Stocks creep up; Dow rises for seventh day running
Source: AP-Excite
NEW YORK (AP) - The stock market crept higher Monday, pushing the Dow Jones industrial average to its seventh straight day of gains.
Boeing was the Dow's top stock, surging 2 percent. A Boeing executive reportedly said he's confident the aircraft maker has figured out a fix for the battery problems that have grounded the 787 Dreamliner.
The last time the Dow rose for seven consecutive days was March 2012. The latest streak began last Tuesday, when the blue-chip index blew past its all-time high, then kept climbing to end the week up 2 percent.
On Monday, the Dow rose 50.22 points to end the day at 14,447.29, an increase of 0.3 percent.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130311/DA4V3UTG0.html
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graham4anything
(11,464 posts)
progressoid
(53,363 posts)there was any chance that the corporations that run this country would make those gains accessible to us working stiffs on the bottom.
olddots
(10,237 posts)Its okay I do it too 19 hours a day .Its envy okay " to whine is to live " Shecky Mellman
olddots
(10,237 posts)Just goes to show that the rich get richer and bla bla bla but I'm getting more angry at wealthy people and it does nobody any good because the 1%ers probably have mutated into a different life form.
lexw
(804 posts)slackmaster
(60,567 posts)You have to have skin in the game.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)install a swimming pool, buy a boat, go out to dinner, etc., creating business and profits for general contractors, plumbers, electricians, masons, builders, boat makers, waiters, and so on.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)It blunts the canard conservatives throw around regarding how "anti-business" Obama is.
lib2DaBone
(8,124 posts)The sad truth.. neither Japan nor China want to buy our Treasury debt bonds any longer.
Our Congress and Senate knew full well what was going on.. when they rewarded corporations for sending our jobs to China.
The state of our economy is not an accident.. it was done with full knowledge .... of what would happen.
Way back in the 90's.. Ross Perot warned us about the" giant sucking sound"... and all the politicians went along.
The problem is... our elected Politicians no longer represent the people. They represent the lobbyists who swarm over Capital hill like a fungus.
quaker bill
(8,265 posts)only replaced "money" which was evaporating - "at face value". The extent that people do not want to buy our bonds is vastly oversold. If people really did not want to buy US debt, interest rates would rise. Interest rates are still at historic lows. People are not flocking to treasury auctions because yields are near zero. Perot was not wrong, but it is very unclear that his answers to the problem were any better.
Psephos
(8,032 posts)The truth is, the Fed is buying about two-thirds of Treasuries, using "money" that they simply print - it has no actual wealth or assets behind it, so it represents nothing that any humans have made, owned, or invented.
They call this "Quantitative Easing." Its real name is Ponzi.
If the Fed stopped printing fake money - currently $85 billion/month - and using it to buy Treasuries, the interest rate on T-bills would rise at bare minimum to the historic norm of 5 - 6%, and the government would go bankrupt trying to pay the interest, which would jump half a trillion per year, coupled with the loss of borrowed money flowing in, at another 1 to 1.5 trillion per year. This would trigger the same kind of interest spike that Greece saw (went from 8% to 25% in two weeks, when the music stopped playing). The US dollar would be dumped as reserve currency, and the economy would freeze cold as government finance went into a death spiral that would end just as Zimbabwe's did.
Your concept of money evaporating at face value (whatever that means) and being replaced by a conscientious Fed dollar for dollar is so easily shown false that one can only guess what the emotional reasons are that drive your defense of the elites who are destroying us.
quaker bill
(8,265 posts)There is literally nothing different about the "dollars" that existed 10 years ago from the dollars that exist today or will exist tomorrow.
No money is fake, or all of it is. All of it being fake is closer to reality. It was only ever worth what we believe it has been worth.
The notion of a Greece like collapse of the US currency is a conservative / Paulite meme with roughly the same credibility as the notion of floride in the water as a means of mind control.
THe dollar will not be dropped as a reserve currency simply because far too many soveriegn wealth funds own far too many dollars to allow this to happen. Isn't happening and won't in your lifetime.
If you really believe this stuff, buy gold. (but if you are really smart and own some, sell, as all the old pros are going short).
Psephos
(8,032 posts)The US government is bankrupt by any standard under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Which means the value of its fiat currency is zero, once the music stops.
By law, for any business, unfunded future obligations must be moved onto the balance sheet with a present cost. But GAAP doesn't apply to the Treasury or Fed. Which means there's literally no accounting for the net present value of those future must-pays in the current "budget." (Haven't had one of those in four years, either.) It's like knowing you have to put aside money for your kid's college tuition, which starts next year by the way, but then you never get around to actually doing it - AND you shout down anyone who brings it up. Which means disaster when next year rolls around.
Even all the sacred SS money has been siphoned out and spent, with nothing in its place except IOUs that can only be redeemed by issuing more debt. It's a dog chasing its own tail.
The future obligations of the government, combined with its present debt and obligatory interest payments, are so massive (between 65 and 120 trillion dollars, depending on how rosy one's economic growth projections are) that they could not be paid even if the government confiscated every asset of every person and business. All the real estate, factories, oil and gas, cash, grandma's tchotchke collection...everything, all of it.
I suggest reading outside your current list. If you are hesitant or indignant to do so, it's often a sign that you've got selection bias. Selection bias neutralizes science and history.
Start with the Zero Hedge website. The articles and especially the discussion are usually awesome and enlightening.
quaker bill
(8,265 posts)Thanks.
The cool thing about deduction is that if you start with a faulty premise, some really strange stuff can seem to fully make sense. There has been some really interesting work by economists practicing in the real world that proves your first statement to be complete fantasy.
In short, all money of any sort is fiction. The notion that it is tied to something concrete is part of the fiction. It is useful for you to believe it. Enjoy the ride.
Psephos
(8,032 posts)"nothing more need be said"
the oldest fallacy of them all
magic59
(429 posts)Just another bubble waiting to shear some sheep.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)lexw
(804 posts)it seemed to mean things were looking up.
I no longer believe this. When I see the stock market going up, I just figure that money is going overseas.
ReRe
(12,189 posts)The rich are getting richer. (And the rest of us are getting poorer.) 
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)...sub-rich. Because of low interest rates, there really isn't any other practical place for middle-class people to invest retirement funds.
It's good to put money into your home, but you can never realize a profit until you sell or get into a reverse mortgage, and that may be going away.
Bank accounts pay diddly, bonds pay squat, precious metals just sit there and generally act as hedges against inflation but never pay dividends.
My Velvet Elvis Painting collection is mainly a hobby. It's always at risk from fire and theft.
From my personal POV it's nice to see stock prices get back on track after being suppressed for several years. My IRAs are worth more than ever right now. I did some re-balancing during the two big recession dips but didn't cash out anything except some silver I had lying around for more than 20 years.
ReRe
(12,189 posts)...as opposed to the 400 at the top 1% (above the sub-rich), and as opposed to the 300 million at the bottom 98.5% (below the sub-rich.) I think I understand your position.
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)I am certainly part of the 99%.
ReRe
(12,189 posts)...if I misinterpreted your reply to me. So you was explaining the "view" of the sub-rich, but you're not one of them, right? Really, I meant no snark. Respectfully... 
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)...Theatre one one of their famous record albums in the late 1970s to describe the condition of the middle class at a time of high inflation combined with stagnant economic growth; during the Carter Administration. It's a state of mind, an attitude created by a lifetime of working and saving but knowing that you will never be part of the ownership class no matter how hard or how long you work. I finished my undergraduate degree in 1975, graduating into a very difficult economic situation for a new university graduate.
I've been working for 32 years and saving whatever I could manage. I was wiped out - Reduced to a net worth of $0 - 13 years ago when I got divorced. It's been an uphill battle, and I don't expect to ever be wealthy nor do I have any desire to be so.
I have some retirement savings, mostly invested in stocks now. I earned every penny of it, and have never gotten an inheritance, been the beneficiary of a trust fund, had property given to me, etc.
ReRe
(12,189 posts)... I really honestly misunderstood what you was saying. Now, had my hubby read your reply, then he could have explained exactly what you meant by "chronically sub-rich," as he knew every word on that album. Me? Not so much. In the late 70s I was a single mother going to college full time and working part-time...i.e., I was bussssssy. We used to have that album, actually. But after years and children and moving around..I swear I have no idea what happened to it. If I found it, I'd have to go buy a turntable to play it on. 
We have a bunch of "stuff" in storage (I call it our family archives), and I imagine that's where it's at, along with allot of other albums of the day. Some vintage Elton John was in there. Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Harry Neilson (sp?) Sorry for your bad fortune all those years ago. At this point in my life I am happy with the basics. Will never be rich, nor, like you, would I want to be. If I was (lottery), I would give 75% of it away and go around the world in 80 days. Out of here... 
slackmaster
(60,567 posts)The FT was WAAAAAAY ahead of its time, foreshadowing such things as the War on Terror and invasive searches at airports decades before they became a daily reality.
davidpdx
(22,000 posts)and the Republicans creep us out. 
fredamae
(4,458 posts)before the 2008 crash also?