That Was Convenient
The press was filled with stories this week about how the famously focused and leak-proof Obama campaign was having trouble dealing with the culture of Washington where anything and everything is fair game and fodder for the press. But this afternoon’s perfectly timed leak–my email from the WSJ was stamped 3:17; I don’t know when NBC News broke the story–shows the party of change isn’t going to change that part of DC standard operating procedure.
How perfect that the week where everyone was beginning to wonder just how far Obama planned to let things go before he announced his economic team, the Geithner trial balloon was released just in time for the three o’ clock witching hour. The subsequent 500 point rally could be read as a warning to the new administration’s enemies: don’t screw with us, we’re that good. Just to put icing on it, they promised thewhole economic team on Monday.
Did I say they? No, no. It was just good reporting based on the ham-handed FBI vetting process. Does this manipulation speak well of the new administration or has a more manipulative side of Obama just been hinted at?
November 21st, 2008 at 9:23 pm
More than 80,000 jobs cut in just five days but market up big on Geithner nomination for Treasury secretary. Kudos for what looks like a good appointment but systemic damage with more financial carnage and more job losses does not ‘magically’ go away.
Interesting dairy here…
The real reason the market shot up 500 points today
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/11/21/184157/06/241/664871
American taxpayer is now on the hook for pretty much the entire financial system i.e, you, your children, and your grandchildren will be paying for these programs for the rest of our lives. The guarantees amount to trillions and trillions of dollars of debt.
So a few comments
America the Banana Republic courtesy of George Bush
Blowback by Chalmers Johnson – His chilling conclusion–backed by copious and livid detail–is that a nation reaps precisely what it sows.
I agree with Kunstler the GOP under Bush has wrecked America so Americans had better get a new “Dream” and fast !
November 21st, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Who is Marion Maneker?
November 21st, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Is that an ontological or an existential question?
(In other words, are you asking who the f*** are you? or what the f*** are you going on about?)
November 22nd, 2008 at 7:25 am
Sorry I don’t cuss.
Twice you’ve gotten me so far. Twice I had responses to *BR* ready to go only to find out he wasn’t even in the room. Of course I googled you. Just missed the formal announcement of when you came aboard. In the case you’ve always been here, my bad.
As for your post. I completely disagree that that press release was timed to manipulate stock prices. Why would Barack Obama want the market to rally today anyway? If I were him, I’d want the Dow to close at 4,000 on Dec 31st. No investors or traders are bidding up stocks on a bloke named “Geithner”. Anyone who suggests otherwise, well, wouldn’t last long trading.
November 22nd, 2008 at 8:43 am
Couple of things here:
1) I volunteered to keep this tab going with posts in between the commentary from a slew of Barry’s friends and acquaintances.
2) It would be foolish of Obama to let the already daunting and difficult economic problems become disastrous and insurmountable just to keep the impression that this mess wasn’t his fault (btw, you mean 4,000 on the Dow on January 19th.) The tricky part of this interregnum–as Jack Welch mentioned on CNBC yesterday–is that Bush is without legitimacy and Obama lacks authority. If Obama pushes too hard, the Bush team’s ability to do anything in an acute crisis collapses. Given what’s happening at Citi this weekend, there’s every chance we could have more than one acute inflection point in the remaining 60 or so days until Obama’s investiture, sorry, inauguration.
3) I don’t want to claim any market knowledge. I don’t have it. And the post hoc propter hoc fallacy could apply to the last hour of trading yesterday. But logic suggests otherwise. Obviously, the Dow’s movement is phenomenological. We can never know the cause of the thousands of individual decisions that compose its trajectory.
Nonetheless, the market has built up a consistent pattern over the last few weeks of trading through the day trying to generate a direction only to make decisive and exaggerated move in the last hour, sometimes the last few minutes. All of last week a combination of dismal economic data, the prospect of the auto industry collapsing in a way that would multiply that dismal economic data, hints of a deflationary cycle and Congress demonstrating its inability to function in a reassuring way accompanied the market’s fall through previous support levels. By Thursday, a thorough-going re-evaluation of our economic prospects was underway everywhere. Confidence was completely absent and the Obama team had been invisible for the entire week.
The leak of Geithner’s name as Treasury Secretary accomplished several important steps toward creating confidence in the administration, the economy’s future and the market. Geithner represents continuity while bringing a fresh face to the job from a new generation. It reminded the traders in the market that Obama was active and willing to do something during the interregnum that foster’s confidence and support. Finally, the Geithner leak was a catalyst. Whether there is a good reason to believe Geithner will be able to do something that hasn’t already been done–a good question–the prospect of an announcement on Monday gave the forward looking equity market a focal point for rebuilding to the previous lows. Yesterday’s rally only re-established the previous pessimism level–the fear floor.