w/this: “..but the one thing that they all are is cognizant of their economic circumstance.”

I’d wonder. see: “John Maynard Keynes often employed flowery language like “animal spirits” and “liquidity trap” to describe things he did not understand. He was, after all, more of a bureaucrat than an economist. In fact, he would best be described as an anti-economist because he eschewed things like supply and demand and held the opinion that government could run the economy.

So, for example, he could not understand why people would invest resources in risky adventures that helped keep the economy growing at full employment. He therefore substituted “animal spirits” for the profit motive. These spirits allow entrepreneurs to proceed with a naïve confidence and to set aside concerns over losses. Similarly, the failure to invest was also a psychological problem that he dubbed the “liquidity trap.” This trap occurs when investors seek liquidity in cash and when monetary policy — in terms of cutting interest rates — no longer produces an increase in investment.

The problem with Keynes is that he thought that if entrepreneurs lose their collective nerve, the government should socialize investment, prop up demand and employment, and provide assurances to drive the economy back to full employment. He did not understand how the economy works so he could not understand how the economy corrects itself once a contraction occurs…”
http://www.mises.org/story/3413

and remember this guy’s message: http://www.mindpollen.com/

It should also include the ability of the public to access huge, enormous amounts of information on almost any subject imaginable. Since the economic downturn started in 2007, I’d bet (and I haven’t looked) that the queries on economic subjects has at least tripled from the previous era.

Americans may be many diffenent things, but the one thing that they all are is cognizant of their economic circumstance.

What I mean is that the public can see that the policy makers are cognizant of the problems, and are taking steps to try to correct the imbalances. (Just for the record, I would have done something considerably different, but then they don’t pay me to do that.)

One of the greatest things that has ever happened to the human race is the development and expansion of the internet. It has put so much information at the fingertips of ordinary people (like me).

Most of the charts and graphs the come from an earlier era need to be taken with a grain of silicon; it really is different now.

The market is at a very important point, if it breaks thru we might not see a new low on the major world stock indexes.

But I think the rally might fail. It was more than due, but quite overdone by now.

what first comes to mind is that all the outlier bears share the same pattern: volume lower, volatility higher. that doesn’t look like the basic reallocation, restructuring etc. that lays the foundation for a robust bull run.

even so, this market is looking less and less freaky all the time. yes the volume is low, but it appears to be consolidating. how many shorts here are going to get badly pinched? the bubble is dead — long live the bubble!