How is this happenig?

How is this stock market still at 8500?Let me explain where I"m coming from,I have traded commodities,fished commercially(crab,oysters ,clams etc)I have been an electrical and general contractor for 24 years I have ran a restaurant for a couple of years,so I'm not a deadbeat and I think I'm relatively savvy.most of the people I know are also pretty smart and able.Now most of all the woman I know are working but most of the men aren't,most of the women I know are making 25,000-30,000 a year most of the men were making 80,000.I'm not saying its right or wrong it just is.EVERY ONE I KNOW IS BROKE including me so I'm not buying anything in fact I'm losing stuff(rapidly) so how are all these businesses making money?Did the government or is the government artificially propping up the market?Please someone explain it to me thanks!

No offense but how can you be broke after 24 years of so called fnancial savvy?

Anyways, there are several reasons why the stock market is being propped up. PPT (plunge protection team). Where do you think that $9 trillion that is unaccounted for went? And people thinking the recession is getting better.

well I'm still hear 24 years later and I never got rich but I would consider myself average, I lived large when I had some money but nothing extravagant .I'm sure I should have done things different that's really not the point ,even if I am a screw up this is not just me but almost everyone I know.

[edit on 20-5-2009 by genius/idoit]

Well, if we follow the body of evidence leading from September of '08 all the way to now and asked one simple question, this is what we would come up with:

Banks are closing, Chrysler is bankrupt, we've taken huge losses in retail, we have no manufacturing, 401k's are still at risk and many are losing value. China is waging a very intelligent and strategic attack on our finances by attempting to debase the dollar. All but 3 States are going broke, and bond markets are not looking good in the future as debt begins to mount.

Where's the money coming from?

The only money flowing is from the Federal government who is propping these industries up, and paying for the continuing of failed foreign policy in IOUs. Of course this is manipulation. One would have to be an idiot to believe that negative production can produce profits. This is a short term spike and it will not last, especially when inflation gets out of hand.

You're not the only one who has posed this question. There's alot of high profile people who are having the same basic problem. The profits are somehow there but the production and recovery are most certainly not...If recovery is no longer a prerequisite to profits then I have no idea what planet I'm on that math like this makes sense.

In other words, I feel your pain.

[edit on 20-5-2009 by projectvxn]

reply to post by genius/idoit


You have tripped up on something that I was talking about at work just last week.

It does seem that more women are holding on to their jobs longer then men and this is causing problems for the some of the women that I work with.

Of course the reason being is that most women work at lower paying jobs and the jobs are more custodial in nature so they are jobs that remain critical to the survival of a business even when times are bad.

For some women the husbands that were bringing home the lions share of the family income suddenly is out of work and the opportunity for new employment is low. For many they will not be able to command the same top dollar that they were receiving before.

Caught between, ego, anger and financial disaster some marriages are suffering.

reply to post by genius/idoit


Wait wait wait a min there fella...

Stock prices do not indicate AT ALL the profits of a company???
I don't know where you learned that, who told you that, but it's a misconception..

The stock market is currently rising with negative profit growth from the corporations -- meaning the companies are loosing money, but stock prices rise.


Stock prices indicate the healthy state of a corporation in normal economic times, however they can be debased and offset from what the real value of a stock should be.. You see this in profit to price ratios of stocks and their respective profits for the quarter.

Sorry to hear about your luck though.

reply to post by NightSkyeB4Dawn


Yep, hubby has been out of work since October and the jobs he's been offered don't pay as much as unemployment, which still isn't enough. Other jobs pay a bit better, but not enough to pick up and move an entire family, and in the car biz, it isn't stable enough to be able to pick up and move, not knowing how long the job would last. I am now working two jobs because as of the first of the year, we took a 10% pay cut, those of us who weren't laid off. We are squeaking by, but I am frugal enough to be able to go out and eat every once in awhile, our big treat! He is now house husband, who cooks, cleans and picks my daughter up and runs her around to her various activities, which luckily I've been able to keep up. It is hard, but we'll make it.

That was off topic I know, but I was wondering the same thing. How can so much be so bad and yet the banks will supposedly be able to pay off tarp loans this year and the market's still up. I just don't get it. I live in basically a resort area, so the make up here is people working low income tourist related jobs, which have been drastically reduced and retirees.

reply to post by genius/idoit




I know how You feel. I work in the offshore industry and I have had to work harder every year just to get by. I spent 274 days on the ocean last year for a measly 111k. I had a discretionary income of 10% which I used to prepare for what is coming. I am still preparing while I can but this year has been worse. I spent 3.5 months off with no work and will have to spend at least 3 months offshore just to recoup what was lost in the beginning of the year. I have never felt like I was so poor in my life and to be honest I am getting tired of working 16 to 18 hours a day just to get by and to pay more and more taxes. I worry about the future and its especially sad that my little girl will more than likely have a harder future in store for her. It would be nice if I could spend more time with her to insure she has a happy child hood but once again I have to slave away for our masters.

It's all crap don't but into whats being told to you. Just the fact that we can't figure out what is going on is scary. If it doesn't make sense, it doesn't make sense.

The rediculous thing about our market is that every single day there is a new indicator released. For instance, jobless reports are released every week. One week there may have been 580,000 new jobless claims and while continued claims are at a record high the 580,000 is less than the 600,000 from the previous week so the headlines will tell us the economy is back on track.

The government is proping the market up with trillions and the average person is buying back into the market.

Insiders however have made profit and are selling at 8500-9000.

I think a lot of it has to do with stock dividends. Companies are cutting the dividends out. That dividend money is going back into the companies pockets.
People are still stuck with the stock. 1 more little guy shafted. One more fat rich CEO.

reply to post by genius/idoit


www.abovetopsecret.com...

The Plunge Protection Team is only half the answer. It works only because the stock market is (currently) protected by many investment institutions not knowing where else to put their client’s money.

If they were wise they may put it in property. But many lack either the balls or wisdom. Besides many institutions specialise in shares so these will the last to dig property advice up!!!

So instead they put it in something they convince themselves "is under valued". And because of this philosophy there is indeed money to be made.
But it only goes so far!!! It's possible the stock market could get close to where it was, but the fundamentals haven’t really changed.
Therefore far from being a safe place it's always been the first place to catch on fire. Worse most growth isn’t real, just "bubble growth".

Just like in 2007 sooner or later things are going to explode. But whether it’s this year or next is a rich mans guess, but when it explodes, the dip will be even deeper than it was in 2009.
Scary stuff!!!

(As I said) bank with “The Land Registry” as unlike gold you get real income i.e. rent. Gold is no longer a geniuses move because if things get really bad the central banks will flood the market (and since they hold 80% of the world’s gold the market flood could be very sever indeed).

reply to post by Liberal1984


Property is not the magic answer.

You don't own property and it can bankrupt you as fast or faster than any other bet.

I owned property in an area where the government sold out to a developer and allowed an area zoned for agriculture to become an expensive gated community.

This jacked up the property tax for all the elderly and middle to low income people that had lived in that area for generations. They lost their homes and were suddenly thrown out because they could not afford the outrageous increase in taxes.

The irony of it was that the taxes were more then the people could afford on homes that they already owned so some heartless person born without the virtue of a mother came in and took their homes for nothing just by paying off their back taxes.

So property ownership is not a magic bullet and it is not guaranteed and it is not safe.

The government has control of what you will pay for it and how long they will allow you to have possession of it.

I'm no economist or anything and probably make bad financial decisions often, but I have never been in debt and never bought anything I didn't have the money to pay for immediately.
One thing I've come to understand is that whenever money seems to come from nowhere, it's usually OUR money.
Remember those little "stimulus checks" just "given" to us? Funny how we ended up paying that back, come tax time.
Seems to me that somewhere, I agreed to let them do whatever they want with my money when I'm not using it.
They play games by shifting money from one year to the next to massage the figures and feign success or profit.

I would agree that your question about the market seeming to be doing well is a result of some kinda PPT similar to what happened during the first depression when a few rich people propped up the economy with their own money by making huge purchases.

I always sucked an monopoly, but the ones pulling the levers behind the curtain are quite good at what they do and are bleeding the rest of us dry.
Gradually, the screws are tightening.

[edit on 24-5-2009 by 4N6310]