Hillary Clinton Tapped for SecState; DOW Drops 700 Points

And no, one has little or nothing to do with the other.

But it’s interesting that in the last go-around of cabinet appointments we had five consecutive days of colossal rises in the stock market, 1,276 points in total, this time when President-Elect Barack Obama announced his security team headed by Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State-Designate, the DOW drops nearly 700 points.

It’s as if saying that physical security and financial security have nothing to do with each other, which is preposterous. If that were the case, the huge drop in stock prices in the days after 9/11 should have actually been a few good days at Wall Street.

No, I have a theory.

The theory goes that the stock market is still being manipulated by short sellers.

Here is my reasoning. Everyone who has been paying even the slightest attention to what is going on knows that we are in a big economic fix, a fix that was engineered by over-zealous free marketers who deregulated the market to almost pre-1929 levels. Everyone knows that we are in for what is euphemistically termed a “deep recession.”

So when confirming news hit the streets today that the United States’ economy is officially in recession and that the recession will be around for some time to come should have been met with a collective ho-hum.

Instead it unleashed a selling frenzy that drove stocks back down to roughly 600 points above the lows where they sat last week, undoing half of the gains that resulted from the Obama financial appointments euphoria.

So, it’s either this or that. It’s either the fact that our stock market is being driven by a bunch of ignorant nincompoops who react wildly to news that has been common knowledge since September, or the fact that our stock market is being manipulated by short selling brokers who take advantage of any bad news at all, surprise bad news or yesterday’s news, it makes no difference, and rake in huge profits in selling stocks short, driving down prices and effectively creating tomorrow’s bargains. Bargains that they will make huge profits when they buy them back at low low prices.

Someone is making lots and lots of money here.

It just isn’t anyone I know.

Energy Remedies: The Parties Show Their Strategies

What a surprise. John McCain’s latest remedy to ease the pain at the pump for American consumers, just proposed, is to have a “federal gas tax holiday” for the summer. The feds take 18.5 cents from the purchase price of every gallon of gasoline that you buy. So it seems clear to McCain that the best way to provide a boost to our sagging economy is to let Americans save somewhere between $2.22 and $4.62 every time they buy a tank of gasoline (tank volumes between 12 and 25 gallons).

Wow. That’ll do it, don’t you think? For me, this works out to a net savings of $13.32 cents this summer. No, I don’t plan on driving anywhere out of the ordinary, and yes my transportation costs are lower than most here in Texas because I am one of the few in this state that doesn’t drive an SUV (Sucks Up Volatiles).

It is amazing what passes for economic stimulation among Republicans. Cutting taxes at such a rate so as to be virtually ineffective, while at the same time letting energy companies collect scandalous, no, pornographic revenues for their raw and refined products.

McCain’s plan is a perfect example of Republican fixes. Doling out dribs and drabs of cash to people. Amounts that cannot make a significant difference in their lives or economies, while on the other hand, severely degrading our country’s ability to build and maintain its transportation infrastructure. What does McCain think the gas taxes pay for? Does another bridge have to fall into a river before he gets it?

A barrel of oil today hit a high of over $115 per barrel. This is the same oil that cost an energy company $12 to lift out of the ground. Profits are more than obscene.

Enter the Democratic plan. Remove all of the tax supports that have been given by Congress to the energy companies. Federal supports for oil and gas exploration, production or research is like paying bankers extra cash to compensate them when they have to find new places to store their money.

Indeed, their profits have become so obscene that both Obama and Clinton have called for a windfall profit tax on petroleum. That is, when profits start to tip the scale towards obscene, the oil companies don’t get to keep that.

What you will hear from the energy companies then is that this will remove any incentive to explore for, drill and develop new reserves. Stock will go down. Reserves will hit the skids.

Right.

At even 60 dollars a barrel these companies are making so much money that they literally have the same problem finding a place to put it all. A problem that commonly plagues cocaine dealers.

Yeah, the other substance that Americans have been addicted to.