This just recently in from The Wall Street Journal:
Today’s rout ranks as the sixth-largest point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in history. Here is a list of the top 10:
Date and decline
9/29/2008 — 777.68 points
10/15/2008 — 733.08 points
9/17/2001 — 684.81 points
12/1/2008 — 679.95 points
8/8/2011 — 634.76 points
4/14/2000 –617.78 points
10/27/1997 — 554.27 points
10/22/2008 — 514.45 points
8/4/2011 — 512.76 points
I just want everybody involved in this achievement to get credit. So when I say, “Way to go, guys,” I’m including everyone. The SC5 and their spiritual brethren, of course — couldn’t have done it without you. No one played a bigger immediate role in recent days. But let’s have a big hand for Speaker Boehner and the Establishment crowd, for not standing up to them and keeping their caucus in line. And to President Obama for, I don’t know, for failing to magically make people come to the table. Or for the stimulus that didn’t help enough. Or whatever. And W. for creating the new prescription drug benefit without paying for it. And LBJ, I guess, for giving him the idea by creating Medicare.
And let’s not neglect the private sector, the engine of America’s lack of prosperity: There are, of course, all those scared-of-their-shadow investors. And all the corporations and others who have been sitting on cash and refusing to take the risk of investing it throughout this four-year crisis. And the American consumer for failing since 2008 to keep the economy afloat by spending like it’s going out of style, the way they did for the few years before that. (I did MY part, right up until this past weekend.)
Everybody give everybody a great big hand…
Related Posts
The GOOD news, though, is that we didn’t even make the Top Twenty on percentage losses, at a mere 5.6 percent. So that’s something, right?
Who said Time Travel is impossible? I am watching my IRA and 401k return to 2008.
Well, I certainly feel better…
And all the corporations and wealthy individuals who have been sitting on cash and refusing to take the risk of investing it throughout this four-year crisis. And the American consumer for failing since 2008 to keep the economy afloat by spending like it’s going out of style, the way they did the few years before that.
You don’t have to be wealthy to invest. Are we non-wealthy supposed to only participate in the economy as consumers?
David, you missed the point of the sentence.
People are sitting on cash. We’re talking significant amounts. That is, by definition, wealth. As opposed to income or any other measure.
Perhaps I should have left the modifier out, as it was redundant: If you are sitting on wealth, you are wealthy.
Forgive me, though, because I failed to add the link to what I was talking about before you read the post…
In fact, I should have just left out individuals altogether, since the story I refer to deals with “corporate executives, bank leaders and money-market fund managers.”
So my bad. I accept service on causing the confusion.
I’m not very good at the class warfare thing, so when I try to engage in it, I do it clumsily…
And people jumped out windows back in 1929 when the DOW dropped a combined 69 points over two days.
@Steven
That whole jumping out of windows thing–satisfying as it may be to imagine–is an urban legend. The suicide rate increased during the depression as it does during all economic downturns, but examples of brokers jumping out of windows in 1929 are hard to come by.
I’m yelling at Congress: “Jump!”
Just do it higher than the second floor of Congress. Jump out a window from a high skyscraper.
Please?