The market is optimized to a single variable – shareholder return – and the time horizons – day, year, and long term. This isn’t a balanced system. The market serves to allocate capital, but it also serves national and global interests – employment, competativeness, and innovation are some of the elemnts of this.

Unless that market acknowledges this and brings market forces in balanace to serve the larger system, regulation and taxes are a necessary evil to drive the market to serve the larger interests.

As we look at the failures, lets think outside of the profit box and ask if we could redesign the system to serve the larger purpose. Some will argue that this would impeed the ability of the market to efficiently allocate capital. Efficiency to the wrong purpose is not a virture; the market is only efficient if you don’t consider the larger impacts that many like to complain about as if they have no responsibility for government reactions to the market.

Consider this post as glove smacking your face, challenging you to be part of the solution.

Not really that much of monkey wrench. in re: SP500 March Futures….I see 873 as a conclusion of the Wave 2 in the big final fifth. From 873 to 808.25 is the Wave 1 of 3 in the final fifth. This wave 2 we get really should not exceed 841-848 zone. If this is the right count, we should see the dreaded third of a third in the final fifth coming in the next couple of days….

- AT

I agree with the others on this one. The typical investor (retirement account in mutual funds) is the tool of the investment industry–everyone takes a cut of their pie and they are told that they should be happy with 7-8% per year.

I’m up 10% in two weeks and with all of this volatility it really isn’t hard for a trader to do that.

Afterall, thieving psychopaths are generally intelligent, hard working, and educated.

From what I can see recently . . .

Is it the government’s job to reallocate money from the intelligent and prudent to the ignorant and careless, from the hard working and studious to the lazy and carefree, from the educated to the naive, and from the investors to the speculators.

So, when Mr. Market turns and tries to correct an out of balance situation, it is the government’s job to push back at every turn to avoid/slow the pain of the inevitable. It does not matter which party is in power, this is the apparent cycle.

Yup, clavadista is right (nice spanish touch). I was counting the beginning of 3 of 3 in 5 (hence clavadista), preparing to chill the bottle, but then, bam, the PuPpeT hit the wires. I had to abruptly abort and a few rowdy ones managed to escape me. But the real fun is gonna be interpreting this monkey wrench thrown into that smooth wave, o master of the wave!

Oh well … tomorrow is another day: Friday the 13th, no less.