The Economy Guy

Tomorrow is easy to predict right now.  Stocks will be DOWN big time at the open.  How they do throughout the day will be determined by statements of credible Congressional sources.  Tomorrow’s opening is like shooting fish in a barrel.  By the way, is there any doubt now why the SEC has stopped ‘naked shorts’ on all financial stocks (about 900 stocks)?

Bonds are increasing interest rates – day after day.  The Bond market has voted on the bailout, and it’s negative for the economy and bonds are predicting inflation.  They could be wrong, but that’s what the market is saying right now.

The Dollar went sideways.

Gold fell a little – and gold too will be up tomorrow morning.

Oil jumped a little today.

In the news today….

It’s too bad that no one in Congress listened to Greenspan in 2005 when he talked about all the troubles with Fannie/Freddie.  Of course those scumbags who are head of the key Congressional committees were around then too, and were  ‘in the pocket’ of Freddie/Fannie.  Congress has let us down again, and the chickens are coming home to roost right now.  Congress is pointing fingers at the those ‘greedy Wall St execs.’  (And those execs deserve all that finger pointing.) Congress should look in the mirror.  I would like to see all their salaries and pensions stopped (for their lack of service to the citizens of America.)  I hope all the readers of this article know the position their representatives in the House and the Senate have taken on economic issues over the past years.  Vote accordingly.

President Bush held a meeting in the Oval Office today (including McCain and Obama) plus all the usual suspects.  Obama had scheduled a press conference at the end of the meeting – and he scheduled it before he went into the meeting.  That showed way too much confidence in my opinion – as well as ‘playing politics’ in the middle of this crisis.  He didn’t show up after the meeting.  That was the first indication that something “has gone wrong.”  This is a very serious problem, and there are serious misgivings about giving Paulson sole, unfettered control of $700B.  Part of his demands are that no one – not even Congress – can challenge any of his decisions.  Does that make you nervous?  It makes a bunch of Senators nervous.

Today it was a (rumored) given that McCain would be going to the debate on Friday night.  I predict he won’t be going.  The problem is too big, and needs all Senators in DC – not in Mississippi.  It’s not clear what Obama is doing behind the scenes – but, he didn’t want to go to DC today and only went because the President invited him.  Politics are riding high in this situation, but I want the economyguy readers to look through the fog of politics and looks for what’s really happening regarding a resolution of the bailout.  So far, the bailout is NOT part of the presidential race – and Obama and McCain agree on most important points.

One minor point in the news is that JP Morgan is going to purchase the branches and deposits of WaMu.  Good-bye WaMu.