…The broad-based index fell for a seventh day and crashed through the key 200-day moving average in an ominous sign for markets. The seven days of losses mark the longest losing streak since October 2008.
“It is going to be a long week,” said Jim Maguire Jr., a NYSE floor trader at E.H. Smith Jacobs. “The bid is not here in the market.”
The selloff accelerated into the close as volume jumped well above average. The fall was broad-based, with four stocks falling for every one rising on the New York Stock Exchange.
The index also broke through its 2-1/2 year uptrend line from its bear market low in March 2009. Thursday was the index’s worst day in a year.
Investors seemed to find little to cheer after the U.S. Senate agreed to a deal to raise the debt ceiling because of the possibility it will not stave off a downgrade of the U.S. government’s triple-A rating.
“Investors have made the shift from Washington to what I’m calling economic realities,” said Fred Dickson, chief market strategist at The Davidson Cos. in Lake Oswego, Oregon.
….Shortly after the vote, Fitch Ratings said the agreement to raise the U.S. borrowing capacity means the risk of a sovereign default is “extremely low” and commensurate with a AAA rating. But it warned Washington must reduce its debt or face a downgrade.
…A government report showed U.S. consumer spending fell unexpectedly in June for the first decline in nearly two years as incomes barely rose.
REALLY?
1. The Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index has fallen to 63.8 after being at 71.5 in June. It is now the lowest that it has been since the last recession “ended”
2. The Rasmussen Consumer Index is down 9 points from a month ago
3. A recent poll taken by Rasmussen found that 68 percent of Americans believe that we are actually in a recession right now
4. According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans that lack confidence in U.S. banks is now at an all-time high of 36% (only 23% have high confidence)
5. In many areas of the United States this summer, just about anything that is not bolted down is being stolen by people that are desperate for money
6. 39 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. economy has now entered a “permanent decline”
7. 48 percent of Americans believe that it is likely that another great Depression will begin within the next 12 months
8. 63 percent of Americans believe that the nation is on the wrong track. That figure is three percent higher than it was last month
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/economy-collapsing-michael-snyder-2011-7#the-reutersuniversity-of-michigan-consumer-sentiment-index-has-fallen-to-638-after-being-at-715-in-june-it-is-now-the-lowest-that-it-has-been-since-the-last-recession-ended-1
First republicans buggered up the economy. Now they’ve buggered up the recovery. The reversal will be seen to coincide with the debt ceiling crisis. It won’t matter that Congress beat the deadline. Recoveries depend on the restoration of confidence. What matters is that the nation’s confidence was finally broken. Deliberately and after long effort.
There will be no stimulus spending to break the downward spiral this time. No federal funds to bail out the states. They’ve seen to that.
Idiots. They don’t know yet what they’ve done.
Speaking of idiots wilson, you must be their leader if you actually believe the garbage you posted.
They’ve spent the past two and a half years talking down the economy. They whine about their taxes when their own rates are at historical lows. They complain about the poor while their own riches are at historical highs. They whine about government spending while they rake in farm subsidies and billions in corporate welfare. They bitch about unemployment after they’ve sent millions of jobs overseas. There’s no end to their greed and no limit to what they’ll do for a few million or a few billion more. They know the price of everything and the value of nothing. They don’t care about the environment. They don’t care about future generations. They’ll let the national infrastructure crumble to keep more money in their own pockets. They talk constitutionality and personal freedom but advocate government so big that it dominates the world militarily, and so intrusive that it can force women to bear unwanted children.
These people are the problem. There’s nothing about them that any of the founding fathers would claim as their own.
Wow. Time to take your meds.
I bet people like you had no problem when the media was talking down an economy under W that had less than 6% unemployment-IN SPITE OF 9/11!
You distort past tax rates to justfy gouging others to satisfy your hatred and envy of what others have rightfully earned. Not to mention anyone who sees your unhinged rants know you are ok with the rich people and corporations that are “liberal”.
Idiots like you complain about unemployment, yet it’s the imposition of your leftist economic fantasies on the real world that have forced companies to send jobs overseas.
Leftists such as yourself only care about your egos and have no problem sacrificing people or damaging the environment to achieve your fantasies. Your irrational hate is nothing more than a display of your narcissism cloaked in “compassion.” You fool only yourself.
#4 obviously has no idea why the little girl who borrows her dad’s phone for her Lemonade Stand cannot actually expand into a successful business, has he?
You Tube of commercial here.
The costs of regulation today amount to $10,000 per employee per year for small businesses in the U.S.
http://archive.sba.gov/advo/research/rs371tot.pdf
That’s why businesses aren’t hiring.
That’s why unemployment is still at ~10 percent (except near Washington, D.C., where it’s ~4 percent).
You can’t be an entrepreneur in modern-day America without bureaucrats giving you permission in the first place.
Now, Obama already told the US Chambers of Commerce that entrepreneurs should IGNORE their own self-interest and simply HIRE anyway.
Like, who’s going to do that?
Notice even Obama’s birthday party was staffed by NON-UNION workers?
LOL!
Doesn’t even follow his own advice!
Obama and his CZARS need to stop regulating America’s businesses into stagnation.
Or quit complaining.
@Nan G, #6:
No, it isn’t. The economy was doing just fine for years with the bulk of that regulation in place. While there’s obvious need to eliminate regulation at all levels that serves no useful purpose and to simplify the administration of what remains, regulation was not the reason the economy tanked in 2008. Neither were excessive high-end taxes, obviously, because taxes have been cut and remain at low levels. If anything, excessive deregulation of the financial industry and irresponsible tax cuts we took on at the precise moment we began two very expensive foreign wars were contributing factors to what has happened.
Small businesses aren’t hiring because business owners have lost confidence in a growth of demand for the goods and services that they’re in the business of providing. Demand has flattened or contracted because mainstream consumers have lost confidence in the dependability of their income, and have reined in spending. It’s all about mainstream America’s loss of confidence in their immediate and long-term financial future–the very thing that far-right politicians and far-right media talking heads have incessantly attacked with a vengeance.
I place much of the blame on them for the 2008 recession, for the stalling out of a slow-but-steady recovery that began in mid-2009, and for what’s likely to come if their harebrained approach to “balancing the budget” is allowed to continue in the midst of a weakened economy. Tinkering with such fundamental economic elements has to be done with caution and great deliberation even during good economic times; in these times of great economic instability, they’ve gone at the job manically swinging a meat ax. Whether the negative consequences that will surely follow are intended or unintended is open to debate.
The best thing for the country would be for them to desist with their incessant talk of doom and gloom. If they can’t send a positive message they should shut the hell up. Their extreme negativity is making the country sick.
@Greg:
There were lots of bad things Obama did to make unemployment worse for longer.
In Nov 2009 – after Obama had been president for over 40 weeks – Obama extended unemployment to 99 weeks.
Why?
Because over 1/3rd of unemployed Americans had been unemployed more than 26 weeks.
Obama’s ”czars” also created a “web of red tape” in health care, financial reform and energy regulation all of it holding back economic recovery.
One expert estimated Obama’s extra regulations cost our economy $1.7 trillion a year.
http://drkatesview.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/obamaagenda_resize5_604x782.jpg?w=500&h=647
This is how Obama did it.
@Greg:
I wonder. Did you say the same thing during Bush’s time as President? If not, you are nothing more than a partisan hypocrite.
And your economic “analysis” of why we are where we are leaves a lot to be desired. This argument has been fought and fought here time and time again, usually with someone different correcting your mistaken views every time you bring it up. Just because that is the only rhetoric you know and are able to parrot about the issue does not make it true, no matter how many times you say it.
@Wilson (4)
The Republicans have only been in the majority of the House of Representatives for 8 months. The Democrats held control of the House for the prior two years you cited, and two more years before that 2007-2010. The Democrats currently hold majority control of the Senate, as they have since 2007. Which means, during the last two years of George Bush’s 2nd term, The Democrats held control of Congress, and decided what legislation made it to the floor. During the first two years of Obama’s presidency, he and the Democrats had absolute complete control of every law passed and signed. It is not realistically possible for a Republican majority in the House to (strong>force any of their agenda past a Democratically controlled Senate and a far-left-wing radical President. That pretty much blows your theories out of the water.
Incidentally, George Bush was a “progressive” president, not a “conservative” one. Conservatives have held little influence since Regan’s presidency. The Republican Congresses since Regan were mostly made up of “establishment Republicans” and “progressives” (aka RINOS) with few actual “conservatives”.
In fact, every single President since Ronald Regan has been a “progressive,” and the overwhelming majority of congress-critters on both sides follow their particular brand of “progressive” agendas.
@Ditto, #10:
It’s entirely possible for them to force an agenda on the nation, provided they’re willing to risk bringing the entire economy down in ruin if they don’t get their way. We just witnessed a demonstration of the tactic.
We may soon be seeing multiplying results from the republicans having at last successfully shut down the administration’s ability to respond to the effects of the 2008 economic disaster. Returning confidence in recovery and future economic stability has now been dealt a serious and possibly fatal blow. It’s a big step by the far right toward making all of their prophesies of economic doom and gloom real. What’s happening with the stock market as an immediate result of a deliberately created debt ceiling crisis may only be a harbinger of worse things still to come.
Maybe this is how Rush Limbaugh defines success. It probably won’t be for most Americans.
While confidence in the future is an important factor for economic growth, that confidence cannot be based on FANTASY talking up the economy.
Today’s ”Featured Post” is called “Welcome to the Recovery.”
Also see it here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WJoxkXy3aw&feature=player_embedded
Notice the sweet nothings coming from the mouths of Geithner, Reid, Carney, and all the rest?
SWEET!
But they were all just words.
No amount of just words can make the economy turn around.
It isn’t like when Peter Pan told the audience that their hands clapping can save Tinker Belle from the poison she drank.
Get it?
@Greg:
Perspective, Greg, perspective. From a conservative’s point of view, we just witnessed the liberal/progressives of the Democratic Party threatening to bring “the entire economy down in ruin if they don’t get their way.” We also just witnessed a once promising discussion become a capitulation to those same Democrats. Nothing of real substance was done regarding the out of control spending, particularly when one considers that, at best, the rate of increase of federal spending dropped from 4% down to 3.5%. And, to top it off, tax increases are a near guarantee if the Republicans do not gain control of both the Senate and the WH in 2012, as the ‘Bush tax cuts’ WILL be allowed to expire, and everyone’s rates will go back up to the Clinton-era tax rates.
So, to summarize, taxes will most likely increase, and no real spending “cuts” were enacted. I’d say that the Democrats got everything they wanted, which they wanted otherwise nothing would have been done. So, who again was it threatening to “shut down” the economy?
Stupid statement, Greg. Consider that the Democrats got nearly everything they wanted, yet, when it was all said and done the markets dropped. Who’s policies are hurting the economy?
@Greg
Conservative Republicans gained little in the final deal that was compromised between the progressives controlling the Senate, and the Establishment Republican leadership in the house. I agree with JohnGalt’s assessment. Obama himself purposely sank the deal that the “gang of six” had come up with to appease his far-left supporters. The House passed more than one bill, but Harry Reid obstructed both by tabling them. Republicans tried to compromise in good faith with Democrat who only want to continue the out of control spending. Democrats have nothing to whine about here. The people however lost big time thanks to the “business as usual” compromises that very well may, in a scant few months, result in the United States losing it’s triple A rating.
Incidentally, the Democrats controlled both houses of congress from 2007-2008 and during that period passed the spending bills that George Bush signed. If you’re going to blame Bush you have to blame them as well.