenter? Is he watching those CNN mini-series again? What’s on tonight? “Barney Frank and asset based egalitarianism” or “Harvard University welcomes evangelicals”?

Market closed up.

Mixed.

If the goes down this Monday, we'll know Obama's bad. Otherwise, it means he's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

juiceman, where did you go to college, bob jones university? all of the top universities in the united states have mostly liberal professors. you know why? because the majority of people with phds are liberals. so what? one of my best friends from college is a staunch liberal and clerked at the supreme court for antonin scalia. another friend is a staunch conservative and clerked for john paul stevens.

harvard is a school--an academic institution. the particular partisan affiliations of professors is beyond irrelevant. as i said, my academic advicer was robert nozick, the leading right libertarian philosopher in the united states for thirty years. it was, again, irrelevant that i am a far-left liberal and he a right libertarian. we were doing academic work together, not having partisan shouting matches. do you understand the difference?

today was confusing. the dow was up slightly, but the s and p was down slightly. not sure whether that makes geithner an idiot or a genius. perhaps it means geithner is a genius but obama is a fool?

btw, i'm still waiting for our great expert in political philosophy, nyc10023, to let us know who he studied to develop his ideas. none of the above? maybe it was arendt? husserl? pierce? james? kierkegaard? lessig? constant? de tocqueville? rorty?

you know that my academic advisor was robert nozick and that the dissertation i never wrote was going to be on russell and berkley. who influenced your brilliant concept that the primary job of a head of state is to serve as a cheerleader?