Way to go, guys: You made the Top Ten!

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…

10 thoughts on “Way to go, guys: You made the Top Ten!

  1. David

    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?

  2. Brad

    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…

  3. Steven Davis

    And people jumped out windows back in 1929 when the DOW dropped a combined 69 points over two days.

  4. Norm Ivey

    @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.

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