Shooting the bull

Once again, our leaders are using fear to convince us to support policies that are not in our best interests, either short- or long-term:

The financial system could face a meltdown of 1929 proportions unless US politicians succeed in their efforts for a $700bn rescue scheme, experts added.

One Republican said that the message from government officials is that “the economy is dropping into the john.” He added: “We could see falls of 3,000 or 4,000 points on the Dow [the New York market that currently trades at around 11,000]. That could happen in just a couple of days.

“What’s being put around behind the scenes is that we’re looking at 1930s stuff. We’re looking at catastrophe, huge, amazing catastrophe. Everybody is extraordinarily scared. It’s going to be really, really nasty.”

The simple fact is, we haven't had a true bull market in years. The only thing that kept stocks going up were artificially high home prices and inflationary pressures on the dollar. It's as if we kept adding stories to a structure while termites ate away the foundation. The reason everybody is "extraordinarily scared" is they are staring at a tsunami of market forces that have been held back only by ill-advised government interventions. That dam will fail at some point. The more water we've allowed to accumulate behind it, the worse the eventual leveling will be.

So yes... let's "shoot the bull."