Houston, we have liftoff!

And that's with GM in the tank.

BINGO!

And the Muslim world seems to have an awful lot of it. I guess when you spend every minute of your schooling repeating the Koran it doesn't leave much time for US Civics

Try again:

BINGO!

http://finance.yahoo.com/?u

Don't know what happened with the last post.

Gold-plated diapah's, my babies!

But.. but Tubby says there's no boom. Oh, who to believe?

What was the DJIA on the day that Bush took office? How much progress have we made? How does it compare to the increase during Clinton's first five years?

Krugman's response: "Why isn't it 11,500? BUSH IS A CHIMP!"

But, Michigan's horrible economy is all George Bush's fault.

Drudge is touting this as being the first time since 9/11 that the DJI's gone over 11K. Of course on the Yahoo chart he links to it has the 52 week high as 11,027. I was talking to our merchant banking guy and he said that it was more accurate to say that several of the contributing indicators were at their highest since 9/11.

Bingo! Another great milestone in the boom.

Cordially...

Drudge is touting this as being the first time since 9/11 that the DJI's gone over 11K.

The prissy nuthead who is talking about the Clinton years and the Dow probably invested in SPACE.COM. Dude, it was a Ponzi scheme. Clinton should have been telling the American People that investing in an internet bubble with your retirement savings is not a good idea. It was day trading deja vu. We all knew it didn't make sense, and to compare it now as some standard of good or rational times is Streisandish.

but it's possible that everybody on Wall Street had seen a document entitled blah blah blah Bush is the Anti-Christ

Or maybe it was the Dot Com bubble bursting. Bush did it. Thomas Jefferson said so.

Of course the Dow had been on a negative trajectory as of April, 2000. Now, how could Bush have been responsible for the stock market's neagtive movement nine months before Bush even took office? The simple answer is that on the top floor of the Dow is a pool that contains three submersed individuals. These three people have amazing precognitive capabilities. For short, we'll call them preclogs.

(preclogs? Don't you mean precogs?

Shhh. Do you want to get sued?)

Anyway, sometime in April of 2000 these preclogs simultaenously bellowed, "tax cuts for the wealthy." Intuitively knowing that this signalled that presidential candidate George W. Bush would in fact win (oh, excuse me, steal) the 2000 election and enact a fiscally irresponsibletaxcutthatwouldbenefitonlytherichest1%ofAmericans™, the barons of Wall Street began selling off their stocks in droves, igniting a severe stock market correction.

And now you know the rest of the story.

The DOW started down in 2001 for a simple reason. Bush brought the law to town and went after the criminal CEO/CFO's. Doesn't anyone remember the over 1,000 that have been ran out of the business, some with a stop at the Federal pen. Several more are under indictment and are turning on each other like trapped rats, er democrats. (same thing)
The phony stock market of the 90's and the criminals in the white house that let it happen cost millions of people their life savings and retirement accounts. Algore should be shot for hyping what most high school graduates knew was a con, something called WorldCom.

Wasn't 2,000 American dead in Iraq just an "artificial milestone" or "artificial mark on the wall "?" How is DJIA 11,000 any less artificial?

Dot Com Bubble? Hey, I invested (in my own industry). And now I'm quite comfortably retired at age 60.

The fact that it's not at 11,500? I blame the Jews.

This is for Bob Munch:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EDJI&t=5y

The last 5 years of the Dow, showing the upward climb beginning in early 2003 after the Republicans took back control of the Senate and cut taxes.

And remember that the Dow has now broken 11,000 notwithstanding that one of its components - GM - has been disembowled and is in the process of being eaten alive by its hard-core Democrat labor unions. One more example of the Democrats' parasites destroying a portion of the economy.

That was the Reagan boom that lasted until Bill Clintstone raised taxes.

Anyone have quote about how Bush was gonna start the next Great Depression with his tax cuts?

Anyway, more good news on the economy, and this is done without a tech bubble. So, hopefully its hardier than the Clinton Bubble which went poof in March 2000. The economy has weathered Katrina and high gas prices and the squandered "good will" of Spain and France.

So, whats the negative spin gonna be? Are women and minorities hardest hit?

I've got mine, fuck everybody else that lost their money in that dot.com boom, which by the way was Bush's fault even though he wasn't President yet. Old hippies rule!

Wasn't 2,000 American dead in Iraq just an "artificial milestone" or "artificial mark on the wall "?" How is DJIA 11,000 any less artificial?

You're making me hot when you talk like that Bob. This is why I never have to do any work.

One more example of the Democrats' parasites destroying a portion of the economy.

They were, in effect, borrowing from their employees and promising (contractually) to pay them back in the future. That enabled them to make nice quarterly profits, pay their executives huge salaries and bonuses, and generally run the company in a wasteful way. Now the bill is coming due, and it certainly isn't wrong of the employees and former employees to ask to be paid what they were promised. A contract is a contract; management signed it too.

You know, conservatives used to think that it was a bad thing to live beyond your means, to spend today by borrowing money that you'll have to pay back tomorrow. What ever happened to those guys?

I think Munck has a point. GM signed an economically stupid contract. What, they are already in the hole about $2000 for each auto that rolls off the assembly line. I didn't know that economically conservative bloggers wrote the contract, but we catch your drift.

Luckily, there is more than one auto manufacturer in America. Ricardo's Rule of Comparative Advantage also means that American products that are produced under better mangament and whatnot have offset GM in America's economy of the new millenium.

But GM's contract is different from deficeit spending because this type of borrowing (which GM's is not) is directed towards the idea of future growth. Its the difference between entitlement spending and spending that fuels the economy (Boeing has to hire people and buy tools, etc. to make bombers), while social security is more of a pyramid scheme that requires more and more people to buy into the system.

I read someplace that GM stopped being in the car business a long time ago. It's basically an insurance company now, with elements of merchant banking. It's main purpose now is to support the legions of retired workers.

Which of course cannot happen indefinitely.

Was GM stupid to sign on to benefits like this? Yes, but then so are lots of other entities (like State and City governments, who will have a very rude wake-up call soon -- see the example of Duluth). The Unions have their own squalid responsibility for this mess, but as usual they'll play the standard card of "standing up for the working man" and deny all culpability. Basically, Unions want to pretend that it's still 1950, not 2006. They want to pretend there is no such thing as world markets, a global labor pool, supply and demand, or skyrocketing health-care costs. Nope -- it's all about them. And if it means bankrupting the company so their 50-year-old employees can retire with full benefits then so be it.

Unions are worthless, and public sector unions are an outrage that any taxpayer should be offended by.

Public sector unions, definately worthless. Read the WSJ report based on new union disclosure laws that shows one teachers' union (not exactly a PSU) shoveled $60M of "the little guy's money" to various lefty pet causes.

But, hey, the UAW were doing their job in negotiating. Someone with a degree in a field related to math, business or economics should have pointed out all the above points and refused. Its a negotiation after all.

You know, conservatives used to think that it was a bad thing to live beyond your means, to spend today by borrowing money that you'll have to pay back tomorrow. What ever happened to those guys?

Oh, we're still here, we're just not being represented in Congress at the moment. But you don't really care about that, do you, Bob? Your disingenuousness is glaring.

Joeindc44 - GM may have signed a 'stupid' contract, but as a practical matter what choice did they have? Face a crippling strike with Big Media hounding them at every step of the way, or give in and hope for a miracle. Soemtimes a company has no choice but to gamble on its long-term survival in order to survive for the next few years.

Bob Munch - Using the phrase "the promising of generous future retirement and health benefits to its workers" makes it sound like GM's management unilaterally made that decision, when in fact these benefits were the product of GM's management dealing as best they could with their unions' short-sighted, greedy demands.

In the end unions will destroy 'the goose that lays the golden eggs' - see the US steel and airline industries , and now the US autos, because Ford is actually not far behind GM on the road to ruin. Guaranteed healthcare beneifits alone will be the death of both companies unless the taxpayers are strong-armed into picking up the tab.

I notice you didn't comment on the stock market's rise after the GOP cut taxes in 2003.

Basically, Unions want to pretend that it's still 1950, not 2006. They want to pretend there is no such thing as world markets, a global labor pool, supply and demand, or skyrocketing health-care costs. Nope -- it's all about them.

If you aren't a member of a union, then of course unions are worthless to you. They're not looking out for you, they're looking out for ... wait for it ... their members. If management has signed stupid contracts in the past that are now going to bankrupt the company, that's their fault; they're the ones who are supposed to know not to do that. If GM dies because it was badly run, that's Capitalism; that's the Marketplace; that's the way things work in our system.

The unions aren't there to make sure that you can buy a GM car; they're there to make sure that their retired members can buy food, medication, and a nice Prius to drive down to the Early Bird special at Applebys.

Bob Munck:

The pity of it is that if the company goes bankrupt, the pension fund goes poof too! (Unless the government bails it out...) And then GM isn't paying the pension, but the US taxpayer is. And that's my objection -- eventually, the Union's intransigence and GM's stupidity is costing me money.

Frankly, if the Union thinks it's hunky dory to drive GM out of business, fine...just let them bear the costs themselves if the pension money runs out. (Or demand that the Mob return some of the hundreds of millions it's gotten from the Teamsters and AFL/CIO over the years.)

Real Capitalism means you pay for making bad decisions and rewards you for making good ones. It does not mean that you are isolated from market forces by a magical "contract" -- you made your contract with GM, not with me or any other taxpaying citizen. So why should we have to bail your asses out?

The pity of it is that if the company goes bankrupt, the pension fund goes poof too!

You seem to be assuming that I'm a union member. Never have been, of any union, not have I ever been an employee of GM. I was one of the managers on the (outsourced) development of a management information system for GM many years ago (it ran on Multics!). I was not, at the time, impressed with the intellectual acuity of GM management.

'a magical "contract"'?? Don't you believe that contracts should be enforced? How about all the golden parachutes, stock option deals, etc. in the employee contracts of the GM management?

Don't you believe that contracts should be enforced?

If GM is out of business, then so is the union's contract. It seems pretty basic to me. The union didn't sign a contract with me, so why should I help pay to bail them out? The government doesn't owe GM's unions a goddamned dime.

(Hit POST too fast...)

How about all the golden parachutes, stock option deals, etc. in the employee contracts of the GM management?

Well, according to your logic, the GM guys were just out for what they could get. If it's okay for the union guys, why not management? If the shareholders don't care, why do you?

This is the essence of the argument: a badly-run company will inevitably go tits-up. As GM is proving. There's nothing new about that. But the Unions don't want to admit that their own policies helped to make the business unprofitable by demanding unreasonable concessions -- health care and pension benefits being only two. You can argue about whether management had any real choice in agreeing to the contract, but the end result is the same -- the company is dead.

Now, all those retirees who were depending on Union-brokerered pension deals are all of a sudden in a crack. The contract may be legal, but so what? The company is gone, so the contract is null and void. The pensioners essentially become beggars to the public coffers: they'll take a percentage of their pension rate (rarely if ever full value) because they have no other choice. Now, if they'd saved their own money in a 401(k) or even an old-style retirement passbook account, this wouldn't happen -- it's their money (and probably would have accrued a good bit more interest than a GM pension). So nobody wins -- not GM, not the union, and not the retirees or current workers. I don't see how the union did any good at all, given how things turned out.

If you aren't a member of a union, then of course unions are worthless to you. They're not looking out for you, they're looking out for ... wait for it ... their members.

And this, Bob, is part and parcel with whats wrong with unions. A short story.

I started my career at AT&T just post divesture, a messy time to be sure. We were moving our office literally across the hall onew week. This had been scheduled for months, mostly because we had to contract with our own union technicians to move our phones and computers. When I say move I mean literally carry them across the hall. As the branch manager it was my responsibility to coordinate all of this and make sure they we made the move at 5pm on Friday night and were up and running by 8am Monday morning.

When the union technicians, our fellow employees mind you, didn't show up by 11 pm Friday night I made the decision to have my sales and engineering team move our own equpiment. The union techs never showed until 8:30 Monday morning when the shop steward arrived in my office with a grievance. I was hauled in front of the union and a formal complaint was filed against me (3 of those and you were done btw). When I tried to explain that we all worked for the same company and I was simply trying to make sure that we were up and running Monday morning and could do our jobs I was informed by the foreman that "We don't work for AT&T, we work for the union.:

Spare me the homilies about Ma and Pa union taking their simple drive to Appleby's. The days when unions served a worthwile purpose died with the buggy whip.

JackStraw,

Oh, God, another AT&T refugee!

I worked for AT&T for about a year and a half in the early '90's. I made a big stink about joining the CWA -- I wasn't a union man then any more than I am now. My managers put some pressure on me; they said that the shop foreman could "cause problems" if I didn't join the CWA. I almost had to bring in a labor lawyer, but I never did join.

And a good thing, too. In 1992, the AT&T unit I was part of was shut down. The shop steward (a blue collar guy, a Teamster) made sure that the Teamsters were taken care of -- got them transfers, new jobs, upgrades, what have you. He basically told the CWA people to fuck themselves. The union was all about seniority. Skills, merit, need -- they gave a shit about none of it. All that mattered was time. About 800 CWA people got the axe, and the union basically just waved and advised them not to let the door hit their asses on the way out.

There was a big lawsuit, and the CWA local lost about half its members in that particular fiasco. I was out as well, but at least I had the pleasure of knowing that I had not contributed dime-one of dues money to that worthless waste of a union or its corrupt organization.

Dot Com Bubble? Hey, I invested (in my own industry). And now I'm quite comfortably retired at age 60.

Posted by Bob Munck at January 9, 2006 05:31 PM

ROBBER BARON CORPORATE FASSCCCCCCCCCCIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISTTTTTTTTT!!!

Me there at 8:12 p.m.

I will note in passing that people of a certain age -- say, late fifties onward -- seem to have kinder feelings towards unions than younger people do. I think this is because they were the main beneficiaries of unionization -- they got out before the shit hit the fan. Just ask a UAW line-worker at any of the Big Three plants what the union has done for him lately -- you're likely to get an earful.

And Sue: I think fascist is the wrong insult in this context. A better one is probably capitalist pig or exploiter of the working class. I don't have my copy of Das Kapital handy, so I can't say for sure.

I don't have my copy of Das Kapital handy, so I can't say for sure.

Where's egastularius when you need him?

So, I guess this all means that the Dow didn't hit 11000?

Fuck all that. I want to see Bob use the graves of dead Americans as a soapbox to complain about the economy again. Go on, Bob. Do it again. DO IT. "Support the troops" like the disgusting shitweasel you are!

BECAUSE YOU CARE SO MUCH.

Where's egastularius when you need him?

Giving three dollar blowjobs to hobos.

But since the hobos don't have three dollars, the State's making him do it for free.

Oh, unions are great. They're the ones who fight for NYC transit workers to retire at age 50 and shit like that, right? Gimme a fucking break.

Bob, why do you think jobs are leaving the US? Or at best, moving to states that aren't filled with union thugs? Are you that detached from the obvious?

You seem to be assuming that I'm a union member. Never have been, of any union, not have I ever been an employee of GM.

Of course you haven't. Typical. It's easy to preach what's best for the little guy from a patronizing position of comfort, isn't it? You know what's best for those simple little blue-collar worker bees, don't you! I'm sure a web/software engineer (did I get that right?) knows ALL about the corporate world and union activity. Cute.

Typical dumbass baby-boomer bullshit. Your revolution is over! The bums lost! Condolences!

Beth:

It's been a peeve of mine for years that the fastest-growing unions are public and federal employees. Doesn't that make you want to puke? I thought there ought to be legislation against any taxpayer-funded position even being eligible for union membership -- if a taxpayer is paying your salary, you got not fucking call to go on strike, pal.

Regan had the right idea when he shitcanned the aircraft flight controllers.

Grrr. The whole thing just angries up my blood.

I've worked for both the UAW (Mazda) and the Teamsters (UPS). Unions are like poison for a company. Protect mediocre workers and demand unaffordable benefits for all, long term be damned.

Don't even get started on the teacher's unions. Nothing but muscle for the left wing fruitcakes.

How about all the golden parachutes, stock option deals, etc. in the employee contracts of the GM management?

Well, according to your logic, the GM guys were just out for what they could get. If it's okay for the union guys, why not management?

But the Unions don't want to admit that their own policies helped to make the business unprofitable by demanding unreasonable concessions -- health care and pension benefits being only two.

Now the bill has come due, and it's not the current employees and pensioners who are making the business unprofitable, it's those managers from back in the good old days who traded* the company's future for stock and bonuses. I'll bet the smart ones sold their company stock as soon as they could, because they knew what was coming.

Now, if [the workers had] saved their own money in a 401(k) or even an old-style retirement passbook account, this wouldn't happen -- it's their money (and probably would have accrued a good bit more interest than a GM pension).

The contract may be legal, but so what? The company is gone, so the contract is null and void.

*I originally had a word here that is used when people borrow to fund housing; I wasn't allowed to submit a comment with that word in it. Weird.

I originally had a word here that is used when people borrow to fund housing; I wasn't allowed to submit a comment with that word in it. Weird.

Probably a spam filter to prevent the onslaught of mortg*ge company ads. But with the mu.nu filter, who knows? Sometimes it doesn't like certain letters, or certain common suffixes to URLs, or common words. The mu.nu filter giveth and it taketh away . . .

With a little more credit inflation you could puff the dow bubble to 12000.