So far, the US economy has reacted like Pavlov’s dog to every single move by Washington, either salivating or foaming at the mouth. Lehmann Bros was the start of this apparent fixation on Federal funding. So far it looks like nobody's seen the logic.
The markets haven't been analyzing the moves too well. They don't seem to be following the patterns at all. Bear Stearns, which was handling big government loans, had to be bailed out. There wasn't a choice. A floor had to be put under the subprimes. Again, no choice, because a lot of business would have fallen over.
When people do the right things, like Citigroup and Bank of America's deep cuts, unpleasant as they are, the market panics. Nobody's even acknowledged, while talking about the credit crunch, what that actually means.
No credit = a lot less business.
A lot less business = A lot less jobs.
A lot less jobs = A lot less business, therefore less money for loans.
Now we have a big, inept, industry which is starting to look like it’s very late for its own funeral, asking for money from a Treasury which does have other things on its mind. The markets "naturally" panic, apparently it’s the law, even when they’re well aware of the reasons for the problem.
The short answer to the auto industry situation is “Would you buy a used industry from these people?”
That’s not the real issue facing the markets, though. Nobody’s even
talking about doing business any more. Have a look at the current
Bloomberg main page. If you can find a word about any of these fat cats actually talking about business, or doing any real trade, congratulations, buy a lottery ticket.
This is the typical How Awful approach, everybody talking about sinking, nobody bailing out the lifeboat.
The intellectual slum formerly known as Wall Street might want to start wondering what it’s still doing there. It used to be known as a hub of financial wisdom, now it’s a pretty shoddy gossip column. Despite which, everything seems to come as a surprise.
Bloomberg
is well worth reading for some information. Net personal wealth in the US is simply dissolving. Asset values are showing real time deflation, in terms of housing prices and stocks. Which makes a lot of unemployable suits holding wakes for their industries look pretty trivial.
Bloomberg:
.
Net worth for households and non-profit groups decreased by $2.81 trillion, the most since records began in 1952, according to the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds report issued today in Washington. Real-estate-related assets declined by $646.9 billion, three times the prior quarter’s drop.
Combined with the loss of 1.9 million jobs so far this year, almost half of which occurred in the last two months, and the slump in bank financing since the credit crisis intensified, the figures darken an already gloomy outlook for consumer spending. President-elect Barack Obama has called for a stimulus package of unprecedented size as the economy slides toward the longest postwar recession.
This loss of asset values, in two paragraphs, is the real story. A snapshot of a failed economy. The culture has moved from Conspicuous Consumption to Conspicuous Cowering. It’s not a great look, is it?
If the US auto industry wants to play Rip Humvee Winkle for 18 years, that’s very much another story.
Call that 2 million jobs. Current figures are that 1 in 10 Americans is living on food stamps. And these guys want what? Sympathy? No, money.
That money can be better spent, if push comes to shove. Obama’s basic idea about a stimulus package is right, but this shouldn’t be just a new way of pumping adrenalin into a corpse. That money has to generate business, not gossip, or flights on private jets to get handouts. The credit market has to restart for anything to happen, and that takes cash, not corporate cretinism.
If the auto industry wants a handout, it has to perform. Nobody is going to support any scenario where all that happens is more of the same.
If the market wants good news, it better start making some. In case it’s forgotten, global business isn’t a charity. If it wants a soup kitchen, it can make its own, while it’s trying to find out what it’s talking about.
Patience with plutobrats is at an all time low, like the other indices. America cannot afford Spoiled Brat Syndrome. Nobody, as far as is apparent, is doing a damn thing about creating business, either.
America can have as many expensive, useless industries and idiots as it’s prepared to subsidize.
The bottom line has to be a demand for the self-proclaimed geniuses of the business sector to get off their overstuffed backsides and start doing some business and making some money.
